New psychology study reveals we consistently underestimate our power in close relationships

A new study published in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin suggests that people consistently underestimate how much influence they have over their romantic partners and friends. This misperception tends to be stronger in individuals who are highly focused on protecting themselves or maintaining control, which provides evidence that personal insecurities shape how we view our close relationships. By recognizing this hidden influence, individuals might find healthier ways to communicate and resolve conflicts with their loved ones.

In psychological research, power is defined as the perceived ability to steer mutual decisions and get personal needs met, rather than simply dominating another person. Previous research indicates that people who feel powerless often hide their true needs, experience lower overall well-being, and sometimes act aggressively to regain a sense of control.

It was previously unclear if these negative outcomes happen because people actually lack influence or because they mistakenly believe they are powerless. The researchers wanted to test the idea that individuals might systematically underestimate their power to avoid making costly social mistakes. This concept is based on error management theory, which proposes that human brains evolved to make safer errors rather than dangerous ones.

According to this theory, overestimating one’s power could lead to selfish behavior and eventual relationship breakdown, making it a highly damaging social mistake. Underestimating power encourages cooperation and consistent relationship maintenance, which is a much safer evolutionary strategy. The scientists wanted to see if this protective bias actually exists in modern friendships and romantic partnerships.

“We wondered whether people can accurately assess their level of power in their close relationships. In relationship contexts, power refers to the ability to influence one’s partner to get one’s needs, wishes, and goals fulfilled. However, only the partner can report how influenced they actually feel. Therefore, we used advanced data analyses to examine whether people can accurately judge how much power they have over their partner,” said study author Robert Körner of the Department of Psychology at the University of Bamberg.

The scientists analyzed data from four distinct samples containing a total of 1,304 dyads, which are paired sets of two people. The samples included 305 friendship pairs in Germany, 87 same-gender romantic couples in Germany, 481 man and woman couples in Germany, and 431 man and woman couples in New Zealand. All participants were adults, and the couples had been in their respective relationships for varying lengths of time, ranging from one month to several decades.

Participants completed detailed surveys completely independently from their partners or friends. They rated their own perceived ability to influence their partner’s opinions and decisions, which served as a measure of their perceived power. At the exact same time, their partners reported how much they were actually influenced by the participant, serving as a baseline metric for actual power in the relationship.

The researchers compared the participants’ self-reported power against their partners’ reports using a statistical approach called a truth and bias model. This mathematical method allowed the scientists to see if people were accurately tracking their relative influence while still systematically misjudging their absolute level of power. It also measured assumed similarity, which is the tendency for people to believe their partner has the exact same amount of power as they do.

The data revealed that across all four samples, people consistently underestimated their power. Even though participants could accurately tell if they had more or less power compared to other people in the study, their overall estimation of their own influence was objectively lower than what their partners actually reported. Participants also displayed high assumed similarity, meaning they naturally assumed that influence was equally shared even when it was not.

In heterosexual couples, men underestimated their power significantly more than women did. Men also underestimated their influence in romantic relationships to a much higher degree than they did in platonic friendships. The scientists suggest this gender difference might happen because traditional social expectations place intense pressure on men to hold and demonstrate continuous authority.

This societal pressure could make men highly sensitive to any perceived lack of control when depending on a female partner. After establishing this general tendency to underestimate power, the researchers analyzed the survey data to see if specific psychological motives predicted the severity of this bias. They categorized the participants’ personality traits into three main categories: self-protection, power, and pro-relationship motives.

Self-protection motives include traits like attachment anxiety, low self-esteem, and general relationship jealousy. People with these specific traits are highly sensitive to social rejection and often worry that their emotional needs will be ignored by their partners. The data showed that individuals with higher self-protection motives underestimated their power much more severely than secure individuals did.

Power motives involve a strong desire for control and autonomy, often seen in traits like attachment avoidance or psychopathy. Attachment avoidance describes people who try to minimize their emotional dependence on others to avoid feeling trapped or vulnerable. Psychopathy, in this context, refers to a personality trait characterized by low empathy and a tendency to suspect others of having hostile intentions.

The researchers found that people with high power motives also strongly underestimated their influence. This likely occurs because power-motivated individuals view mutual dependence as a direct threat to their personal control, making them hyper-aware of any limitations on their influence. Because they expect others to be manipulative, they assume their own ability to steer the relationship is severely limited.

Pro-relationship motives refer to a person’s level of commitment and desire to maintain the relationship over the long term. Individuals with high commitment scores showed a much smaller underestimation bias compared to other participants in the study. Because highly committed people prioritize teamwork over personal gain, they tend to view power as a shared resource.

As a result of this cooperative mindset, committed individuals feel less threatened by mutual compromise and perceive their own influence much more accurately. While this study provides evidence for systematic biases in how we view relationship dynamics, there are some potential limitations to consider. The data relied entirely on self-reported questionnaires, which means participants’ responses could be influenced by their current moods or a desire to view themselves positively.

Additionally, the scientists only examined general feelings of relationship power rather than looking at specific domains of daily influence. It is possible that people accurately estimate their influence in specific areas like household finances but underestimate their power when it comes to emotional support or physical intimacy. The samples were also drawn exclusively from Western, individualistic countries like Germany and New Zealand.

In more collectivistic cultures, where social harmony is heavily prioritized over individual control, people might downplay their influence to an even greater degree. Future research should investigate how these perceptions operate in different cultural contexts and within professional work settings. Workplaces feature strict hierarchies that might completely alter how people estimate their influence over colleagues and supervisors.

Replicating these psychological findings in larger samples of same-gender couples would also help confirm that these patterns apply universally across all types of romantic partnerships. Helping people recognize that they have more influence than they think could significantly reduce destructive relationship behaviors in the future. By understanding their true capacity to affect their partners, individuals might replace manipulation and emotional withdrawal with open communication.

“People usually underestimate how much influence they have over their partners or friends,” Körner told PsyPost. “This tendency is even stronger among people who are highly motivated by power or who feel insecure in their relationships. This matters because feeling low in power is linked to several detrimental relationship outcomes, including aggression, lower relationship quality, and lower sexual satisfaction.”

The study, “Bias in Perceptions of Power in Close Relationships: The Role of Self-Protection, Pro-Relationship, and Power Motives,” was authored by Robert Körner and Nickola C. Overall.