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3 - Empathic accuracy

Judging thoughts and feelings

from Part I - Domains of accurate interpersonal perception

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 April 2016

By
William Ickes
Edited by
Judith A. Hall ,
Marianne Schmid Mast  and
Tessa V. West
Judith A. Hall
Affiliation:
Northeastern University, Boston
Marianne Schmid Mast
Affiliation:
Université de Lausanne, Switzerland
Tessa V. West
Affiliation:
New York University
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Summary

Abstract

Key issues in the study of empathic accuracy (accuracy in inferring the specific content of other people’s thoughts and feelings) are explored through the answers to ten questions. These questions concern (1) how empathic accuracy is measured and studied; (2) how accurate perceivers are, relative to chance and across different types of relationships; (3) which information channels are the most important; (4) why “female motivation” may be more important than “female intuition”; (5) the two most obvious and reliable individual-difference predictors of empathic accuracy; (6) the importance of “target readability” in empathic accuracy; (7) the importance of attention and (8) motivation in empathic accuracy; (9) when empathic accuracy hurts, instead of helps, close relationships; and (10) empathic accuracy’s linkage to various clinical problems and populations.

Type
Chapter
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The Social Psychology of Perceiving Others Accurately , pp. 52 - 70
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2016

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