Experience Similarity, Mindful Awareness, and Accurate Interpersonal Understanding

Understanding other people’s thoughts and feelings is important for successful relationships. The current study examined potential benefits and pitfalls of experience similarity and mindful awareness in relation to accurate interpersonal understanding.

Having, compared to not having, a similar past life experience was associated with lower factual and empathic accuracy. Individuals with higher mindful attention and awareness were more likely to show higher empathic accuracy, being able to more accurately infer the speaker’s emotions throughout the story. This relationship was driven most strongly by individuals who did not have similar past experience as the speaker, such that mindfulness was associated with higher empathic accuracy only among individuals with no similar past experiences.

Experience similarity may diminish the benefit of mindfulness on the ability to accurately infer the target’s mental states. Considering potential pitfalls and biases that may hinder accurate interpersonal understanding can help provide skillful support that is most suited to the needs of specific individuals.