Love and Mindreading: The Role of Empathic Accuracy Perceptions on Relationship Satisfaction

Abstract

Purpose: The current study investigated the correlations between objective, subjective, and dispositional empathy and relationship satisfaction. Highly satisfied relationships are linked with better health (Kiecolt-Glaser & Newton, 2001), yet empathic accuracy—an objective measure of correctly understanding a partner’s thoughts and feelings from moment-to-moment—has inconsistent associations with relationship satisfaction. As the importance of perceptions in social support has been identified and social cognition theory emphasizes perceptions, I investigated perceived partner empathic accuracy (PPEA) and perceived (self) empathic accuracy (PEA) along with dispositional empathic concern and perspective taking. We also investigated sources of information partners pay attention to when determining if their partner understood them (PPEA) or if they understood their partner (PEA). To my knowledge, this study is the first to explore PPEA and sources of empathic accuracy perceptions as they relate to relationship satisfaction.

Methods: Fifty-one couples were videotaped having a conflict discussion and partners separately watched the recording twice. During the first viewing, participants recorded specific thoughts and feelings from the original discussion. Participants also rated how well they believed their partner understood their thought/feeling and the influence different sources had on that assessment. During the second viewing, participants inferred what their partner had been thinking/feeling at those identified moments. Participants rated their confidence about their inference and rated the influence of different sources.

Results: PPEA was associated with relationship satisfaction while EA was not. Positive correlations were found between PPEA, PEA, and empathic concern for women along with perspective taking for men. Both PPEA and perspective taking accounted for significant variance in relationship satisfaction. For PPEA, tone of voice was influential for both men and women, as were facial expressions for men and body language for women. For PEA, facial expressions were influential for men while knowledge of past interactions was influential for women. Sources did not directly correlate with relationship satisfaction.

Conclusion: Support was found for all hypotheses, suggesting that feeling understood by one’s partner is more important than actually being understood in terms of relationship satisfaction. As men and women paid attention to different sources when perceiving empathy, clinical applications are indicated.