Empathic accuracy of intimate partners in violent versus nonviolent relationships

This study compared the empathic accuracy of men and women who had perpetrated physical intimate partner violence with that of partners in nonviolent but distressed and nonviolent and nondistressed relationships. Examined was the empathic accuracy (a) of partners for one another’s thoughts and feelings during a relationship problem discussion in the laboratory, (b) of partners’ empathic accuracy for each other with the empathic accuracy of objective observers who watched the couples’ interactions, and (c) the males’ empathic accuracy for their female partner to their empathic accuracy for female strangers. No significant group differences were found among women’s empathic accuracy, but the data suggest that violent men exhibit poor empathic accuracy when attempting to understand their female partner’s thoughts and feelings. Physical violence between intimate partners is a serious health problem in the United States. Each year in the United States, between 12% and 14% of married couples experience husband physical aggression and nearly 2 million women are severely assaulted by their male partners (Schafer, Caetano, & Clark, 1998; Straus & Gelles, 1990). Interestingly, data suggest that male and female perpetrated relationship violence occur at similar rates. Nonetheless, male perpetrated physical violence often has more serious negative consequences than female aggression, including more physical injury and psychological harm (e.g., Archer, 2000; Holtzworth-Munroe, Smutzler, & Sandin, 1997). For this reason, the focus of much of our research has been on male to female intimate partner violence. Although the causes of male violence are undoubtedly complex and multilevel (e.g., societal, interpersonal, individual differences), our research has focused on individual correlates of violence and has utilized McFall’s (1982) social information processing model to identify the social skills deficits of violent husbands (Holtzworth-Munroe, 2000). McFall posits that three sequential stages are needed to process information and respond competently in any social situation: (a) decoding (perception, attention, and interpretation of the situation), (b) decision making (generating and evaluating possible responses and selecting a response), and (c) enactment (engaging in a chosen response and monitoring its impact on the situation). As applied to intimate partner violence, the model posits that incompetent social responses, such as physical Kahni Clements, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Indiana University at Bloomington; Amy Holtzworth-Munroe, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Indiana University at Bloomington; William Schweinle, Department of Psychology, Boise State University; William Ickes, Department of Psychology at the University Texas at Arlington. We would like to thank the graduate and undergraduate student research assistants for their contributions to this study. In particular, we thank Amy Marshall, Jeffrey Meehan, and Kate Schoen. Correspondence should be addressed to Amy Holtzworth-Munroe, Indiana University, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Bloomington, IN 47405-7007, e-mail: [email protected]. Personal Relationships, 14 (2007), 369–388. Printed in the United States of America. Copyright 2007 IARR. 1350-4126=07