Summary Do people know how their romantic partner views their emotions? Do people know how their romantic partner (i.e., perceiver) views the emotions of the self (i.e., metaperceiver), showing the meta-accuracy of emotions? Is it relevant to the quality of the relationship? Using a sample of romantic couples (Ncouples = 189), we find evidence of two types of emotional metaaccuracy in three different interactions: (a) Normative emotional metaaccuracy , knowing perceivers’ impressions of metaperceivers’ emotions that are in line with how the average person may feel. (b) Distinctive metaprecision of emotions, knowing perceivers’ unique impression of metaperceivers’ emotions. Furthermore, across interactions, normative emotion metaaccuracy was positively related to momentary relationship quality for both metaperceivers and perceivers, and this link was especially strong in the conflict interaction. Distinctive emotion metaaccuracy was negatively related to momentary relationship quality in interactions for perceivers and in conflict interaction for metaperceivers. In general, it may be adaptive for metaperceivers to accurately infer perceivers’ normative impressions and remain blissfully unaware of their unique impressions. |
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A study by researchers at McGill University is shedding new light on the importance of emotion perception in romantic relationships.
The McGill team found that regardless of how a person really feels, knowing that their partner sees their emotions as a typical reaction to a given situation can lead to better relationships within a couple, especially in conflict situations.
The research was led by Lauren Human, professor in the Department of Psychology, and members of her team in the Social Perception and Interaction Laboratory, Ph.D. candidates Hasagani Tissera and Jennifer Heyman.
Researchers surveyed 189 romantic partners to find out how emotional metaaccuracy , the ability to correctly understand a romantic partner’s impressions of oneself, affects the momentary quality of the relationship.
"We were interested in understanding how our beliefs about how others see us affect the quality of our relationships," said Tissera, Ph.D. candidate and lead author of the article.
"No matter why you feel a certain way, interactions within a couple are likely to be more positive when you know that your partner views your emotions similarly to how a typical person would feel in a given situation," Tissera said.
Remaining ’blissfully unaware’
The McGill researchers found that, in general, couples were better able to deal with conflict when they knew how their partner viewed their emotions.
Additionally, the study suggests that "...remaining blissfully unaware of [your partner’s] unique impressions..." may lead to better momentary relationship quality. "Or, to put it another way, if you know that your romantic partner sees that you are angry for a reason that is unique to your experience and not based on how the average person would feel, it is likely to damage your relationship, at least in that moment," Tissera said.
The romantic partners surveyed were mostly heterosexual, and most were recruited from across the McGill campus. The average age of the participants was 23 years . The researchers asked their subjects to engage in three different types of interactions: couples were asked to engage in unstructured neutral conversation; Then, they were asked to talk about something they disagreed about; Finally, they struck up a positive conversation. They were then surveyed about their own emotions and their partners’ perception of their emotions.
Discussion
Using a dyadic, repeated measures study design, the present study explored (a) whether metaperceivers demonstrated normative emotional metaaccuracy (accurately inferring the degree to which the metaperceiver’s impressions of emotions from their romantic partner, the perceiver, were typical and positive) and distinctive.
emotion metaaccuracy (accurately inferring the degree to which the perceiver’s impressions of the metaperceiver’s emotions deviated from the norm), (b) whether these levels vary across interactions, and (c) whether each component of Metaprecision is related to the quality of the momentary romantic relationship.
Overall, these results provide preliminary evidence that people (i.e., metaperceivers) are aware of their partners’ (i.e., perceivers’) impressions of their own emotions, as metaperceivers show both normative and distinctive emotional metaaccuracy in a variety of contexts.
In turn, these components of emotion metaprecision could have implications for romantic couples’ relationship quality, at least momentarily.
Specifically, both partners experienced higher momentary relationship quality when the metaperceiver more accurately measured their partner’s normative impressions of self-feelings. For metaperceivers, this link was especially stronger in the conflictive context than in the neutral or positive contexts.
In contrast, both partners reported lower momentary relationship quality when metaperceivers accurately inferred their partner’s most unique (i.e., distinctive) impressions of the metaperceiver’s feelings on average across interactions. For metaperceivers, however, this link was limited to the conflict context.
Accurately understanding the partner’s distinctive impressions of the metaperceiver’s emotions could be detrimental by potentially giving rise to more threatening impressions, which can undermine the momentary quality of the relationship. As such, at least in the short term, it might be adaptive for people to accurately recognize their romantic partner’s normative impressions of their emotions and remain blissfully unaware of the distinctive and potentially threatening impressions the partner may have.
