Empathic accuracy and interpersonal emotion regulation in close relationships.

Abstract

Interpersonal emotion regulation commonly occurs in the context of close relationships. The present study examined whether accurately knowing the emotions that one's romantic partner would feel in a given situation was associated with the effectiveness of interpersonal emotion regulation attempts. One partner from 92 romantic dyads (N = 184) was randomly assigned to the role of the target, and the other was assigned to the role of the regulator. Each participant read four vignettes depicting emotion-inducing scenarios. Targets rated the emotions they would feel in each situation, whereas regulators reported how they thought their partner would feel in each situation. Targets were then asked to describe what their partner could say to help them feel good or better in each situation, using an open-ended response format. The regulators were asked to describe what they would say to their partners to help them feel good or better in each situation. Accuracy was defined as the mean difference in ratings between the regulator's estimates of their partner's emotions and their actual emotion ratings across the scenarios. Effectiveness of regulation was defined as the mean score of similarity between regulator's open-ended responses and target's open-ended responses as rated by independent coders. The results showed that empathic accuracy significantly predicted regulation effectiveness. We also found that individual differences in regulators' emotional clarity scores predicted empathic accuracy. This study sheds light on the importance of accurately perceiving a partner's emotions for effective regulation in close relationships. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).