William Ickes

William Ickes is a personality and social psychologist who is known primarily for his research on unstructured dyadic interaction. His first major line of research within this tradition concerns the phenomenon of empathic accuracy ("everyday mind reading"). This research is summarized in his 2003 book Everyday Mind Reading: Understanding What Other People Think and Feel.^[1] His second major line of research concerns the influence of personal traits and characteristics on people's initial interactions with each other. This research is summarized in his 2009 book Strangers in a Strange Lab: How Personality Shapes Our Initial Encounters with Others.^[2]

William Ickes
William Ickes
Nationality	US citizen
Alma mater	University of Texas at Austin
Known for	empathic accuracy
Scientific career
Fields	Personality and social psychology
Institutions	University of Texas at Arlington (Distinguished Professor)
Doctoral advisors	Robert Wicklund, Elliot Aronson

Background

Ickes received his Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology in 1973 at the University of Texas at Austin, where he was trained in the social psychology program. His primary research advisor was Robert Wicklund, although Elliot Aronson was also an important professional mentor during this time. Ickes's first academic job was at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where he initiated the research on unstructured dyadic interaction that he would continue to do throughout his academic career. After leaving Wisconsin, he taught briefly at the University of Missouri-St. Louis (1979–1982). He returned to Texas in 1982 to begin his employment at the University of Texas at Arlington, where he has been for over 30 years. He was a visiting professor at the University of Washington in 1992; a Visiting Erskine Fellow at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand in 1999;^[3] and an International Francqui Chair at Ghent University and the Catholic University of Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium, in 2005.^[4]

Empathic accuracy (everyday mind reading)

Ickes has published widely on the topic of empathic accuracy, both alone and in collaboration with various colleagues. The study of empathic accuracy has become an important subfield at the interface of two larger fields of study: research on empathy and research on accuracy in interpersonal perception. Much of the available research on this topic is summarized in two books: Empathic Accuracy (1997) and Everyday Mind Reading (2003).

Ickes's books and articles on empathic accuracy currently comprise about 60 publications. His research has helped to answer several important questions about “everyday mind reading.” Do women display greater empathic accuracy than men? The answer is that on some occasions they do, but primarily because of greater empathic motivation rather than greater empathic ability.^[5][6] Do friends display greater empathic accuracy than strangers? The answer is yes, because friends have shared more of their experiences—both directly and indirectly via their discussions—than strangers have, and therefore know each other's minds better.^[7][8] Do abusive husbands display an impaired ability to "read" their wives' thoughts and feelings? The answer is yes, and abusive husbands do not show a similar deficit in “reading” the thoughts and feelings of other men's wives.^[9][10][11] Does our empathic accuracy depend more on the words other people use and how they say them, or on their nonverbal behavior such as their facial expressions and body postures? The answer is that when all of these sources of information are available, our empathic accuracy generally depends most on what other people say, next-most on their paralinguistic cues (the pitch, inflection, and amplitude of their voice, for example), and least on their nonverbal behaviors.^[12]

To explore the motivational aspects of empathic accuracy, William Ickes and Jeffry Simpson proposed their empathic accuracy model, which is perhaps the most influential theory in this area of research.^[13][14] In this model, they argued that although greater empathic accuracy usually enhances people's relationships, there are occasions when people are motivated to be empathically inaccurate and avoid knowing what their relationship partner is thinking and feeling. The phenomenon of motivated inaccuracy that was introduced in the model has been substantiated in a number of studies^[15][16] and has been linked to both avoidant and anxious-ambivalent attachment styles.^[17][18]

In another important and long-term collaboration, William Ickes was involved in the series of studies that Lesley Verhofstadt and her Belgian colleagues conducted on the role of empathic accuracy in the social support displayed by married couples. Their findings showed that empathic accuracy is useful in identifying the particular kind of support that one's partner needs, so that the “right” type and amount of support can be provided.^[19][20][21]

In 2008, Ickes published the chapter "Mind-Reading Superheroes: Fiction and Fact" in an edited book titled The Psychology of Superheroes.^[22] After comparing the mind reading that fictional superheroes do with the mind reading that lesser mortals do in their everyday lives, he concluded that "For me, science doesn't spoil the wonder of mind reading: it deepens and enhances it. And speaking of life's many wonders, who would have thought that the kid who read so many comics about superheroes back in the 1950s would grow up to be The Man Who Measured Mind Reading? I never would have thought it, but the wonder of it all is that I was that kid!" (p. 133)^[22]

Personality influences on strangers' interactions

Using the unstructured dyadic interaction paradigm,^[23] Ickes and his colleagues have explored the influences of many personal characteristics and personality traits on the interactions between strangers. More specifically, they have examined the influences of such personal characteristics as the participants' gender, their birth order,^[24] their race/ethnicity,^[25][26] and their physical attractiveness.^[27] They have also examined the effects of various personality traits such as androgyny,^[28][29] the Big Five personality traits, shyness,^[27] and self-monitoring.^[30] This research is summarized in Strangers in a Strange Lab (2009).

Other contributions

In addition to his work on empathic accuracy, Ickes has made a broader contribution to the study of intersubjective social cognition.^[31] His 1994 article with Richard Gonzalez^[32] was the first to draw a strong distinction between subjective social cognition, which occurs entirely in one person's mind and concerns either imagined, reflected-upon, or anticipated interaction, and intersubjective social cognition, which occurs during an actual, ongoing social interaction and involves the intersubjective experience of the interaction partners. Subsequent papers^[33][34][35] have elaborated this distinction, which owes much to the existentialist influence of writers such as Alfred Schütz and Maurice Merleau-Ponty.

Similarly, Ickes's development of a method for measuring empathic accuracy is only part of his broader contribution in applying innovative methods to the study of naturalistic social cognition. Some of these methods enable the assessment and content analysis of the actual thoughts and feelings that interaction partners report,^[36] and they also permit an exploration of the intersubjective themes that characterize the interactions of different dyad types.^[37] In addition, by comparing the linguistic content of people's self-reported thoughts with the linguistic content of their self-reported feelings, Ickes and Cheng (2011)^[38] were able to delineate several ways in which thoughts differ from feelings. In more recent research, Ickes and his colleagues have studied how latent semantic similarity (LSS) develops in dyadic interactions.^[39][40]

Ickes's interest in personality is also evident in the various personality measures that he and his colleagues have developed. These measures assess the constructs of adherence to conventional morality,^[41] internal-external correspondence,^[42] self-motivation,^[43] social absorption and social individuation,^[44][45] and strength of sense of self.^[46][47][48] More recently, he and his colleagues have developed other measures to assess the constructs of thin-skinned ego-defensiveness, affect intensity for anger and frustration, and rudeness.^[49][50][51] They have also published psychometric articles on (a) the pitfalls of using item variance as a measure of "traitedness"^[52][53] and (b) the reduction in internal consistency that results from inter-item "context switching."^[54][55]

In collaboration with William Schweinle and other colleagues, William Ickes participated in an extensive study of the psychology of maritally aggressive men. Over the course of four studies, Schweinle, Ickes, and their colleagues found that maritally aggressive men are especially inaccurate when inferring their own wives' thoughts and feelings,^[56] and that a major source of this deficit is their biased belief that women harbor critical and rejecting thoughts and feelings about their male partners. This biased perception of women as being critical and rejecting appears to help justify the men's marital aggression in their own minds, and it is a bias that they seek to preserve through tactics such as disattending a women's complaints and reacting to such communications with feelings of contempt rather than sympathy. In general, maritally aggressive men appear to be angry, egocentric individuals.^[57] For some of these men, marital abuse is the product of a sudden impulse; for others, it is the product of a built-up resentment that has its origin in the biased perception that women harbor critical and rejecting thoughts and feelings about their male partners. These findings have clearcut implications for the treatment of abusive behavior in maritally aggressive men.

Finally, Ickes developed a theory of how people's sex roles (gender roles) affect their behavior and experience in initial interactions.^{[58][59][60][57]} The impact of this theory has so far been quite limited, perhaps because it did not receive much attention when the original version of the theory was published in 1981.^[58] Ironically, however, a spin-off article titled "Traditional Gender Roles: Do They Make, and then Break, our Relationships?" has been read and/or downloaded more than 10,000 times from the ResearchGate website.^[61]

Ickes has, to date, written or co-authored more than 180 publications, which include books, book chapters, journal articles, commentaries, and reviews. Along with John H. Harvey and Robert F. Kidd, he was a co-editor of the three-volume series New Directions in Attribution Research.

Books

Ickes has published two single-authored books:

• Everyday Mind Reading: Understanding What Other People Think and Feel (2003)
• Strangers in a Strange Lab: How Personality Shapes Our Initial Encounters with Others (2009)

He has also published several edited (or co-edited) books:

• Harvey, J., Ickes, W., & Kidd, R. (Eds.) (1976). New directions in attribution research. Vol. 1. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
• Harvey, J., Ickes, W., & Kidd, R. (Eds.) (1978). New directions in attribution research. Vol. 2. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
• Harvey, J., Ickes, W., & Kidd, R. (Eds.) (1981). New directions in attribution research. Vol. 3. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
• Ickes, W., & Knowles, E.S. (Eds.) (1982). Personality, roles, and social behavior. New York: Springer-Verlag.
• Ickes, W. (Ed.) (1985). Compatible and incompatible relationships. New York: Springer-Verlag.
• Duck, S.W., Hay, D.F., Hobfoll, S.E., Ickes, W., & Montgomery, B., (Eds.), (1988). Handbook of personal relationships: Theory, research, and interventions (1st ed.). Chichester, UK: Wiley.
• Duck, S.W., Dindia, K., Ickes, W., Milardo, R.M., Mills, R., & Sarason, B. (Eds.) (1997). Handbook of personal relationships: Theory, research, and interventions (2nd ed.). Chichester, UK: Wiley.
• Ickes, W. (Ed.) (1997). Empathic accuracy. New York: Guilford Press.^[62]
• Decety, J., & Ickes, W. (Eds.) (2009). The social neuroscience of empathy. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.^[63]
• Smith, J.L., Ickes, W., Hall, J., & Hodges, S.D. (Eds.). (2011). Managing interpersonal sensitivity: Knowing when—and when not—to understand others. New York: Nova Science.

References

1. [1]^{[dead link]}
2. [2]^{[dead link]}
3. "Erskine Programme".
4. [3]^{[dead link]}
5. Graham, T., & Ickes, W. (1997). When women's intuition isn't greater than men's. In W. Ickes (Ed.), Empathic accuracy (pp. 117-143). New York: Guilford Press.,
6. Ickes, W.; Gesn, P.R.; Graham, T. (2000). "Gender differences in empathic accuracy: Differential ability or differential motivation?". Personal Relationships. 7: 95–109. doi:10.1111/j.1475-6811.2000.tb00006.x.
7. Stinson, L.; Ickes, W. (1992). "Empathic accuracy in the interactions of male friends versus male strangers". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 62 (5): 787–797. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.62.5.787.
8. Colvin, C.R., Vogt, D.S., & Ickes, W. (1997). "Why do friends understand each other better than strangers do?" In W. Ickes (Ed.), Empathic accuracy (pp. 169-193). New York: Guilford Press.
9. Schweinle, W.E.; Ickes, W.; Bernstein, I.H. (2002). "Empathic inaccuracy in husband to wife aggression: The overattribution bias". Personal Relationships. 9 (2): 141–159. doi:10.1111/1475-6811.00009.
10. Schweinle, W.; Ickes, W. (2007). "The role of men's critical/rejecting overattribution bias, affect, and attentional disengagement in marital aggression". Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology. 26 (2): 173–198. doi:10.1521/jscp.2007.26.2.173.
11. Clements, K.; Holtzworth-Munroe, A.; Schweinle, W.; Ickes, W. (2007). "Empathic accuracy of intimate partners in violent versus nonviolent relationships". Personal Relationships. 14 (3): 369–388. doi:10.1111/j.1475-6811.2007.00161.x. hdl:10106/11330.
12. Gesn, P.R.; Ickes, W. (1999). "The development of meaning contexts for empathic accuracy: Channel and sequence effects". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 77 (4): 746–761. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.77.4.746.
13. Ickes, W., & Simpson, J. (1997). "Managing empathic accuracy in close relationships." In W. Ickes (Ed.), Empathic accuracy (pp. 218-250). New York: Guilford Press.
14. Ickes, W., & Simpson, J. (2001). "Motivational aspects of empathic accuracy." In G.J.O. Fletcher & M.S. Clark (Eds.), Interpersonal Processes: Blackwell Handbook in Social Psychology (pp. 229-249). Oxford, UK: Blackwell.
15. Simpson, J.; Ickes, W.; Blackstone, T. (1995). "When the head protects the heart: Empathic accuracy in dating relationships". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 69 (4): 629–641. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.69.4.629.
16. Simpson, J.A.; Oriña, M.M.; Ickes, W. (2003). "When accuracy hurts, and when it helps: A test of the empathic accuracy model in marital interactions". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 85 (5): 881–893. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.85.5.881. hdl:10106/11353. PMID 14599251.
17. Simpson, J.A.; Ickes, W.; Grich, J. (1999). "When accuracy hurts: Reactions of anxious-uncertain individuals to a relationship-threatening situation". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 76 (5): 754–769. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.76.5.754. hdl:10106/11354.
18. Simpson, J.A.; Kim, J.S.; Fillo, J.; Ickes, W.; Rholes, S.; Oriña, M.M.; Winterheld, H.A. (2011). "Attachment and the management of empathic accuracy in relationship threatening situations". Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. 37 (2): 242–254. doi:10.1177/0146167210394368. PMC 6022365. PMID 21239597.
19. Verhofstadt, L.L.; Buysse, A.; Ickes, W.; DeClerq, A.; Peene, O.J. (2005). "Conflict and support interactions in marriage: An analysis of couples' interactive behavior and on-line cognition". Personal Relationships. 12: 23–42. doi:10.1111/j.1350-4126.2005.00100.x.
20. Verhofstadt, L.L.; Buysse, A.; Ickes, W.; Davis, M.; Devoldre, I. (2008). "Support provision in marriage: The role of emotional linkage and empathic accuracy". Emotion. 8 (6): 792–802. doi:10.1037/a0013976. PMID 19102590.
21. Verhofstadt, L., Devoldre, I., Buysse, A., Stevens, M., Hinnekens, C., Ickes, W., & Davis, M. (in press). "The role of cognitive and affective empathy in spouses’ support interactions: An observational study." PLOS ONE.
22. Ickes, W. (2008). "Mind-reading superheroes: Fiction and fact." Robin S. Rosenberg, Ed., The psychology of superheroes: An unauthorized exploration (pages 119-134). Dallas, TX: Benbella Books, Inc.
23. Ickes, W., Bissonnette, V., Garcia, S., & Stinson, L. (1990). "Implementing and using the dyadic interaction paradigm." In C. Hendrick & M. Clark (Eds.), Review of Personality and Social Psychology: Volume 11, Research Methods in Personality and Social Psychology, (pp. 16-44). Newbury Park, CA.: Sage.
24. Ickes, W.; Turner, M. (1983). "On the social advantages of having an older, opposite-sex sibling: Birth order influences in mixed-sex dyads". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 45: 210–222. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.45.1.210.
25. Ickes, W (1984). "Compositions in black and white: Determinants of interaction in interracial dyads". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 47 (2): 330–341. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.47.2.330.
26. Holloway, R.A.; Waldrip, A.M.; Ickes, W. (2009). "Evidence that a simpático self-schema accounts for differences in the self-concepts and social behavior of Latinos versus Whites (and Blacks)". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 96 (5): 1012–1028. doi:10.1037/a0013883.
27. Garcia, S.; Stinson, L.; Ickes, W.; Bissonnette, V.; Briggs, S.R. (1991). "Shyness and physical attractiveness in mixed-sex dyads". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 61: 35–49. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.61.1.35.
28. Ickes, W.; Barnes, R.D. (1978). "Boys and girls together--and alienated: On enacting stereotyped sex roles in mixed-sex dyads". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 36 (7): 669–683. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.36.7.669.
29. Ickes, W.; Schermer, B.; Steeno, J. (1979). "Sex and sex role influences in same-sex dyads". Social Psychology Quarterly. 42 (4): 373–385. doi:10.2307/3033807. JSTOR 3033807.
30. Ickes, W.; Barnes, R.D. (1977). "The role of sex and self-monitoring in unstructured dyadic interactions". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 35 (5): 315–330. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.35.5.315.
31. [4]^{[dead link]}
32. Ickes, W.; Gonzalez, R. (1994). "Social cognition and social cognition: From the subjective to the intersubjective". Small Group Research. 25 (2): 294–315. doi:10.1177/1046496494252008.
33. Ickes, W.; Dugosh, J.W. (2000). "An intersubjective perspective on social cognition and aging". Basic and Applied Social Psychology. 22 (3): 157–167. doi:10.1207/s15324834basp2203_4.
34. Ickes, W. (2002). "Subjective and intersubjective paradigms for the study of social cognition". The New Review of Social Psychology. 1: 112–121.
35. Ickes, W. (2002). Forgas, J.P.; Williams, K.D. (eds.). "The social self in subjective and intersubjective research paradigms". The Social Self: Cognitive, Interpersonal and Intergroup Perspectives: 205–218.
36. Ickes, William; Robertson, Eric; Tooke, William; Teng, Gary (1986). Ickes, William; Robertson, E.; Tooke, W.; Teng, G. (eds.). "Naturalistic social cognition: Methodology, assessment, and validation". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 51: 66–82. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.51.1.66.
37. Ickes, W.; Tooke, W.; Stinson, L.; Baker, V.L.; Bissonnette, V. (1988). "Naturalistic social cognition: Intersubjectivity in same-sex dyads". Journal of Nonverbal Behavior. 12: 58–84. doi:10.1007/bf00987352.
38. Ickes, William; Cheng, W. (2011). "How do thoughts differ from feelings?: Putting the differences into words". Journal of Language and Cognitive Processes. 26: 1–23. doi:10.1080/01690961003603046. hdl:10106/11336.
39. Babcock, M.; Ta, V.; Ickes, William (2014). "Latent semantic similarity and language style matching in initial dyadic interactions". Journal of Language and Social Psychology. 33: 76–86.
40. Ta, V.; Babcock, M.; Ickes, William (2017). "Developing latent semantic similarity in initial, unstructured interactions: The words may be all you need". Journal of Language and Social Psychology.
41. Tooke, W.S.; Ickes, William (1988). "A measure of adherence to conventional morality". Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology. 7 (3–4): 310–334. doi:10.1521/jscp.1988.6.3-4.310.
42. Ickes, William; Teng, G. (1987). "Refinement and validation of Brickman's measure of internal-external correspondence". Journal of Research in Personality. 21 (3): 287–305. doi:10.1016/0092-6566(87)90012-2.
43. Dishman, R.K.; Ickes, William (1981). "Self-motivation and adherence to therapeutic exercise". Journal of Behavioral Medicine. 4 (4): 421–438. doi:10.1007/bf00846151.
44. Ickes, W.; Hutchison, J.; Mashek, D. (2004). D. Mashek; A. Aron (eds.). "Closeness as intersubjectivity: Social absorption and social individuation". The Handbook of Closeness and Intimacy: 357–373.
45. Charania, M.R.; Ickes, William (2007). "Predicting marital satisfaction: Social absorption and individuation versus attachment anxiety and avoidance". Personal Relationships. 14 (2): 187–208. doi:10.1111/j.1475-6811.2007.00150.x.
46. Flury, J.; Ickes, William (2007). "Having a weak versus strong sense of self: The Sense of Self Scale (SOSS)". Self and Identity. 6 (4): 281–303. doi:10.1080/15298860601033208.
47. Ickes, William; Park, A.; Johnson, A. (2012). "Linking identity status to strength of sense of self: Theory and validation". Self and Identity. 11 (4): 533–544. doi:10.1080/15298868.2011.625646.
48. Cuperman, R.; Robinson, R.L.; Ickes, William (2014). "On the malleability of self-image in individuals with a weak sense of self". Self and Identity. 13: 1–23. doi:10.1080/15298868.2012.726764.
49. Ickes, W., Park, A., & Robinson, R. L. (2012). "F#!%ing rudeness: Predicting the propensity to verbally abuse others." Journal of Language and Social Psychology.
50. Park, A., Robinson, R.L., & Ickes, W. (2013). "More f#!%ing rudeness: Reliable personality predictors of verbal rudeness and other ugly confrontational behaviors." Journal of Aggression, Conflict, and Peace Research.
51. Park, A., Robinson, R.L., Babcock, M.J., & Ickes, W. (in press). "Behavioral validation of the Rudeness Scale: Evidence from retrospective and prospective research." Journal of Aggression, Conflict, and Peace Research.
52. Bissonette, V.L., Ickes, W., Bernstein, I.H., & Knowles, E.S. (1990). "Personality moderating variables: A warning about statistical artifact and a comparison of analytic techniques." Journal of Personality, 58, 567-587.
53. Bissonette, V.L., Ickes, W., Bernstein, I.H., & Knowles, E.S. (1990). "Item variance and median splits: Some discouraging and disquieting findings." Journal of Personality, 58, 595-601.
54. Hamby, T.; Ickes, W. (2015). "Do the readability and average item length of personality scales affect their reliability?: Some meta-analytic answers". Journal of Individual Differences. 36: 54–63. doi:10.1027/1614-0001/a000154.
55. Hamby, T., Babcock, M., & Ickes, W. (in press). "Evidence for 'context switching' in the effects of average item length and item-length variability on internal consistency." Journal of Personality Assessment.
56. Moon, B.; Blurton, D.; McCluskey, J. D. (2007). "General Strain Theory and Delinquency: Focusing on the Influences of Key Strain Characteristics on Delinquency". Crime & Delinquency. 54 (4): 582–613. doi:10.1177/0011128707301627.
57. Schweinle, W.; Ickes, W.; Rollings, K.; Jacquot, C. (2010). "Maritally aggressive men: Angry, egocentric, impulsive and/or biased". Journal of Language and Social Psychology. 29 (4): 399–424. doi:10.1177/0261927x10377988.
58. Ickes, W. (1981). "Sex-role influences in dyadic interaction: A theoretical model." In C. Mayo and N. Henley (Eds.), Gender and nonverbal behavior (pp. 95-128). New York: Springer-Verlag.
59. Ickes, W. (1985). "Sex-role influences on compatibility in relationships." In W. Ickes(Ed.), Compatible and incompatible relationships (pp. 187-207). New York: Springer-Verlag.
60. Ickes, W. (2009). Strangers in a strange lab: How personality shapes our initial encounters with others. New York: Oxford University Press. (Chapter 7)
61. Ickes, W (1993). "Traditional gender roles: Do they make, and then break, our relationships?". Journal of Social Issues. 49 (3): 71–86. doi:10.1111/j.1540-4560.1993.tb01169.x.
62. "Empathic Accuracy".
63. [5]^{[dead link]}