What is the most important factor in being a good friend? According to new research by a team of scientists at Yale University in New Haven, USA, simply listening to someone speak, without even looking at them, could increase our “empathic precision.”
The experts started from the hypothesis that communication using only our voice and our ability to listen, without involving any other sense, could make it easier for the interlocutors to recognize the emotions of others. Does listening to someone with your eyes closed improve “empathic precision”? (the ability to judge other people’s emotions, thoughts, and feelings).
To test this hypothesis, the researchers devised five experiments, the results of which are published in the journal American Psychologist.
Almost 1,800 volunteers with at least 18 years of age participated in the experiments. All of them were tested for empathic accuracy, comparing it in “voice only, visual only or combined voice and visual communication” scenarios.
In one of the experiments, participants were exposed to a recorded scenario in which two women made fun of each other. Teasing was chosen because it elicits a mixed range of emotions. The participants were invited to estimate the feelings of the parties involved in the dialogue. They were given a range of emotions and asked to rate the number of those emotions that they thought these people were experiencing (from 0 to 9).
In another experiment they attended a live interaction. Communication only by voice or with all the senses was achieved by turning the light on and off in the room.
On average, across the five experiments, people who listened without looking visually identified emotions more accurately.
“The social and biological sciences over the years have demonstrated the deep desire of individuals to connect with others and the variety of abilities that people possess to discern emotions or intentions,” explains Michael Kraus, leader of the work. “But, in the presence of will and ability, people often perceive the emotions of others inaccurately.”
“Our research suggests that relying on a combination of vocal and facial cues, or just facial cues, may not be the best strategy for accurately recognizing the emotions or intentions of others,” adds Kraus.
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Previous studies have shown that when we want to mask our feelings, we use facial and nonverbal cues, rather than verbal ones.
Another reason that explains the result of the study could have to do with multitasking. Trying to multitask has been shown to decrease performance, and the same might work when it comes to listening and looking.
“ I think these results are surprising. Many emotional intelligence tests are based on accurate perceptions of faces. What we find here is that perhaps people pay too much attention to the face: the voice may have much of the content necessary to perceive the mood of others with great precision. The findings suggest that we should focus more on studying the vocalizations of emotion, “concludes Kraus.
Reference: Voice-only communication enhances empathic accuracy. Kraus, Michael W. American Psychologist, Vol 72 (7), Oct 2017, 644-654
