They don’t understand us: implications of felt understanding for psychological well-being in diverse communities

Abstract

Feeling personally understood as an individual within interpersonal contexts is linked to greater psychological well-being, but are interpersonal situations the only contexts in which people desire to feel understood by others? We theorize that individuals also experience greater psychological well-being when they feel that their social group and their group’s identity is understood by people outside their group. Furthermore, we examined whether felt understanding differs for members of marginalized (vs. dominant) groups in society. In Study 1 (nStudy1a = 236; nStudy1b = 275), two independent ethnically diverse samples revealed that people of color on average experienced lower levels of felt understanding than White people. Additionally, on average felt understanding was more robustly related to people of color’s well-being relative to White people’s well-being. Study 2 (n = 254) extended these results by examining LGBTQ2S+ community members’ experiences longitudinally across Pride month using a three-wave panel design. We found that people’s average levels of felt understanding over the three assessment periods were significantly related to their psychological well-being. Taken together, our work reveals both similarities and potential differences in how members of dominant and marginalized groups experience and are impacted by a sense of felt understanding within intergroup contexts.