Empathic Accuracy: Its Links to Clinical, Cognitive, Developmental, Social, and Physiological Psychology

Abstract

Abstract Empathic accuracy has the potential to link the major areas of psychology that focus on the study of empathy—clinical psychology, cognitive psychology, developmental psychology, social psychology, and physiological psychology. Clinical psychology researchers have investigated how empathic accuracy might be enhanced in psychotherapy and its role in a number of psychological disorders such as autism and borderline personality disorder. This chapter examines the construct of empathic accuracy, how it is measured, and its application in three alternative research paradigms: the unstructured dyadic interaction paradigm, the standard stimulus paradigm, and the standard interview paradigm. It also summarizes some representative findings from this tradition that are relevant to the areas of clinical, developmental, social, and physiological psychology. It also discusses empathic inference in relation to emphatic accuracy as well as the empathic inaccuracy of men who are maritally abusive. The chapter concludes by looking at a number of reasons that may explain the cross-area appeal and integrative potential of empathic accuracy research.