School of Education, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel.
Psychol Sci. 2011 Aug;22(8):1033-41. doi: 10.1177/0956797611414728. Epub 2011 Jul 7.
We examine the link between depression and empathic accuracy, the ability to infer other people's thoughts and feelings, as a possible mechanism underlying gender differences in the association between depression and interpersonal difficulties within intimate relationships. Fifty-one heterosexual couples completed questionnaires assessing depressive symptoms and participated in both a lab and a daily diary procedure assessing empathic accuracy. In the lab measures, women's (but not men's) higher levels of depressive symptoms were associated with lower empathic accuracy regarding partners' thoughts and feelings. In the daily diary data, women's depressive symptoms were specifically associated with lower levels of empathic accuracy for negative feelings but not for positive feelings, and with lower levels of their partners' empathic accuracy for the women's negative feelings. Men's depressive symptoms were again unrelated to levels of empathic accuracy. Our findings suggest that depressive symptoms may have a stronger impact on interpersonal perception in intimate relationships among women than among men.
我们考察了抑郁和共情准确性之间的联系，共情准确性是指推断他人想法和感受的能力，这可能是抑郁与亲密关系中人际困难之间关联的性别差异的一个潜在机制。51 对异性恋伴侣完成了评估抑郁症状的问卷，并参与了实验室和日常日记程序，以评估共情准确性。在实验室测量中，女性（而非男性）较高水平的抑郁症状与对伴侣想法和感受的共情准确性较低有关。在日常日记数据中，女性的抑郁症状与对消极情绪的共情准确性较低有关，但与对积极情绪的共情准确性无关，也与女性消极情绪的伴侣共情准确性较低有关。男性的抑郁症状再次与共情准确性无关。我们的发现表明，抑郁症状可能对女性而不是男性在亲密关系中的人际感知有更强的影响。
