How Am I Feeling?

A key part of being there for friends and family members is appreciating their anger, sadness, or joy. Unfortunately, past research indicates that “we’re not very good at accurately understanding what other people are feeling or thinking,” says Nadav Klein, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Chicago. Given such imprecision, are some empathic errors more egregious than others? If you act as if someone is less upset about a breakup than she really is, for instance, would she think more poorly of you? What if you overstate her sadness?

In experiments involving positive and negative emotions—including studies in which participants described a real case of unfairness in their lives and rated how hurt they had felt—Klein found that, compared to an accurate empathizer, one who underrated someone else’s emotion left a more negative impression overall and in one study was considered less desirable as a friend. The underestimator was also seen as a less empathic and effortful listener, which helped account for the poor reviews. (Notably, the social penalty for underestimates diminished when the emotion was the sort that people typically don’t want attributed to them—jealousy, for instance.) Someone who overestimated the depth of another’s emotion, by contrast, was viewed no less positively than an accurate appraiser.

In real life, we don’t simply learn that a friend rated us two points less excited about a promotion than we really are. “We try to deduce that from behavior,” says Klein. “Depending on his reaction”—language, tone of voice, and bodily gestures, perhaps—“I would guess whether a person is really trying to understand me and takes what I’m saying seriously.” Still, the studies raise the possibility that, at least in some cases, it is safest to assume someone’s pain or delight might be deeper—rather than shallower—than it seems.