Psychology Facts

▼ Empathic Accuracy ▼

》Empathic accuracy, also described as "cognitive empathy", is the ability to assess or identify the emotions of another.

》This is important in social interactions and is a reason why people with autism spectrum disorders encounter social difficulties—they struggle with empathic accuracy.

》Empathic accuracy is a subarea of interpersonal perception research—a field of study that has had a long tradition in psychology. As a broad generalization, it can be argued that interpersonal perception research began with the study of accuracy regarding stable and enduring dispositions, such as traits and attitudes, and then gradually turned to the study of accuracy regarding more unstable and transient dispositions such as current thoughts and emotions (feelings).

》To obtain a measure of empathic accuracy, independent raters make subjective judgments about the similarity between the content of each actual thought or feeling and the content of the corresponding inferred thought or feeling. Then, the number of each perceiver's total accuracy points is divided by the maximum number of possible accuracy points to obtain a percent-correct empathic accuracy measure that can range from 0 to 100.
Across many studies conducted since 1988, this method of measuring empathic accuracy has proved to be both reliable and valid

》Empathy vs Empathic Accuracy: How are They Distinct?

Empathy and empathic accuracy are conceptually distinct. Empathy does not necessarily imply the ability to accurately identify a shared emotion, and empathic accuracy does not necessarily require that one feel the emotions of another.
Although they are distinct, research has shown a bidirectional relationship between empathy and empathic accuracy, as long as there is sufficient expression. If you have empathy for someone, and they are expressive, then you are also likely to have strong empathic accuracy.

》In studies conducted during the past 2 decades, some beliefs about everyday mind reading have been supported as fact, whereas other beliefs have been exposed as apparently fictional. For example, it now seems reasonable to claim the following as established facts:

Empathic accuracy improves with increasing acquaintanceship.

Empathic accuracy also improves following immediate, veridical feedback about the target person's actual thoughts and feelings.

Perceivers' levels of empathic accuracy tend to be stable across different target persons.

Highly inaccurate perceivers tend to have poorer-quality relationships and more personal adjustment problems than highly accurate perceivers.

》On the other hand, there is no consistent support for the following apparently fictional beliefs:

There are empathic superstars who can read other people's minds with perfect accuracy.

Women, in general, have greater empathic ability than men.

Longer-married couples are more accurate in reading each other than are newlywed couples.

Telepathy (ESP or psi) is the basis of our everyday mind reading ability.