Stéphanie E M Gauvin, Jessica A Maxwell, Emily A Impett, Geoff MacDonald
{"title":"Love Lost in Translation: Avoidant Individuals Inaccurately Perceive Their Partners' Positive Emotions During Love Conversations.","authors":"Stéphanie E M Gauvin, Jessica A Maxwell, Emily A Impett, Geoff MacDonald","doi":"10.1177/01461672241258391","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Empathic accuracy-the ability to decipher others' thoughts and feelings-promotes relationship satisfaction. Those high in attachment avoidance tend to be less empathically accurate; however, past research has been limited to relatively negative or neutral contexts. We extend work on attachment and empathic accuracy to the positive context of love. To do so, we combined data from three dyadic studies (<i>N</i> = 303 dyads) in which couple members shared a time of love and rated each other's positive emotions. Using the Truth and Bias Model of Judgment, we found that individuals higher (vs. lower) in attachment avoidance were less accurate in inferring their partners' positive emotions during the conversation, but did not systematically over- or under-perceive their partners' positive emotions. Our results suggest that avoidant individuals may be less sensitive to positive cues in their relationships, potentially reducing relational intimacy.</p>","PeriodicalId":19834,"journal":{"name":"Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.4000,"publicationDate":"2024-07-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin","FirstCategoryId":"102","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1177/01461672241258391","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"PSYCHOLOGY, SOCIAL","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Empathic accuracy-the ability to decipher others' thoughts and feelings-promotes relationship satisfaction. Those high in attachment avoidance tend to be less empathically accurate; however, past research has been limited to relatively negative or neutral contexts. We extend work on attachment and empathic accuracy to the positive context of love. To do so, we combined data from three dyadic studies (N = 303 dyads) in which couple members shared a time of love and rated each other's positive emotions. Using the Truth and Bias Model of Judgment, we found that individuals higher (vs. lower) in attachment avoidance were less accurate in inferring their partners' positive emotions during the conversation, but did not systematically over- or under-perceive their partners' positive emotions. Our results suggest that avoidant individuals may be less sensitive to positive cues in their relationships, potentially reducing relational intimacy.
期刊介绍:
The Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin is the official journal for the Society of Personality and Social Psychology. The journal is an international outlet for original empirical papers in all areas of personality and social psychology.