People regularly misjudge how strongly others feel, especially when it comes to negative emotions such as sadness, anger or fear. New research published in Nature Communications shows that, in everyday life, most of us tend to assume that others’ emotions are more intense than those people say they actually feel.
What the researchers did
Psychologists from Israel, the US and the UK ran a survey and seven separate studies with 2,866 participants to see how people read each other’s emotional intensity. They looked at many situations: reading short texts, watching recorded videos and talking in real time, both with strangers and with romantic partners. In each case, the person experiencing the emotion rated how strongly they felt, and another person rated how strong they thought that emotion was.
The key discovery
Across these different settings, observers consistently believed that others were feeling emotions more strongly than those people reported, especially for negative emotions. This “directional bias” appeared in online-style text exchanges, face-to-face chats and even between people who knew each other very well. Interestingly, when asked what they prefer, people said they wanted others to judge their feelings accurately, not to exaggerate them.
Why this bias might be useful
The researchers suggest this pattern could actually serve a purpose. When dealing with strangers, assuming someone is more upset than they say can push us to respond with more empathy and care. In romantic relationships, slightly overestimating a partner’s distress was linked to higher relationship satisfaction, perhaps because it leads to more support and attention.
At the same time, the study warns that overreading strong feelings can backfire in public debates or on social media, where exaggerating others’ outrage can fuel tension and polarization. Overall, the work shows that our minds are not neutral emotion meters, but the bias to think “they feel more than they say” may sometimes help us stay connected.
