Is Empathic Accuracy Enough to Facilitate Responsive Behavior in Dyadic Interaction? Distinguishing Ability From Motivation.
Psychol Sci
; 27(3): 394-404, 2016 Mar.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-26847609
ABSTRACT
Growing evidence suggests that interpersonal responsiveness-feeling understood, validated, and cared for by other people-plays a key role in shaping the quality of one's social interactions and relationships. But what enables people to be interpersonally responsive to others? In the current study, we argued that responsiveness requires not only accurate understanding but also compassionate motivation. Specifically, we hypothesized that understanding another person's thoughts and feelings (empathic accuracy) would foster responsive behavior only when paired with benevolent motivation (empathic concern). To test this idea, we asked couples (N = 91) to discuss a personal or relationship stressor; we then assessed empathic accuracy, empathic concern, and responsive behavior. As predicted, when listeners' empathic concern was high, empathic accuracy facilitated responsiveness; but when empathic concern was low, empathic accuracy was unhelpful (and possibly harmful) for responsiveness. These findings provide the first evidence that cognitive and affective forms of empathy work together to facilitate responsive behavior.
Palavras-chave
Texto completo:
1
Coleções:
01-internacional
Base de dados:
MEDLINE
Assunto principal:
Características da Família
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Empatia
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Relações Interpessoais
Tipo de estudo:
Clinical_trials
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Prognostic_studies
Limite:
Adult
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Female
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Humans
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Male
Idioma:
En
Ano de publicação:
2016
Tipo de documento:
Article