High emotion recognition ability may inadvertently harm romantic and professional relationships when one perceives potentially disruptive information; also, high-ERA individuals do not appear to be happier with their lives

Inter- and Intrapersonal Downsides of Accurately Perceiving Others’ Emotions. Katja Schlegel. In: Social Intelligence and Nonverbal Communication pp 359-395, Jan 26 2020. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-34964-6_13

Abstract: The ability to accurately perceive others’ emotions from nonverbal cues (emotion recognition ability [ERA]) is typically conceptualized as an adaptive skill. Accordingly, many studies have found positive correlations between ERA and measures of social and professional success. This chapter, in contrast, examines whether high ERA can also have downsides, both for other people and for oneself. A literature review revealed little evidence that high-ERA individuals use their skill to hurt others. However, high ERA may inadvertently harm romantic and professional relationships when one perceives potentially disruptive information. Furthermore, high-ERA individuals do not appear to be happier with their lives than low-ERA individuals. Overall, the advantages of high ERA outweigh the downsides, but many open questions regarding negative effects remain to be studied.

Keywords: Emotion recognition Emotional intelligence Well-being Dark side Interpersonal accuracy

Summary and Conclusion

The ability to accurately recognize others’ emotions from the face, voice,
and body is typically considered to be an adaptive skill contributing to
social and professional success. This has been supported by various studies
(see Schmid Mast & Hall, 2018; Hall et al., 2009; Elfenbein et al.,
2007, for reviews). Much less research has looked into the potential
downsides or disadvantages of high ERA for oneself (i.e., for one’s wellbeing)
and for others (i.e., by manipulating other people or hampering
smooth interactions with others). The present chapter reviewed this
research in non-clinical adults, specifically focusing on the following
questions: Is there a “dark” side to high ERA in that people use it to hurt
others? Can high ERA negatively affect the quality of relationships? Why
is high ERA uncorrelated with psychological well-being? Finally, is there
an optimal level of ERA?
Although more research is clearly needed to answer these questions
with more confidence, the current state of the literature suggests that
ERA is a double-edged sword that affects one’s well-being and social outcomes
both positively and negatively. One common theme that emerged
as a possible explanation for both positive and negative pathways is the
heightened emotional awareness of or attunement to others’ feelings in
persons with high ERA. Because high-ERA individuals are more perceptive
of others’ positive and negative emotions, their own emotions also
appear be more affected by what is happening around them, contributing
to various inter- and intrapersonal outcomes.
For instance, high-ERA individuals seem to be more prosocial and
cooperative, maybe in order to perceive more positive emotions in others
and to preserve their own psychological well-being. Heightened emotional
awareness for others’ feelings can also explain the positive associations
between ERA and social and workplace effectiveness found in many
studies. On the other hand, “hyperawareness” in high-ERA individuals
can inadvertently contribute to lower rapport, less favorable impressions
in others, and lower relationship quality due to “eavesdropping” and the
failure to show “motivated inaccuracy” when it might be adaptive.
Because high emotional awareness appears to amplify the effects of
perceived positive and negative emotions, in stable environments with
only few stressors, the adaptive advantages of high ERA may outweigh
the downsides. However, as adversity or instability increases, the higher
proportion of perceived and experienced negative affect may contribute
to lower well-being and the development of depressive symptoms. A
higher tendency to suffer with others in distress might represent one possible
mechanism negatively influencing psychological well-being.
Taken together, the various positive and negative pathways between
high ERA and well-being as well as interpersonal relationships may
explain why ERA does not appear to be positively correlated with wellbeing,
although this had been found for emotional intelligence more
broadly (e.g., Sánchez-Álvarez et al., 2015). One may speculate that other
components of emotional intelligence such as the ability to regulate one’s
own negative emotions efficiently or the ability to manage others’ emotions
have fewer potential downsides than ERA with respect to one’s own
well-being, although they may be more “useful” when it comes to manipulating
others (e.g., Côté et al., 2011).
An interesting question is whether the terms “emotional hyperawareness”
(e.g., Davis & Nichols, 2016) or “hypersensitivity” (Fiori & Ortony,
2016) are appropriate to describe high-ERA individuals. These terms are
often used to describe an exaggerated, maladaptive reactivity of neurophysiological
structures related to mental disorders (e.g., Frick et al.,
2012; Neuner et al., 2010). In healthy individuals with high ERA, however,
the elevated attunement to emotions might represent a more realistic
and holistic view of the social world rather than a bias (Scherer, 2007). If
this is the case, then the absence of a correlation between ERA and wellbeing
or life satisfaction may also reflect that those high in ERA evaluate
these constructs more realistically and thus more negatively, although
they might be “happier” than others if different criteria were used. It may
also be that high-ERA individuals, compared to low-ERA individuals, are
relatively more satisfied with some life domains (e.g., friendships) and
less satisfied with others (e.g., work), which may cancel each other out
when global well-being or life satisfaction is considered.
The current literature can be expanded in several ways. In particular,
more studies that examine the moderating effects of personality traits on
the link between ERA and outcomes are needed. In particular, traits
related to the processing and regulation of emotions in oneself and others
might moderate the effects of ERA not only on intrapersonal outcomes
such as psychological well-being but also on interpersonal outcomes such
as relationship quality. For example, it would be interesting to examine
how ERA, empathic concern, and detachment interact in predicting
stress, emotional exhaustion, or work engagement in helping professions.
One can hypothesize that a high ability to detach oneself from stressful
negative work experiences protects professionals that are highly perceptive
of clients’ negative feelings and express empathic concern from negative
effects on well-being. Other possible moderating variables include
“positivity offset” (Ito & Cacioppo, 2005) and stable appraisal biases
(Scherer, 2019). In addition, “dark” personality traits might moderate the
effects on interpersonal behaviors such as deception, such that high ERA
may, for example, amplify the effects of high Machiavellianism or trait
exploitativeness (Konrath et al., 2014). Future studies should also look
into curvilinear relationships to examine which levels of ERA are the
most beneficial or detrimental for various outcomes and situations.
Furthermore, longitudinal studies may shed light on the causality
underlying ERA and the development of psychological well-being over
time as a function of a person’s environment. For example, it could be
tested whether Wilson and Csikszentmihalyi’s (2007) finding that prosociality
is beneficial in stable environments but detrimental in adverse
ones also holds for ERA. Such studies would also allow investigating the
causal pathways linking ERA and depressive symptoms, including testing
the possibilities that dysphoria increases ERA (Harkness et al., 2005) and
that ERA, due to a more realistic perception of the social world, makes
people “wiser but sadder” (Scherer, 2007).
Many of the above conclusions rely on the assumption that high ERA
relates to a higher attunement to emotions in our surroundings. However,
only few studies to date examined this association. Fiori and Ortony
(2016) and Freudenthaler and Neubauer (2007) pointed out that ability
tests of emotional intelligence measure maximal performance and crystallized
knowledge, but do not necessarily capture typical performance
and more fluid emotion processing. More research is thus needed to corroborate
the idea that being good at accurately labeling emotional expressions
when one is explicitly instructed to do so is related to paying more
attention to emotions in everyday life when an abundance of different
types of information is available. Future research should involve the
development of new standard tests tapping into typical performance
regarding emotion perception. Future studies could also benefit from
using methods such as portable eye tracking or experience sampling to be
able to study more real-life situations. Finally, future studies may examine
satisfaction in specific life domains as outcome measures of ERA in addition
to general measures of well-being.
The current review also raises the question whether available trainings
for increasing ERA (see Blanch-Hartigan, Andrzejewski, & Hill, 2012
for a meta-analysis) are useful if high ERA can have detrimental effects.
The answer may depend on what outcomes are considered. If an ERA
training improves law enforcement officers’ job performance (Hurley,
Anker, Frank, Matsumoto, & Hwang, 2014) or helps doctors to better
understand their patients (Blanch-Hartigan, 2012), the answer would be
that trainings are useful. When psychological well-being is considered as
the outcome, stand-alone ERA trainings may not always be useful, for
example, if a person is experiencing chronic stress or depressive symptoms.
In these cases, it may be beneficial to combine an ERA training
with a training targeted at the use of adaptive emotion regulation strategies
to prevent potentially detrimental effects.
To conclude, I would like to emphasize that, overall, ERA should still
be considered an adaptive and valuable skill, especially when effective
interpersonal interactions in the workplace or close relationships are
considered
(e.g., reviews by Elfenbein et al., 2007; Schmid Mast & Hall,
2018). High-ERA individuals receive better ratings from others on various
positive traits (e.g., socio-emotional competence) and report being
more open, more conscientious, and more tolerant (Hall et al., 2009).
The interpersonal downsides and “dark” aspects of high ERA in healthy
adults discussed in the present chapter seem to be limited to relatively
specific situations or ERA profiles, although more research is needed.
With respect to psychological well-being, however, the picture seems to
be more nuanced, implying both positive and negative pathways that
may be more or less influential based on a person’s life situation and personality
traits. More sophisticated study designs, novel data collection
methods, and more complex statistical analyses can help us better understand
these mechanisms.