Don’t You Know How Much I Need You?

Signal amplification bias, the tendency to overestimate how much one’s behavior conveys internal states, has been theorized to negatively affect relationships. The present study is the first to test whether signal amplification has negative consequences in close relationships and whether this form of miscommunication is more detrimental to lower self-esteem individuals, who doubt their partner’s regard. Dating couples participated in a lab-induced social support interaction. Results supported predictions, revealing that when lower self-esteem support seekers overestimated how much they conveyed, they rated their partners' responses as less supportive than higher self-esteem support seekers who also engaged in signal amplification. Yet self-esteem did not predict perceptions of a partner’s supportiveness when impressions exceeded metaperceptions. These results highlight the role of self-esteem in understanding implications for miscommunication and for targeting interventions.

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