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Summary Articles Interpersonal Relations
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This is a summary of the articles that are used in the third year course Interpersonal Relations at the RUG.
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Articles Interpersonal RelationsLecture 1: Building blocks of interpersonal relations ............................................................................. 2
Epley & Schroeder: Mistakenly seeking solitude (2014) .................................................................... 2
Lecture 2: A self-regulation perspective of interpersonal relations ........................................................ 4
Epley: Solving the (real) other minds problem (2008) ........................................................................ 4
Leary & Guadagno: The sociometer, self-esteem and the regulation of interpersonal behavior (2011)
............................................................................................................................................................. 7
Vohs, Lasaleta & Fennis: Self-regulation in the interpersonal sphere (2018) ................................... 13
Lecture 3: Interpersonal attraction......................................................................................................... 15
Montoya & Horton: A two-dimensional model for the study of interpersonal attraction (2014) ..... 15
Brooks & Neville: Interracial attraction among college men (2016) ................................................ 20
Foo, Simmons & Rhodes: Predictors of facial attractiveness and health in humans (2017) ............. 21
Lecture 5: Rejection and exclusion in interpersonal relationships ........................................................ 22
Buss, Goetz, Duntley, Asao & Conroy-Beam: The mate switching hypothesis (2017) .................... 22
Hojjat, Boon & Lozano: Transgression, forgiveness, and revenge in friendship (2017) .................. 24
Uskul & Over: Culture, social interdependence and ostracism (2017) ............................................. 26
Lecture 6: Power, conflict and aggression ............................................................................................ 27
Baumeister, Bushman & Campbell: Self-esteem, narcissism and aggression (2000) ....................... 27
Brunell & Campbell: Narcissism and romantic relationships (2011)................................................ 28
Lecture 7: Interpersonal relations and positive processes ..................................................................... 30
Srivastava, McGonigal, Richards, Butler & Gross: Optimism in close relationships (2006) ........... 30
McNulty: When positive processes hurt relationships (2010)........................................................... 31
Gordon, Impett, Kogan, Oveis & Keltner: To have and to hold (2012) ............................................ 32
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,Lecture 1: Building blocks of interpersonal relations
Epley & Schroeder: Mistakenly seeking solitude (2014)
Humans are among the most social species on the planet, with brains uniquely adapted for living in
large groups. Feeling socially connected increases happiness and health, whereas feeling disconnected
is depressing and unhealthy. For a species that seems to benefit so much from connecting to others,
why would people in close proximity so routinely seem to prefer isolation instead? There are two
plausible answers to this apparent social paradox. One is that connecting with a stranger in
conversation is truly less pleasant than remaining isolated for a variety of possible reasons. Preferring
isolation in the company of others may therefore maximize one’s well-being. The other is that people
systematically misunderstand the consequences of social connection, mistakenly thinking that
isolation is more pleasant than connecting with a stranger, when the benefits of social connection
actually extend to distant strangers as well.
The pleasure of disconnection?
Modern life provides overwhelming opportunities for social engagement, and so, social connections
have to be regulated. At least some people seem to think that remaining disconnected from strangers is
quite sensible.
Mistakenly seeking solitude?
Connecting with strangers may not bring the same long-term benefits as connecting with friends, but
our interest is in whether connecting with a stranger is less beneficial than remaining isolated
altogether. It is possible that people misunderstand the consequences of distant social interactions such
that people avoid talking to strangers because they expect it will be less pleasant than remaining
isolated, when the opposite may actually be true.
The misunderstanding of the actual consequences of social connection could take at least two
different forms. Research on the impact bias predicts a relatively mild misunderstanding in which
people might expect that connecting with a stranger in conversation will be more negative than
remaining isolated but that it will not be quite as negative in reality as they anticipate. A second
pattern could reflect a more extreme misunderstanding, not just a mistake in the magnitude or duration
of an effect but a mistake in the actual valence of an effect. It is possible, even in situations where
social interaction is neither required nor the norm, that engaging a stranger in conversation may
actually be more pleasant than remaining isolated. This suggests a more profound misunderstanding of
social interactions: members of a highly social species may ignore other people because they expect
that connecting with a stranger will be more negative than remaining isolated when in fact the exact
opposite pattern is true.
Overview of experiments
Nine experiments were conducted, to at least partly explain an apparent social paradox: why people
who benefit greatly from social connection nevertheless prefer isolation amongst strangers.
Results and discussion
Apparently, being talked to by a stranger is every bit as positive as talking to one, regardless of
whether the initiator has a sense of free choice or not. sitting in solitude for 10 minutes is significantly
less pleasant then engaging a stranger in conversation, regardless of whether one is sitting alone or in
close proximity to a stranger.
General discussion
People seem to ignore strangers because they mistakenly think that forming a connection with them
would be systematically unpleasant, whereas isolation would be pleasurable. Humans may indeed be
social animals but may not always be social enough for their own well-being. Of course, life is not
always lived to maximize well-being. People may therefore put off positive interactions because it
comes at a cost for some other goal.
If connecting with a stranger is so much more pleasant than sitting in solitude, then why do
people expect precisely the opposite?
This research broadly suggests that people could improve their own momentary well-being –
and that of others – by simply being more social with strangers, trying to create connections where one
might otherwise choose isolation.
2
,Moderators, likely and unlikely
A likely moderator is the frequency with which people actually connect to strangers. An unlikely
moderator suggested by the experiments is a person’s existing personality.
People do not so much prefer solitude in the presence of strangers as they do a fear of the
negative consequences that might come from attempted interactions. Removing the barrier to starting a
conversation, rather than trying to increase a person’s own trait extraversion, may be the most
effective way to encourage interactions with distant strangers.
Extraversion, social connection and well-being
Prior research suggests that acting extravertedly generally leads to greater positive affect than acting
introvertedly in the same situations.
Qualifications
Of course, these results do not demonstrate that all interactions with strangers will be pleasant.
Moreover, it is suspected that there are some important boundary conditions on the pleasures of
connecting with strangers that these experiments were unable to test.
Concluding thought
Being civil toward distant others or random strangers is typically believed to benefit others. The
results of these experiments, however, join a growing body of research suggesting positive
consequences of prosociality for oneself.
3
, Lecture 2: A self-regulation perspective of interpersonal relations
Epley: Solving the (real) other minds problem (2008)
The Other Minds Problem refers to the fact that people directly experience their own but not others’
mental states and therefore cannot conclude with certainty that other people have any mental states at
all. The average person gets over this problem sometime around the age of 5 and from that point on
makes rapid and routine inferences about others’ thoughts, feelings, intentions, motivations, attitudes,
impressions and goals. Such inferences about mental states can then be used to make predictions about
another person’s behavior. This mind-reading tendency, once formed, is so pervasive that people even
see mental states in all sorts of other agents. Seeing mental states in other agents seems to be no
problem at all. The real other minds problem for most people in their everyday lives is seeing others’
mental states accurately. This is an obvious problem precisely because people do not perceive others’
mental states directly and must instead infer them from a variety of indirect methods. Mind-reading
mistakes can lead to miscommunication, misunderstanding, social conflict and poor decision-making.
A mountain or a mole hill?
People have problems intuiting others’ mental states accurately, but a simple diagnosis of the severity
of this problem is nearly impossible because the target is constantly moving. People are fairly
impressive mind readers in some instances and undeniably terrible in others. Accurate mind reading is
not simply a trait that some people possess and others don’t, but is rather a more variable state that
people can have at some times more than at others.
People seem to know very little about exactly which state they are currently in, and when
exactly they are good mind readers and when they are not. mistakes in mind reading are often masked
because people’s beliefs about themselves and others can be self-fulfilling, because others never reveal
their true thoughts for direct comparison, or because others’ reports of their thoughts and intentions
may be accepted as true when they match our expectations but rejected as lies when they do not.
People engage in mind reading when they reason about others’ beliefs, attitudes, knowledge,
thoughts, or emotional states and also when they make predictions about another’s behavior based on
their underlying mental states.
How? Psychological mechanisms for mind reading
The first tool that people naturally and perhaps even automatically utilize to intuit others’ mental states
is simulating with their own mental states. This simulated experience becomes a useful tool for
intuiting another’s thoughts when people, often correctly, assume from these clear signals that others
would feel similarly.
The individuating information that people acquire about others, or groups of others, comprises
the second tool that people utilize to intuit others’ mental states. Stereotypes, expectations, and
acquired theories about how others’ minds work provides a rich storehouse of information for intuiting
others’ preferences, attitudes, beliefs, intentions, and other mental states.
Everyday observation makes it clear that these two tools – egocentric simulations and
individuating information – can be used as a guide for mind reading, but psychological research
reveals some surprising features about how these tools are actually used. In particular, research
suggests that one’s own perspective is likely to serve as a common default or starting point when
reasoning about others even among full-grown adults, and that individuating information is likely to
be accessed only subsequently to adjust or correct an initial egocentric assessment.
This mental operation of adjusting an initial starting point or default is consistent with the use
of what Tversky and Kahneman called the anchoring and adjustment heuristic. When intuiting the
thoughts of another person, insufficient adjustment from an egocentric default will tend to produce
final judgments biased in the direction of one’s own initial judgment. Although this egocentric
anchoring and adjustment suggests that an egocentric assessment is likely to be a common starting
point for mind readers, it does not suggest that an egocentric assessment will always be the starting
point.
A variety of research findings are consistent with this dynamic anchoring and adjustment
account. First, people tend to make egocentric responses more quickly than non-egocentric responses.
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