Do People Know How Their Romantic Partner Views Their Emotions? Evidence for Emotion Meta-Accuray and Links with Momentary Romantic Relationship Quality

Do people know how their romantic partner (i.e., the perceiver) views the self’s (i.e., the metaperceiver’s) emotions, displaying emotion meta-accuracy? Is it relevant to relationship quality? Using a sample of romantic couples (N(couples) = 189), we found evidence for two types of emotion meta-accuracy across three different interactions: (a) normative emotion meta-accuracy, knowing perceivers’ impressions of metaperceivers’ emotions that are in line with how the average person may feel, and (b) distinctive emotion meta-accuracy, knowing perceivers’ unique impression of metaperceivers’ emotions. Furthermore, across interactions, normative emotion meta-accuracy was positively related to momentary relationship quality for metaperceivers and perceivers and this link was especially strong in the conflict interaction. Distinctive emotion meta-accuracy was negatively related to momentary relationship quality across interactions for perceivers and in the conflict interaction for metaperceivers. Overall, it may be adaptive for metaperceivers to accurately infer perceivers’ normative impressions and to remain blissfully unaware of their unique impressions.