Journal of personality and social psychology
-
Randomized Controlled Trial Clinical Trial
When accuracy hurts, and when it helps: a test of the empathic accuracy model in marital interactions.
This study tested predictions from W. Ickes and J. A. ⋯ Consistent with the model, when the partner's thoughts and feelings were relationship-threatening (as rated by both the partners and by trained observers), greater empathic accuracy on the part of the perceiver was associated with pre-to-posttest declines in the perceiver's feelings of subjective closeness. The reverse was true when the partner's thoughts and feelings were nonthreatening. Exploratory analyses revealed that these effects were partially mediated through observer ratings of the degree to which partners tried to avoid the discussion issue.