Empathic accuracy in adolescent romantic relationships

1. Empathic accuracy in adolescent romantic relationships Peter T. Haugen Deborah P. Welsh University of Tennessee

2. Acknowledgements • Collaborators, co-authors and colleagues: Deborah P. Welsh, James McNulty, Sharon C. Risch, Rebecca Furr, Laura Widman, Joseph W. Dickson, Katie Little from the University of Tennessee • PI of the STARR Project: Deborah P. Welsh

3. Background • Empathic accuracy: • the ability of an individual (the “judge”) to accurately infer the specific content of another’s (the “target”) thoughts and feelings evinced during a dyadic interaction • (Ickes, 1993; Ickes, Stinson, Bisonette, & Garcia, 1990).

4. This study • The primary purpose of this paper is to extend prior research on empathic accuracy by examining it in the developmental and relational contexts of adolescence. • We will test several of the propositions of the empathic accuracy model laid out by Ickes and Simpson (1997, 2001).

5. Empathic accuracy: General rule and exceptions General rule: • Individuals should be more accurate in relationships that are close than in those that are not. • (Ickes and Simpson, 1997).

6. Empathic accuracy: General rule and exceptions • Non-threatening content • Empathic accuracy should: • often provide constructive insights into the partner and/or the issues being discussed • These insights should help to clarify potential misunderstandings, avert future conflicts, and facilitate satisfaction and closeness in the relationship.

7. Empathic accuracy: General rule and exceptions • Threatening content • Empathic accuracy should DECLINE: • Judges attempt to spare themselves pain and injury which might result from correctly inferring the nature of targets’ thoughts and feelings by misinferring, or being less empathically accurate. • This strategy should also work in relation to the degree to which the targets’ thoughts or feelings are perceived as AMBIGUOUS.

8. Overview • 1) Examine the nature of empathic accuracy in adolescent romantic relationships by testing the general rule and content-related exceptions

9. Overview • 2) Gender-linked differences in empathic accuracy exist in relation to the level of detail individuals are asked to report. • More detail favors females over males • 3) Age-related changes in empathic accuracy. • Perspective-taking improves with age/experience

10. Hypotheses • Empathic accuracy will be positively associated with relationship satisfaction. • Empathic accuracy will be negatively associated with reports of “hiding something”. • There will be no gender difference in empathic accuracy. • Empathic accuracy will be positively associated with age, with older individuals being more accurate than younger individuals.

11. Participants • The data for this project comes from The Study of Tennessee Adolescent Romantic Relationships (STARR), funded by NICHD • 206 adolescent dating couples between 14 and 21 yrs old1 (median=17) • Couples dating a minimum of 4 weeks • (range: 4 weeks – 260 weeks; mean: 46 weeks) • Caucasian (90.5 %) • African-American (6.2%) • Asian (1.2%) • Hispanic (0.7%) • Native American (0.5%) • “Other” (0.7%). 1Couples recruited from a previous study of 2201 high school students from 17 different high schools representing geographic (rural, urban, suburban) and economic diversity

12. Interaction Procedure • Record couple having 2 interaction tasks • First Task: Conflictual Issue (as selected by one couple member) (8 min 40 sec) • Second Task: Conflictual Issue (as selected by the other couple member) (8 min 40 sec) • Video-Recall Procedure (Welsh & Dickson, 2005) • Conversations viewed twice • Rate own behavior in first viewing • Rate partner’s behavior in second viewing • 40 twenty-second segments rated • 7 codes rated for each segment: connection, conflict, sarcasm, trying to persuade, conceding, discomfort, and frustration

13. Measures • Hidden/ambiguous information (Welsh et al, 2001) • A single item indicating the presence of hidden or ambiguous information during the conversation: • “Were you hiding something from your partner?” • Five-point scale (1=“Never” 5=“Always”). • Relationship satisfaction (Levesque, 1993) • 5-item scale (males: α = 0.85; females: α = 0.84): • Sample items include, “compared to other people’s relationships, ours is pretty good” and “our relationship has met my best expectations” • Six-point scale (1=“strongly disagree” 6=“strongly agree”).

14. Self-rating ***p <.001

15. Partner-rating ***p <.001

17. Hierarchial Linear Modeling (HLM) • HLM: • Two sources of variance: between and within • Variance in relationship satisfaction depends upon: • What dyad you are part of (between-dyad) • Who you are (within-dyad) • Does not violate the assumptions of techniques such as multiple regression, and thus artificially inflate error terms

18. Empathic Accuracy Analyses • Stage 1: Empathic Accuracy • For each dimension (connection, conflict, persuading, discomfort): • Estimate the covariance between targets’ perception of themselves judges’ perception of them • for each 20 second segment • over the course of two conversations.

19. Empathic accuracy: Effect size *p <.05 **p <.01

20. Empathic Accuracy Analyses • Stage 2: Moderators of Empathic Accuracy • potential moderators* were used to account for between-subjects differences in the magnitude of the within-subjects covariance. • *Relationship satisfaction • *Age • *Hiding something

21. Relationship satisfaction • Relationship satisfaction • Males • Connection* • Negatively related to empathic accuracy • Conflict* • Positively related to empathic accuracy • Persuading • Uncomfortable • Females • Connection • Conflict** • Positively related to empathic accuracy • Discomfort** • Positively related to empathic accuracy • Persuading** • Positively related to empathic accuracy *p <.05 **p <.01

22. Age • Females • Connection** • Positively related to empathic accuracy • Conflict • Persuading • Uncomfortable **p <.01

23. “Hiding something” • Males and Females • Connection* • Positively related to empathic accuracy • Conflict • Persuading • Uncomfortable *p <.05

24. “Hiding Something” Follow-up Analyses ***p <.001

25. Empathy You see everything, you see every part You see all my light and you love my dark You dig everything of which I'm ashamed There's not anything to which you can’t relate And you’re still here • -Alanis Morrissette, “Everything”