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ORIGINAL: PeonForHer
FR

Anax, you don't think that this research is suggesting that women can be nasty in some way, do you? Because I won't hear of that! Oh no!

I read a feminist author some while ago. From what I could make out, she was opining that women, if they're baddie at all, are only baddie because men - being the brutes that they are - made them that way.

Women are nice, and I won't hear it said otherwise.

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ORIGINAL: PeonForHer

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ORIGINAL: Anaxagoras
The Daily Telegraph merely wrote an article about the study in Harvard. Indeed it could have misrepresented the research but the piece quoted the primary author, and at least it seems it represented her views quite accurately if the other piece kalikshama cited is anything to go by.

Anyone can take what they want from the study. It's by no means a definitive portrait of what women do in relationships, it just pointed to an interesting behaviour trait which doesn't seem to have been discussed much before. I probably shouldn't have used the word "sadism" in the OP as its way too prejorative but its too late to edit it out now!

Poppycock. You've introduced this so-called research here because you hate women, Anax. I think we all know your type, you bald Irish goose-stepper, you. Well, I know which side my bread is buttered and I want to get laid at least once again before I die, so I'm having none of it.

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ORIGINAL: PeonForHer
I don't know why you're defending him, Lady Hib. It's perfectly obvious from his OP that Anaxagoras wants all women to be lined up against the nearest wall and shot.

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ORIGINAL: tj444

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ORIGINAL: Anaxagoras

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ORIGINAL: tj444
and do you believe that primary contention???..

Don't really know to be honest, there may be some truth in it but maybe more studies like it need to be done first...

I think that most studies are of vanilla women and generally speaking, vanilla women are very different than bdsm/sub/slave women (imo).. Vanilla women arent usually open to "being trained" by their man (or bending to his wishes), their man tends to be the one that is trained.. that kinda thing can cause a lot of friction, imo.. once the guy realizes it, that is.. there are also games played, like using-no-sex-as-a-punishment thing.. etc..

But,.. isnt that why there are 10 guys here to every female? How many of the men here are mostly vanilla guys disillusioned with vanilla females??? I have run into a few of them here..

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ORIGINAL: LadyHibiscus
Defending him? I was enjoying his crankiness! Too tired for schadenfreude tonight!

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ORIGINAL: LadyHibiscus
I think a lot of it's cultural, too, as far as vanilla women goes.

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And just say yes to serious tupping! I plan to get some myself someday. Maybe.

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ORIGINAL: Anaxagoras
The primary contention of the article based on the study is that with regard to the feelings in their partners that in turn yield a greater sense of satisfaction in themselves, women find satisfaction in perceiving the opposite feelings to men, and that women can feel more satisfied in relationships when they see their partner unhappy, whereas men do not.

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ORIGINAL: shallowdeep

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ORIGINAL: Anaxagoras
The primary contention of the article based on the study is that with regard to the feelings in their partners that in turn yield a greater sense of satisfaction in themselves, women find satisfaction in perceiving the opposite feelings to men, and that women can feel more satisfied in relationships when they see their partner unhappy, whereas men do not.

The Telegraph article did seem to be trying to present things that way, but the actual study didn't do anything to show that. The Telegraph article seems to mostly be a selectively regurgitated press release combined with a few inaccurate statements and topped off with a sensational headline. The subtitle you called particular attention to, "Women can feel happy when they see their husband or partner is upset, new research has suggested," has no actual basis in the study.

The aspect of the study that seems to have become the article's distorted focus was the study's finding of a positive correlation between a woman's existing satisfaction with a relationship and her ability to correctly perceive instances when her partner was feeling negative emotions in an experimental setup. In other words, women who showed an ability to detect when their partners were upset were statistically somewhat more likely to be in a more satisfying relationship than those who were not as able to detect when their partners were upset.

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ORIGINAL: shallowdeep
In fairness, the authors did speculate some about possible reasons for the former correlation in their discussion, which is where the quote attributed to Cohen and used in the Telegraph article appears (presented below with a bit more context):

"Women, in contrast, may not be as threatened by their partners’ negative emotions. Women who more accurately read their partners’ negative emotions were the most satisfied in their relationships. It could be that for women, perceiving their male partners as having negative emotions reflects some degree of the male’s investment and emotional engagement in the relationship, even during times of conflict."

Other factors in the experiment, namely a woman's perception of how much her partner was trying to understand her feelings, actually showed a significantly stronger correlation with relationship satisfaction and were the greater focus of the study.

I know; it doesn't make for quite as good a headline, does it?

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Consistent with hypothesis 1, we found that men’s accuracy in reading their partners’ positive emotions was positively related to their own relationship satisfaction (see Figure 2). However, contrary to our hypothesis, the remaining links between empathic accuracy for positive emotion and relationship satisfaction—that is, men’s empathic accuracy and women’s relationship satisfaction, and women’s empathic accuracy and her own and her partner’s relationship satisfaction—were not significant. [...]

A nested model comparison, revealed that women’s relationship satisfaction was more strongly linked with women’s perception that their male partners were trying to understand them (actor effect for women’s perceived empathy) than with men’s ability to accurately read their wives’ negative emotions (partner effect for men’s empathic accuracy).

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The HAM questionnaire lists 16 emotions that people may experience. Using a scale from one to seven (1
not at all and 7
very much), participants were asked to rate how much they felt each of the emotions during each of the six HAMs. Two factoranalytically derived scales (see Waldinger & Schulz, 2006) were used in this study. Negative consisted of the following emotion states: angry, irritated, disgusted, upset, hurt, critical, and defensive. The emotion variables constituting the Positive factor included the following: happy, close, and supported.

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we predicted that empathic accuracy for positive emotions would be associated with self and partner satisfaction (Hypothesis 1) because the perceiver has no reason to feel threatened by the consequences of accurately inferring the partner’s positive feelings. The only significant link was found between men’s empathic accuracy in reading their female partners’ emotions and their own relationship satisfaction. That is, men’s accuracy for positive emotions was significantly and moderately linked to men’s own relationship satisfaction but not to women’s satisfaction. Moreover, women’s empathic accuracy for positive feelings was not significantly linked to either her or his satisfaction. Taken together, this pattern of findings seems to suggest that men’s relationship satisfaction is uniquely associated with accuracy in reading their female partners’ positive affect.

We also predicted that empathic accuracy for a partner’s negative emotions, which may be relationship threatening, would be associated with lower levels of relationship satisfaction (Hypothesis 2). Again, this prediction was only supported in the case of men’s empathic accuracy, which was not linked to their own satisfaction but was linked to their female partners’ satisfaction. Men’s empathic accuracy for negative emotions was significantly and moderately associated with women’s satisfaction though nonsignificantly linked to men’s satisfaction.

Altogether, these results are consistent with the notion that women’s negative emotions may be relationship-threatening to their male partners, and that those male partners with less accuracy in reading these emotions are more likely to report relationship satisfaction. Women, in contrast, may not be as threatened by their partners’ negative emotions. Women who more accurately read their partners’ negative emotions were the most satisfied in their relationships.

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Our findings suggest that men may derive added relationship satisfaction when they can read their female partners’ positive emotions and when their female partners can read their positive emotions. Thus, when working with couples, it seems particularly important for therapists to help both partners, especially males, heighten the empathic connection around reading one another’s positive emotions.

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ORIGINAL: kalikshama
shallowdeep - Thanks for doing that analysis!

Anaxagoras - see the difference between the two now?

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ORIGINAL: shallowdeep
The aspect of the study that seems to have become the article's distorted focus was the study's finding of a positive correlation between a woman's existing satisfaction with a relationship and her ability to correctly perceive instances when her partner was feeling negative emotions in an experimental setup. In other words, women who showed an ability to detect when their partners were upset were statistically somewhat more likely to be in a more satisfying relationship than those who were not as able to detect when their partners were upset.

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ORIGINAL: Anaxagoras
Thanks for your interesting response.

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The text backs up what you say about the link with empathy and relationship satisfaction with women but this was not the case with regard to empathetic accuracy.

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Also it should be noted that the article refers to questionnaires which couples were given after viewing the tapes where their partners showed negative and positive emotions. This included a rating of their own feelings for a given display of emotion in their partner. The Telegraph stating that women "enjoyed" seeing their partner upset is probably misleading as the positive emotional categorisation was apparently more broad than that in study but the assertion still seems to have partial validity:

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ORIGINAL: shallowdeep

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The text backs up what you say about the link with empathy and relationship satisfaction with women but this was not the case with regard to empathetic accuracy.

What did I say about empathic accuracy that you feel was not supported by the study? I'm a bit confused, as there's nothing in the subsequent quote you posted from the article that applies to what I said.

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Also it should be noted that the article refers to questionnaires which couples were given after viewing the tapes where their partners showed negative and positive emotions. This included a rating of their own feelings for a given display of emotion in their partner. The Telegraph stating that women "enjoyed" seeing their partner upset is probably misleading as the positive emotional categorisation was apparently more broad than that in study but the assertion still seems to have partial validity:

Are you saying you think the study had participants rate their emotional reactions in response to seeing a partner displaying a particular emotion? If that is the case, you misunderstood the experiment. That isn't what the questionairres were used for at all.

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ORIGINAL: shallowdeep
An attempt to claim the study shows women "enjoyed" seeing their partner upset is misleading in far more than just specificity of the emotional categorization – it's quite fundamentally flawed. There is absolutely no data presented in the study to say what emotional reaction, if any, the women had when seeing negative emotions in their partner and, thus, no basis for such a claim.

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Using participants’ ratings from the first phase of the video recall procedure, six high affect moments (HAMs) of 30-s duration were selected for each couple. [...]

In the second phase of the cued recall task, participants were shown the six HAMs in order of occurrence during the discussion. After viewing each HAM, participants completed questionnaires about their own and their partner’s feelings and intentions during that segment. [...]

The HAM questionnaire lists 16 emotions that people may experience. Using a scale from one to seven (1
not at all and 7
very much), participants were asked to rate how much they felt each of the emotions during each of the six HAMs. Two factoranalytically derived scales (see Waldinger & Schulz, 2006) were used in this study. Negative consisted of the following emotion states: angry, irritated, disgusted, upset, hurt, critical, and defensive. The emotion variables constituting the Positive factor included the following: happy, close, and supported.

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ORIGINAL: shallowdeep
The correlations presented in the study are those between empathic accuracy and relationship satisfaction and those between perceived empathic effort and relationship satisfaction. There is no data to say one way or the other what the correlation between one partner's emotions and the other partner's emotions might have been; it wasn't part of the experimental design at all.

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ORIGINAL: Anaxagoras
You didn't say anything specifically about empathic accuracy that wasn't supported by the study, and I didn't suggest that you did. My point was that the argument about empathy in relationships can only be taken so far because the accuracy which would be a reflection of a true empathetic bond didn't seem to matter remotely much to the women involved.

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Unless I'm missing something the above quote seems clear enough with regard to the content of the questionnaires.

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ORIGINAL: shallowdeep

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ORIGINAL: Anaxagoras
You didn't say anything specifically about empathic accuracy that wasn't supported by the study, and I didn't suggest that you did. My point was that the argument about empathy in relationships can only be taken so far because the accuracy which would be a reflection of a true empathetic bond didn't seem to matter remotely much to the women involved.

Ah, I misunderstood your comment, then. There actually was a statistically significant correlation between men's accuracy in picking up on women's negative emotions and women's satisfaction with the relationship, though, which seems to be the aspect the Telegraph misconstrued.

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The study concluded: “Overall, the findings from this study suggest that men may be more satisfied in their relationships when they can accurately read their partners’ positive emotions, while women’s relationship satisfaction may uniquely benefit when they can accurately read their partners’ negative emotions

“Women’s satisfaction was more strongly related to the perception that their partners were trying to understand their negative emotions than to men’s actual accuracy in reading those emotions.”

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ORIGINAL: shallowdeep
In fairness, the authors did speculate some about possible reasons for the former correlation in their discussion, which is where the quote attributed to Cohen and used in the Telegraph article appears (presented below with a bit more context):

"Women, in contrast, may not be as threatened by their partners’ negative emotions. Women who more accurately read their partners’ negative emotions were the most satisfied in their relationships. It could be that for women, perceiving their male partners as having negative emotions reflects some degree of the male’s investment and emotional engagement in the relationship, even during times of conflict."

The experiment was not designed in a way to test that last conjecture, however.

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Dr Shiri Cohen, the study’s lead author, said: “It could be that for women, seeing that their male partner is upset reflects some degree of the man's investment and emotional engagement in the relationship, even during difficult times.

“This is consistent with what is known about the dissatisfaction women often experience when their male partner becomes emotionally withdrawn and disengaged in response to conflict.”

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...while women’s relationship satisfaction may uniquely benefit when they can accurately read their partners’ negative emotions...

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Collectively, these finding suggest that women may place greater value on partners’ empathic effort, perhaps because this behavior emphasizes the desire and investment of their male partners to be attentive and emotionally attuned in the relationship.

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ORIGINAL: shallowdeep

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Unless I'm missing something the above quote seems clear enough with regard to the content of the questionnaires.

Yes, you missed something important. If you read the full methodology a bit more carefully, you can probably get it, but I'll try to quickly explain:

Part of the goal of the study was to test the accuracy of each partner's empathy. To achieve this, partners engaged in a somewhat artificial emotionally-charged conversation. After the conversation, the participants were asked to guess what their partner was feeling during a few especially charged segments of the conversation. To enable a check on the accuracy of these guesses, they were also asked to fill out an identical questionnaire expressing their own feelings during the same segment of the conversation. These answers were used as the truth against which a partner's guesses were tested. This empathic accuracy test was the sole purpose of the questionnaires. It may also be worth pointing out that the feelings they were recording were not directly in response to a display of emotions from their partners, but rather were rating what they had experienced during the conversation scenario. Does that make sense?

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During the study, each participant was asked to describe an incident with their partner over the previous two months that had been frustrating, disappointing or upsetting.

The researchers recorded the participant making a brief statement summarising the incident and then brought the couple together to play each other's admission.

They were told to come to a better understanding of what had happened, with approximately 10 minutes to discuss the incident while they were filmed.

The video recording was then shown back to them while they rated their negative and positive reactions using an electronic device.

Later, six, 30-second clips of the most emotive discussions were then shown to the participants, who completed questionnaires about their feelings on watching the recordings. Overall satisfaction with the relationship was also measured, and whether those surveyed considered their partner's efforts to be empathetic.

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Following the discussion, participants viewed the videotape of their interaction and continuously rated their degree of emotional negativity and/or positivity during the interaction with an electronic rating device designed for this study. The device had a knob that moved across an 11-point scale that ranged from very negative to neutral to very positive. Past research has established the validity of this and similar video recall procedures for obtaining reports of affective experience...

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ORIGINAL: shallowdeep
In short, the authors didn't care at all about what the emotions expressed in the questionnaires were and never present that data or make any attempt to analyze it. Nor do they ever investigate any link between one partner's emotions and the other's. All they cared about was how accurate each participant's empathy was with respect to positive and negative emotions in their partner. They then looked at how this empathic accuracy was related to existing relationship satisfaction unrelated to the charged conversation. The correlation between that relationship satisfaction and the empathic accuracy during the experiment is the data presented in the study.

I know you were basing the original post purely off the Telegraph article assuming it was accurate, but with a better understanding of what the experiment actually tested can you see how the Telegraph's headline makes no sense?