Empathic accuracy

About this book

"What does she want?" "How does he feel about that?" "What are they trying to accomplish?" We ask ourselves these kinds of questions every day, in nearly every social encounter we experience. Empathic inference, or "everyday mind reading," is a form of complex psychological inference in which observation, memory, knowledge, and reasoning are combined to yield insights into the subjective experience of others. In a single, comprehensive volume, Empathic Accuracy introduces two innovative methods for objectively measuring this key dimension of social intelligence and summarizes the most up-to-date research on the topic. Each chapter presents a mix of cutting-edge theory and research that offers essential insights into how and why people sometimes succeed, and sometimes fail, in their attempts to understand each other. Integrating state-of-the-art research on a topic of wide-ranging significance, Empathic Accuracy is an invaluable resource for professionals, researchers, and students in personality and social psychology, clinical and counseling psychology, communication, developmental psychology, and marriage and family studies.