Now you have my attention: Empathic accuracy pathways in couples and the role of conflict.

Abstract

Recent research on empathy finds evidence for 2 different pathways that enable individuals to accurately infer other persons' inner mental states: an automatic, indirect pathway that operates by having a mental state similar to the target's and (correctly) assuming that this state is similar to the target's, and a more controlled direct pathway that involves assessing the target's mental state with no regard for one's own. We present 3 daily diary studies (N = 53, 38 and 80 couples) examining the contribution of these pathways to empathic accuracy in daily assessments of romantic partners' negative moods, and examine the effects of gender and relational conflict on these pathways. Our studies revealed that both pathways consistently contributed to accuracy. Additionally, partners demonstrated greater indirect accuracy on conflict (vs. nonconflict) days, and indirect accuracy was somewhat higher for women than for men on conflict days (with the opposite pattern on nonconflict days). More importantly, we found evidence for a novel third pathway, in which the perception of conflict itself led to (correct) higher estimation of negative affect and thus, to higher accuracy. This pathway figured more consistently for men than for women. In our discussion, we link the pathways obtained in these studies to the extant social neuroscientific literature on empathy systems, arguing that the indirect pathway involves the effects of experience sharing, while the direct and conflict-based pathways involve the mental state attributions (Zaki & Ochsner, 2011). These findings demonstrate the importance of examining various empathic pathways for the understanding of empathic processes. (PsycINFO Database Record

Deconstructing empathy: Neuroanatomical dissociations between affect sharing and prosocial motivation using a patient lesion model

“…These findings support the role of these temporal emotion-reading regions in mediating the degree to which participants engage in accurate affect sharing. Because a correlational lesion model was used in this study, the causal directionality between emotion reading and affect sharing remains ambiguous; in an alternate interpretation, better attunement may also facilitate detection and accurate reading of emotions in our patients by increasing attention and engagement (Sened et al, 2016). …”

Narratives About Specific Romantic Conflicts: Gender and Associations With Conflict Beliefs and Strategies

“…Relationship research also focuses on the importance of positive processes, such as thinking through conflict in ways that respects the needs and outcomes for both people involved (Sened, Yovel, Bar-Kalifa, Gadassi, & Rafaeli, 2017;Sullivan, Pasch, Johnson, & Bradbury, 2010). Constructive interpretations of specific conflict events should therefore include recognizing the importance of balancing one's own needs with those of the partner and repairing disagreements (Davila, Mattanah, et al, 2017).…”

Couples' Perceptions of Each Other's Daily Affect: Empathic Accuracy, Assumed Similarity, and Indirect Accuracy

“…Indeed, mirroring and validating your partner’s emotions is a critical component of many therapeutic approaches with couples (Greenberg & Goldman, 2008). This ability to be in tune with and accurately perceive your partner’s thoughts and feelings—known as empathic accuracy (Ickes & Simpson, 1997)—has been implicated in positive relationship outcomes, such as greater accommodative behavior during conflict, better communication, providing support, and higher marital satisfaction (Cohen, Schulz, Weiss, & Waldinger, 2012; Howland, 2015; Kilpatrick, Bissonnette, & Rusbult, 2002; Luo & Snider, 2009; see also Sened, Lavidor, et al, 2017 meta-analysis).…”