Harmonizing hearts: High-quality listening and Kama Muta among listeners and speakers.
Abstract
Kama Muta, a relatively new construct, is an emotion of social connection that describes the feeling of being moved to love through five key dimensions. Despite the growing body of research on the beneficial outcomes of Kama Muta, little is known about its antecedents. To fill this gap, this research focuses on the emergence of Kama Muta during social interactions by specifically examining what triggers this emotion in conversations. The theory on Kama Muta suggests it emerges in response to sudden relationship intensification. We propose that, in conversation, this intensification is most likely triggered by high-quality listening. We examined whether high-quality listening, characterized by undivided attention, understanding, acceptance, nonjudgment, and positive intentions, is associated with Kama Muta for both speakers and listeners. Data were collected across three studies (total N = 1,126), employing scenarios (Study 1), recall (Study 2), and live online conversations conducted via Zoom (Study 3). We found general support for our hypotheses. Specifically, both speakers (Studies 1–3) and listeners (Studies 2–3) experiencing high-quality listening reported greater Kama Muta compared to those exposed to lower quality listening. The consistency of these results varied across different dimensions of Kama Muta. This work offers novel insights into a previously unexplored social behavior that can act as an antecedent of Kama Muta and contributes to the listening literature, which has predominantly focused on the effects on speakers. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these findings. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
How to foster perceived partner responsiveness: High-quality listening is key
Guy Itzchakov, Harry T. Reis, Netta Weinstein
Listening
Social psychologists have a longstanding interest in the mechanisms responsible for the beneficial effects of positive social connections. This article reviews and integrates two emerging but to this point disparate lines of work that focus on these mechanisms: high-quality listening and perceived partner responsiveness. We also review research investigating the downstream consequences of high-quality listening and perceived partner responsiveness: the how and why of understanding the process by which these downstream benefits are obtained. High-quality listening and perceived partner responsiveness, though not isomorphic, are related constructs in that they both incorporate several key interpersonal processes, such as understanding, positive regard, and expressions of caring for another person. We develop a theoretical model for representing how listening embodies one form of interactive behavior that can promote (or hinder) perceived partner responsiveness and its downstream affective, cognitive, and behavioral effects. Finally, we discuss our model’s implications for various social-psychological domains, such as social cognition, self-evaluation, constructive disagreements, and interpersonal relationships.
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When attitudes and habits don’t correspond: Self-control depletion increases persuasion but not behavior
Guy Itzchakov, Liad Uziel , Wendy Wood
Attitudes
Changing attitudes does not necessarily involve the same psychological processes as changing behavior, yet
social psychology is only just beginning to identify the different mechanisms involved. We contribute to this
understanding by showing that the moderators of attitude change are not necessarily the moderators of behavior
change. The results of three studies (Ns = 98, 104, 137) employing an ego depletion manipulation indicate that
although people are more likely to agree with a persuasive message when executive control is reduced they are
not more likely to change their behavior. Rather, under conditions of ego depletion, attitudes became less correlated with behaviors after persuasion. Moreover, in Study 3, we provide an explanation for this phenom-
enon: People are more likely to agree with a persuasive message when depleted but are also more likely to fall back on habits that may conflict with their new evaluations. A mini meta-analysis of the data indicated that ego-
depletion had a medium effect size on the difference between attitude change and behavior change, N = 339, d = −0.51, 95% CI [−0.72, −0.29]. Jointly, these studies suggest an integrative, resource-based explanation
to attitude-behavior discrepancies subsequent to persuasion.
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