Empathic accuracy and adolescent romantic relationships

Although theoretical insights suggest that empathic accuracy should emerge to play a role in adolescents’ romantic relationships, the nature of any such role remains unknown. The current study examined whether empathic accuracy: (1) was developmentally based, (2) differed across gender, and (3) was associated with adolescents’ satisfaction with their romantic relationships. Participants were 204 male–female couples who ranged between 14 and 21 years of age and had been dating between 4 weeks and 5 years. On average, both male and female adolescents showed high levels of empathic accuracy that were positively associated with their own and their partners’ relationship satisfaction. However, the direction of the associations that emerged, and gender differences in them, depended in part on the type of information being perceived. For instance, while both males’ and females’ accuracy for discomfort and conflict were positively associated with partners’ satisfaction, males’—but not females’—accuracy for connection was negatively associated with their satisfaction, and females’—but not males’—accuracy for persuasion was positively associated with partners’ satisfaction. Empathic accuracy was not significantly associated with age or relationship length. Taken together, these results reveal that a complete picture of empathic accuracy requires research on perceptions of various types of information.