Attachment and the Management of Empathic Accuracy in Relationship-Threatening Situations

Abstract

We tested how attachment orientations are related to empathic accuracy (i.e., the accuracy with which one infers a partner’s private thoughts/feelings) during attachment-relevant discussions. In Study 1, married couples were videotaped while discussing a severe or a less severe relationship issue that involved intimacy or jealousy. In Study 2, dating couples were videotaped while trying to resolving a relationship conflict. Consistent with the revised Empathic Accuracy Model (Ickes & Simpson, 2001), highly avoidant individuals were less empathically accurate in general in both studies. Relative to less anxious persons, highly anxious individuals were more empathically accurate when discussing intimacy issues that posed a potential threat to their relationship (in Study 1), and when they were rated as more distressed when discussing a relationship conflict (in Study 2). The findings are discussed in terms of how highly anxious and highly avoidant people differentially “manage” empathic accuracy to regulate negative affect and facilitate their interpersonal goals.

Examining the Associations Among Attachment, Affective State, and Romantic Relationship Quality

“…This same pattern of disassociating negative affect observed in those who are highly avoidant was also reported by Simpson et al (2011). The authors suggested that avoidant individuals tended to guard their emotions to regulate negative affect by resisting discussing the thoughts and feelings of their partner.…”

Measures of Adult Attachment and Related Constructs

“…These regression analyses were performed while controlling for (a) Goldberg's (1990) measure of the Big Five personality traits; (b) a series of relationship measures (love, liking, commitment, satisfaction, trust, and subjective closeness); and (c) the partner's scores on the dependent measures. AAQ avoidance was negatively predictive of understanding a partner's feelings during a relationship-threatening interaction, β 5 2.33, p , .03 (Simpson et al, 2011), and with greater anger in a stress-provoking situation, β 5 .34, p , .01 (Rholes, Simpson, & Oriñ a, 1999). In couple relationships, AAQ anxiety was positively predictive of the perceived amount of conflict, β 5 .11, p , .05; number of conflicts (reported in a daily diary), β 5 .50, p , .10; escalation of conflict, β 5 .18, p , .01; and hurtfulness of conflict, β 5 .25, p , .01 (Campbell, Simpson, Boldry, & Kashy, 2005).…”

The manageability of empathic (in)accuracy during couples’ conflict: Relationship-protection or self-protection?

“…Also, when both men and women were encouraged to be accurate -because they believe this is an aspect of a socially desirable gender role -their empathic accuracy has been found to increase (Thomas & Maio, 2008). Likewise, characteristics inherent to the perceiver that are triggered during interactions with others have been found to stimulate empathic accuracy, for example a perceiver's need to belong (Pickett, Gardner, & Knowles, 2004) or their tendency to be securely attached to others in contrast to an avoidant attachment tendency (Simpson et al, 2011).…”