On the difficulty of distinguishing "good" and "poor" perceivers: A social relations analysis of empathic accuracy data

Abstract

Two studies were conducted to explore the reasons why replicable individual-difference correlates of empathic accuracy have proved so difficult to find. In Study 1, we examined sources of variance in empathic accuracy data using the Social Relations Model (Kenny, 1988, 1994; Kenny & Albright, 1987; Malloy & Kenny, 1986). The results revealed substantial perceiver variance only in the type of research design in which a relatively large set of individual perceivers inferred the thoughts and feelings of the same set of target persons. In Study 2, we found evidence that even in this apparently optimal type of research design, the significant individual-difference correlates of empathic accuracy were fewer and subject to more unexpected qualifications than the results of Davis and Kraus's (1997) meta-analysis would suggest. So far, the "best candidate" predictor of empathic accuracy appears to be verbal intelligence, but it remains to be seen whether it and two other recently proposed predictors of interpersonal accuracy will survive the test of replicability.