This simple concept can have a big impact on relationships, according to new research

New research published in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin shows that feeling understood by close friends or romantic partners can deeply affect how important these relationships are to our sense of who we are. The findings provide important insights into how personal interactions that foster understanding can significantly enhance our self-concept.

The new study sought to investigate the impact of perceived understanding within personal relationships on individuals’ self-concepts. The researchers were particularly interested in how feeling understood by someone close could make that relationship appear central to an individual’s identity — a phenomenon termed “relationship identification.”

“Relationships shape not only our daily lives but also our perception of ourselves,” said lead authors Sabrina Thai and Emilie Auger, an assistant professor at Brock University and a lecturer at Collège Ahuntsic, respectively. “For some people, a specific relationship may be crucial in defining who they are: They recognize the relationship as part of their self-concept and personally value it. We would say that they identify with that specific relationship. In the scientific literature, these people would be described as high in relationship identification.”

“Research has shown that identifying with a relationship helps individuals deal with relationship challenges when they arise in ways that help to maintain and protect the relationship. Thus, we were interested in understanding what experiences foster this sense of identification.”

“We reasoned that feeling understood can resonate deeply with who individuals are, and it could be one way through which individuals come to value a relationship more. Valuing the relationship more would make it more likely that it will be incorporated into their sense of self. When people feel understood, they feel like another person gets them and gets how they see themselves and the world, which may make them feel like everything makes more sense.”

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“Feeling understood can be such a powerful experience, distinct from feeling cared for, that we wanted to explore its implications for individuals and their relationships,” the researchers explained. “We were interested in examining the impact of feeling understood by a romantic partner or a close friend on an individual’s sense of self.”

To thoroughly examine this, the research team conducted a series of four studies.

In their first study, the researchers employed a person-perception paradigm to test how being understood versus being cared for influenced participants’ perceptions of relationship importance. Participants were presented with scenarios describing two different relational dynamics between “Jane” and her partner “Mike.” In one scenario, Mike was portrayed as understanding but not particularly caring, while in the other scenario, he was depicted as caring but not understanding.

After reading these scenarios, participants evaluated Jane’s relationship identification with Mike. They assessed how integral Mike was to Jane’s identity using a series of questions designed to gauge the emotional and cognitive significance Jane attached to her relationship with Mike.

The sample for Study 1 included 124 men, 136 women, and 1 gender-fluid individuals who had an average age of approximately 39 years. The sample included both individuals who were in a relationship and those who were not.

Participants rated Jane’s identification with her relationship significantly higher when her partner, Mike, was described as understanding rather than just caring. This suggests that being understood, rather than merely cared for, is a stronger predictor of relationship significance in one’s self-concept.

The second study took a longitudinal approach, tracking the evolution of participants’ feelings of being understood and their relationship identification over an eight-month period. Initially, participants provided ratings of how much they felt understood, accepted, and cared for by their partners, as well as the importance of their relationship to their self-concept. These measures were reassessed after eight months to observe how initial feelings of being understood predicted changes in relationship identification.

The sample for Study 2 included 118 romantically involved participants. They had an average age of about 28 years and were involved in relationships of varying commitment levels, from dating to married.

The researchers found that the extent to which participants felt understood by their partners predicted an increase in how central the relationship was to their self-concept over time. This finding underscores the lasting impact of understanding on relationship dynamics. The researchers also used a cross-lagged panel model, which demonstrated that felt understanding leads to greater relationship identification rather than identification fostering understanding.

In Study 3, the researchers implemented an “ease-of-retrieval” technique to explore how the ease of recalling instances of being understood by a partner or friend influenced feelings of understanding and relationship identification. Participants (140 men and 218 women) were asked to recall either a few (easy condition) or many (difficult condition) instances in which they felt understood. This manipulation aimed to affect participants’ perceptions of how well they are generally understood by their close others.

After this task, participants rated their current feelings of being understood and their level of identification with the relationship. This method tested the hypothesis that the difficulty of recalling instances of understanding could subconsciously influence one’s perception of being understood and, consequently, their relationship identification.

Participants who easily recalled instances of being understood (fewer instances required) rated their relationship identification higher than those who found it challenging to recall such instances (more instances required). This indicates that the subjective ease of recalling understanding experiences directly influences one’s perception of being understood and, subsequently, the value placed on the relationship.

The fourth study used a more direct visualization manipulation, where participants (147 men and 207 women) were instructed to imagine a scenario involving sharing a significant but previously undisclosed negative experience with a partner or friend. They then visualized their partner’s or friend’s response as either very understanding or not understanding.

“We chose to focus on negative experiences for two reasons: It can be harder for others to provide support following negative events, and people tend to experience more uncertainty following negative events, making the need for coherence even stronger,” Thai and Auger told PsyPost.

This approach was designed to examine the immediate impact of perceived understanding (or lack thereof) on the participant’s sense of coherence and identification with the relationship. Participants reported on how this imagined interaction influenced their feelings of being understood, their sense of coherence (the feeling that life makes sense), and their relationship identification.

The researchers found that participants who visualized an understanding response reported not only higher feelings of being understood but also a greater sense of coherence and stronger relationship identification. This demonstrated the emotional and cognitive impact of perceived understanding in a controlled experimental context.

“Relative to participants who imagined not feeling understood, participants who imagined feeling understood reported an increase in coherence that in turn explained why they experienced an increase in relationship identification,” the researchers said.

Across all studies, the consistent theme was that understanding within a relationship contributed significantly to how individuals perceived and valued their relationships as part of their self-concept.

“Every person has a multifaceted self-concept that contains many parts,” Thai and Auger told PsyPost. “Some parts of the self are only experienced in certain situations. For example, if you are a diehard fan of a sports team, you may only experience the superfan part of your self-concept when you are watching your team play or when you are with other superfans. People have other parts of the self that are experienced in multiple situations.”

“For example, if you are a parent, you may think about being a parent even when you are not with your child and when you’re doing other things, like when you are work. We value these different parts of the self to different degrees. For example, you may value your parent self more than your superfan self.”

“One part of the self that researchers talk about is associated with specific relationships, like your romantic relationship or an important friendship,” the researchers continued. “We were interested in what experiences cause people to experience this part of their self-concept that is associated with a particular relationship or friendship in multiple situations, not just when they are with that person or when they are thinking about that person. This experience should also cause people to value that part of their self-concept more. When people see a specific relationship as part of their self-concept and value this part of the self associated with the relationship, we say they are highly identified with that relationship.”

“Why do we care about whether people value this part of the self more? Well, it actually has many beneficial effects when your relationship is challenged by adversity. For these people, they are less likely to let hurtful things that their partner does affect how they evaluate the relationship overall. For example, if your partner forgets to pick up the dry cleaning after you asked them to, you are less likely to hold it against them when you think about your relationship. You will still think your relationship is great.”

“For people who don’t value this part of the self as much, their partner forgetting to pick up the dry cleaning is going to weigh more heavily in their overall evaluations of the relationship, leading to more negative feelings about the relationship,” Thai and Auger said. “Valuing this part of the self more will also lead people to protect their relationship more readily from threats. Like when someone attractive flirts with you, you’re going to let them know that you’re taken more quickly.”

“We were interested in what experiences led people to value this part of the self more. We predicted that meaningful interpersonal experiences would determine whether you value the part of your self-concept that is associated with that specific relationship. More specifically, we found that feeling understood in a relationship leads people to value this part of the self more. The sense that another person gets you and gets how you see yourself and the world makes you feel like everything makes more sense. People value this feeling that things make sense so much that they will go to great lengths to protect things, like worldviews, and people that provide this feeling.”

While the study provides compelling evidence that feeling understood enhances relationship identification, it also has some limitations. For example, most of the data were self-reported, which can introduce bias. Furthermore, the study’s scenarios might not fully capture the complexity of real-life interactions and the dynamic nature of personal relationships. Future research could explore other contexts where feeling understood might impact one’s self-concept.

“We have shown that, in intimate relationships such as romantic relationships and friendship, feeling understood leads people to value a relationship more and see it a more central part of the self,” Thai and Auger explained. “We are interested in how feeling understood in other contexts might result in a change in the self-concept. One context we are interested in exploring further is between teachers and students. Many students feel like they don’t belong in school. Feeling understood by a teacher might be a singular experience that can meaningfully change how they approach school.”

The study, “On Creating Deeper Relationship Bonds: Felt Understanding Enhances Relationship Identification,” was authored by Emilie Auger, Sabrina Thai, Carolyn Birnie-Porter, and John E. Lydon.