Women Perceive, Men Project

By June Enright, 29 Feb 14:38

When it comes to feelings, women are better at understanding what is going on with their partner and men tend to assume their partners are feeling what they are, research says.

ScienceDaily (Feb. 14, 2008) — Women are better than men in describing their feelings and those of their romantic partners than are men, while the latter tend to project their own feelings upon their partners more than women.

The research was conducted in the United States among 97 couples, married and unmarried, between the ages of 18 and 46. Using a questionnaire, the researchers checked the sensitivities of couples in their relationships in three areas: participants' wishes or desires towards their romantic partner; the perceived response of how their partner will respond to these wishes; and finally for their own responses to their partners' responses.

The couples were asked to answer the survey in two ways: First, how they evaluate their relationship with their partners on the basis of the questionnaire; second, to rate how their partners would respond to the same issues raised in the questionnaire.

Generally speaking, the results of the survey showed a high consensus prevailed among couples regarding a desire to avoid conflict, and in perceptions of feelings of love, sensitivity and caring for each other. This was found to be especially true among the married couples who participated in the survey. The results showed that those couples were more similar in their attitudes towards one another than even they thought.

Despite this, there was a low level of agreement regarding perceptions on some specific issues. For example, the survey showed that men rated women as much more apprehensive about being abandoned than the women rated themselves. On the other hand, the wome

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Tags: relationships, feelings, men, women