Enhanced co-orientation in the perception of friends: a social relations analysis.

Newcomb's (1953) idea of co-orientation (interdependence between two persons' attitudes or perceptions) is used as a framework within which interpersonal perception between friends and acquaintances is examined. The principal question is whether co-orientation effects are stronger for friendship dyads than for acquaintance dyads. More specifically, the study examines the degree to which consensus, assimilation, self-other agreement, and assumed similarity differ. The social relations model is used to analyze a data set that included 16 living groups with 119 friend dyads and 1.668 acquaintance dyads. Results indicate that co-orientation effects are more pronounced in friendship dyads. The increment in co-orientation effects is largely due to similarities in the unique or idiosyncratic perceptions that people have of friendship pairs as well as the unique agreement about others that friends have with one another.

[1]  D. Campbell,et al.  Varieties of projection in trait attribution. , 1964 .

[2]  Susan T. Fiske,et al.  Attention and weight in person perception: The impact of negative and extreme behavior. , 1980 .

[3]  W. Swann,et al.  Why people self-verify. , 1992, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[4]  D. Byrne.  The Attraction Paradigm , 1971 .

[5]  T. Newcomb.  An approach to the study of communicative acts. , 1953, Psychological review.

[6]  P. Wright.  The delineation and measurement of some key variables in the study of friendship. , 1974 .

[7]  M. Rothbart,et al.  On the confirmability and disconfirmability of trait concepts. , 1986 .

[8]  E. E. Jones.  Attribution: Perceiving the Causes of Behavior , 1987 .

[9]  David A. Kenny.  A general model of consensus and accuracy in interpersonal perception. , 1991 .

[10]  O. John,et al.  Determinants of interjudge agreement on personality traits: the big five domains, observability, evaluativeness, and the unique perspective of the self. , 1993, Journal of personality.

[11]  Sampo V. Paunonen,et al.  Consensus in Personality Judgments: Moderating Effects of Target-Rater Acquaintanceship and Behavior Observability , 1989 .

[12]  H. Tajfel,et al.  Social categorization and similarity in intergroup behaviour , 1973 .

[13]  I. Altman,et al.  Social penetration: The development of interpersonal relationships , 1973 .

[14]  D. Funder,et al.  Friends and strangers: acquaintanceship, agreement, and the accuracy of personality judgment. , 1988, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[15]  D. Funder,et al.  Profiting from controversy. Lessons from the person-situation debate. , 1988, The American psychologist.

[16]  David E. Kanouse,et al.  Negativity in evaluations. , 1987 .

[17]  R. Hays,et al.  The Day-to-Day Functioning of Close versus Casual Friendships , 1989 .

[18]  L. Albright,et al.  Interpersonal perception in a social context. , 1990, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[19]  Steven C. Predmore,et al.  Intimates as agents of social support: sources of consolation or despair? , 1985, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[20]  D. A. Kenny,et al.  Interpersonal Perception: A Social Relations Analysis , 1988 .

[21]  D. A. Kenny,et al.  A New Round Robin Analysis of Variance for Social Interaction Data , 1979 .

[22]  Teresa M. Amabile,et al.  Social Roles, Social Control and Biases in Social Perception , 1977 .

[23]  F. Heider.  The psychology of interpersonal relations , 1958 .

[24]  Harry T. Reis,et al.  Relationships as natural categories , 1993 .

[25]  Similarity, contrast, and complementarity in friendship choice. , 1966, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[26]  A. Aron,et al.  Close Relationships as Including Other in the Self , 1991 .