Relationship Based Empathy, Perspective-Taking, and Social Decentering: Foundations of Relationship-Specific Social Decentering (RSSD)

Abstract

<p>Some people are better than others at social decentering and the related skills of empathy and perspective-taking. We might expect people who possess such other-oriented skills as these to be better able to effectively communicate and manage relationships and therefore more successful in their intimate relationships. But research results have failed to consistently demonstrate this effect. For example, several studies have found little to no relationship between such skills and marital satisfaction (Elliott, 1982; Sillars, Pike, Jones, & Murphy, 1984; Wachs & Cordova, 2007; Wastell, 1991). My own studies have failed to find a significant relationship between social decentering and satisfaction in intimate relationships. The failure to find the expected impact of other-oriented processes in intimate relationship is an indication of a more complex process happening in those relationships. These results led me to develop the following premise: in developing intimate relationships, people who lack general social-decentering skills can gain sufficient personal information about their partner to enable them to socially decenter with that particular partner. In other words, they develop a specific type of social decentering that is tailored to their intimate partner – relationship-specific social decentering (RSSD).</p>