Accuracy in interpersonal perception: A social relations analysis.

For the past 30 years, the study of accuracy in person perception has been a neglected topic in social and personality psychology. Research in this area was stopped by a critique of global accuracy scores by Cronbach and Gage. They argued that accuracy should be measured in terms of components. Currently, interest in the topic of accuracy is rekindling. This interest is motivated, in part, by a reaction to the bias literature. We argue that modern accuracy research should (a) focus on measuring when and how people are accurate and not on who is accurate, (b) use each person as both judge and target, and (c) partition accuracy into components. The social relations model (Kenny & La Voie, 1984) can be used as a paradigm to meet these requirements. According to this model, there are four types of accuracy, only two of which are generally conceptually interesting. The first, called individual accuracy, measures the degree to which people's judgments of an individual correspond to how that individual tends to behave across interaction partners. The second, called dyadic accuracy, measures the degree to which people can uniquely judge how a specific individual will behave with them. We present an example that shows high levels of individual accuracy and lower levels of dyadic accuracy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Interpersonal perception in group therapy: A social relations analysis.

Although group therapists have emphasized the importance of interpersonal perception and feedback during therapy, there has been little systematic research on how group members form impressions of one another. D. J. Kiesler's (see record 1983-30243-001) interpersonal circle provided a framework for studying interpersonal perception and relations. 27 women and 18 men from 9 time-limited therapy groups reported their impressions of their fellow group members using the Impact Message Inventory, and they also completed 2 self-report scales. A social relations analysis of this data indicated that Ss' perceptions included both assimilation and consensus. There was also a relationship between how Ss saw themselves before therapy and how they were seen by other group members. The results demonstrated the utility of the social relations model for group therapy research and provided modest support for Kiesler's interpersonal circle. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Fathering in family context and child adjustment: A longitudinal analysis.

This study focuses on relations between fathers’ behavior in family context and children’s adjustment, including the roles of paternal depressive symptoms, paternal marital conflict behaviors, paternal parenting, and children’s emotional security. Participants included 235 families with a six-year-old child, with families followed longitudinally each year for three years. In terms of fathers’ adjustment, paternal problem drinking was related to paternal negative marital conflict behaviors and decreased positive parenting, which was associated with children’s externalizing and internalizing problems. Fathers’ depressive symptoms were directly related with children’s internalizing problems. Children’s emotional security was an intervening variable in relations between father’s behavior in family context and children’s development. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Adult attachment styles: Their relations to family context and personality.

This study used a sample of 304 adults to examine mean differences in family climate and personality variables on the basis of individuals' attachment styles. Also examined was whether mean differences varied by age group. Findings showed significant main effects of attachment style, but no Attachment Style X Age Group interactions. Compared with adults with an insecure attachment style, persons with a secure attachment style described their family of origin and their current family more positively and scored higher on personality variables indicative of self-confidence, psychological well-being, and functioning in the social world. When the family climate and personality variables were included in a discriminant function analysis, 2 significant functions were obtained. The 1st function discriminated adults with a positive self-model from those with a negative self-model. The 2nd function contrasted participants with a positive other-model from those with a negative other-model. Thus, this study provided evidence in support of the self- and other-models as the fundamental dimensions of adults' attachment system. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

A social relations analysis of agreement in liking judgments.

Using a round-robin design in which every subject served both as judge and target, subjects made liking judgments, trait ratings, and physical attractiveness ratings of each other on each of 4 days. Although there was some agreement in the liking judgments, most of the variance was due to idiosyncratic preferences for different targets. Differences in evaluations were due to at least 2 factors: disagreements in how targets were perceived (is this person honest?) and disagreements in how to weight the trait attributes that predicted liking (is honesty more important than friendliness?) When evaluating the targets in specific roles (as a study partner), judgments showed much greater agreement, as did the weights of the trait attributes. A 2nd study confirmed the differential weighting of trait attributes when rating liking in general and the increased agreement when rating specific roles. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Agreement and accuracy in children's interpersonal perception: A social relations analysis.

Agreement and accuracy in children's interpersonal perceptions during middle childhood were studied in the school environment. Sociocultural and ecological theories led to the prediction that, in middle childhood, peers' interpersonal perceptions would show high levels of agreement with those of teachers and would be accurate. A social relations analysis of data from a 3-year, cross-sequential study revealed that throughout middle childhood, peer perceptions of cognitive ability, observable behavior and characteristics, popularity, and affect correlated reliably with teacher perceptions. In addition, peer and teacher perceptions of targets' cognitive ability correlated with standardized test scores. Self-other agreement lagged behind teacher-peer agreement. The conceptual and statistical advantages of the social relations analysis of children's interpersonal perceptions were also considered. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The self in context: Implications for psychopathology and psychotherapy.

Views of the self differ in individualist and collectivist cultures. Independence and uniqueness are valued in the former, whereas interdependence and social context are valued in the latter. When there is more than 1 culture in the same context, the competent individual learns to become bicultural. Intrapersonal influences are more prominent in determining psychopathology in individualist contexts, whereas interpersonal influences are more prominent in collectivist contexts. Psychopathology among persons who are bicultural may be determined by both intrapersonal and interpersonal influences. Western psychotherapy has emphasized intrapersonal bases of psychopathology. However, the intrapersonal and bicultural context of psychopathology must be considered for psychotherapy to be appropriate with persons who have been socialized to be interdependent, including ethnic minority persons. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Accuracy of behavioral predictions at zero acquaintance: A social relations analysis.

The accuracy of behavioral predictions based on minimal information was assessed using the Social Relations Model (D. A. Kenny and L. Albright; see record 1988-07424-001). 80 women in unacquainted groups of 4 completed round robin trait ratings and predictions about extraversion-related behaviors. Each S then had a 5-min videotaped 1-on-1 interaction with each of the other group members. Behaviors corresponding to those predicted were coded from the videotapes. Significant consensus was obtained for ratings of Extraversion and for behavioral predictions. Cross-partner consistency emerged for all coded behaviors. Although predictions of behavior were not accurate at the dyadic level, significant generalized accuracy did emerge. Thus, if a person was consensually predicted to be talkative, for example, that person tended to be talkative across partners. Results are discussed in relation to the accuracy of interpersonal perception and W. B. Swann's (see record 1985-04030-001) theory of pragmatic accuracy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Central relationship themes in group psychotherapy: A social relations model analysis of transference.

Group members (N = 55) in 11 therapy groups reported central relationship themes (CRTs) (wishes, responses of others, and responses of self) with other group members and with a romantic partner. Social relations model analyses were used to partition the variance in group member CRT ratings with other members into perceiver, target, and relationship plus error variance components. Significant perceiver variance in member CRT ratings was proposed to serve as a proxy for transference. Overall, significant perceiver variance and mostly insignificant target variance was found, and the perceiver effect accounted for substantially more variance than the target effect. As an exploratory question, the authors wondered to what extent relationship variance accounted for the total variance in member ratings of their CRT. Unfortunately, relationship variance could not be separated from error in this study. Relationship plus error variance accounted for, on average, 42% of the variance in scores. In addition, as a test of the social microcosm of the group theory, it was hypothesized that group member CRTs within the group would relate to member CRTs with a romantic partner outside of the group. Contrary to expectation, this hypothesis was not supported. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The social relations model: A tool for group psychotherapy research.

The social relations model presented in this article provides a solution to some of the problems that plague group psychotherapy research. The model was designed to analyze nonindependent data and can be used to study the ways in which group members interrelate and influence one another. The components of the social relations model are the constant (i.e., group effect), the perceiver effect, the target effect, the relationship effect, and error. By providing estimates of the magnitude of these 5 factors and by examining the relationships among these factors, the social relations model allows investigators to examine a host of research questions that have been inaccessible. Examples of applications of the social relations model to issues of group leadership, interpersonal feedback, and process and outcome research are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Children's interpersonal perceptions: A social relations analysis of perceiver and target effects.

Children's interpersonal perceptions in an academic context were studied from the sociocultural perspective (L. S. Vygotsky, 1978). The authors predicted that with development, judgments of classmates would show increasing impact of the stimulus target (consensus) and decreasing impact of the perceiver's effect. A social relations analysis estimated perceiver and target effects. A 3-year cross-sequential design permitted study of age differences and longitudinal consistency of the effects. Children's interpersonal perceptions were consensual in middle childhood, and target effects increased with development, whereas perceiver effects declined. Target effects were more consistent than perceiver effects across a 3-year period. Target effects for behaviorally based and environmentally cued judgments, however, were more consistent than target effects on judgments of psychological characteristics. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Egocentrism versus protocentrism: The status of self in social prediction.

In this article, the author discusses the limitations of the egocentric view of self in which self serves as an automatic filter, inhibiting access to alternative representations of others' thoughts and feelings. The author then outlines a protocentric model, the self-as-distinct (SAD) model, in which generic representations of prototypic others serve as the default; representations of self, specific others, or categories encode only distinctiveness from generic knowledge about prototypic others. Thus, self-knowledge is distributed both in generic representations in which self and prototypic others are undifferentiated and in a self-representation that encodes distinctiveness. The self-representation does not serve to make predictions about others because it encodes how self differs from the generic representation of others. Predictions that are the same about self and others are protocentric, based on generic knowledge that serves as the default. The SAD model parsimoniously accounts for many inconsistent findings across various domains in social cognition. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Meta-accuracy among acquainted individuals: A social relations analysis of interpersonal perception and metaperception.

Meta-accuracy, knowing how others view the self, was examined using the Social Relations Model. 15 groups of 4–6 acquainted individuals gave self-ratings, perceptions of other group members, and estimated others' perceptions of self (metaperceptions) on the Big Five and Interesting. Individuals also rated liking and metaperceptions of liking. Trait perceptions were consensual, and self–other agreement emerged for most traits. Affect judgments were entirely relational; individuals differentiated among targets. Trait metaperceptions were dominated by perceiver variance. Individuals differed in the impression they believed others generally held about them. Affect metaperceptions, however, were relational in nature. Correlations between perceptions and metaperceptions assessed 2 types of meta-accuracy. Generalized meta-accuracy was obtained for some trait ratings. Affect judgments revealed significant dyadic meta-accuracy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The changed social context of testing.

By contrasting the social context in which tests were developed and the present-day social context, the authors shed light on the controversy about bias in tests. They note that an emphasis on selection—for which tests were designed in the early half of this century—has been largely replaced by widespread concern with equal opportunity. Proponents of tests claim that tests are unbiased because they accurately reflect ability. Critics argue that standardized tests are inappropriate because minority groups have lacked equal opportunity, and therefore their abilities are not accurately assessed. It is argued that current social values demand that testing should now be less concerned with unbiased predictive validity and more concerned with facilitating equal opportunity. (14 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The waxing and waning of the social self: Assimilation and contrast in social comparison.

Past research has revealed that social comparisons often lead to contrast effects in self-evaluation (such that people who encounter a highly talented person come to feel less talented by comparison). In this report, however, it is argued that when people possess confidently held self-views in a particular area, they are unlikely to engage in explicit social comparisons with close others. Instead, they assume that because "birds of a feather flock together," the strengths and weaknesses of their close relationship partners reflect directly (rather than comparatively) on themselves. A cross-sectional survey, a prospective survey, and a quasi-experiment all supported this idea. The implications of these findings for social comparison and for self-regulation are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Government-science relations: The physical and social sciences compared.

A comparison of federal funding of the sciences shows a disproportionate distribution of funds, with the social sciences receiving the poorest treatment. Factors contributing to this may include a difference in the relative rate of research activity between the physical and social sciences and the less advanced state of practical application of the social sciences. The social sciences also may differ in being directly connected to the quality of life, moral and spiritual values, human freedom, and the social fabric. This view has resulted in controversy and led to government restrictions. Such a view, however, is a misperception of the difference between social and physical sciences. In all, the sciences are more similar than dissimilar. With increased support and understanding, the social sciences will make increasing contributions to the national capacity for social change in the future. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A social relations model of observed family negativity and positivity using a genetically informative sample.

The goal of this study was to investigate individual and relationship influences on expressions of negativity and positivity in families. Parents and adolescents were observed in a round-robin design in a sample of 687 families. Data were analyzed using a multilevel social relations model. In addition, genetic contributions were estimated for actor effects. Children showed higher mean levels of negativity and lower mean levels of positivity as actors than did parents. Mothers were found to express and elicit higher mean levels of positivity and negativity than fathers. Actor effects were much stronger than partner effects, accounting for between 18%–39% of the variance depending on the actor and the outcome. Genetic (35%) and shared environmental (19%) influences explained a substantial proportion of the actor effect variance for negativity. Dyadic reciprocities were lowest in dyads with a high power differential (i.e., parent–child dyads) and highest for dyads with equal power (sibling and marital dyads). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Negativity in problematic and nonproblematic families: A multigroup social relations model analysis with structured means.

The aim of the study was to determine whether there are differences in patterns of negativity between families with and without an adolescent with externalizing problem behavior. We used a structured means Social Relations Model in order to examine negativity in multiple levels of the family system. The sample consisted of 120 problematic and 153 nonproblematic families (two parents, two children), who rated the level of negativity in the relationship with each family member. Although a simple mean differences test would lead us to believe that differences in negativity between groups of families can be ascribed to the interaction between parent and adolescent, the results of the present study indicate that these differences are actually related to the characteristics of a problematic child. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

The self and social behavior in differing cultural contexts.

Three aspects of the self (private, public, collective) with different probabilities in different kinds of social environments were sampled. Three dimensions of cultural variation (individualism–collectivism, tightness–looseness, cultural complexity) are discussed in relation to the sampling of these 3 aspects of self. The more complex the culture, the more frequent the sampling of the public and private self and the less frequent the sampling of the collective self. The more individualistic the culture, the more frequent the sampling of the private self and the less frequent the sampling of the collective self. Collectivism, external threat, competition with outgroups, and common fate increase the sampling of the collective self. Cultural homogeneity results in tightness and in the sampling of the collective self. The article outlines theoretical links among aspects of the environment, child-rearing patterns, and cultural patterns, which are linked to differential sampling of aspects of the self. Such sampling has implications for social behavior. Empirical investigations of some of these links are reviewed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The social self in bulimia nervosa: Public self-consciousness, social anxiety, and perceived fraudulence.

Bulimic women appear preoccupied not only with their physical presentation but also with their "social self," how others perceive them in general. This study examined the relationship of the social self to body esteem and to bulimia nervosa. In Phase 1, in which 222 nonclinical women (aged 16–50 yrs) participated, the social-self measures of Perceived Fraudulence, Social Anxiety, and Public Self-Consciousness were negatively associated with body esteem. In Phase 2, 34 bulimic women were compared with 33 Ss scoring high on the Eating Attitudes Test (EAT) and 67 matched controls. Bulimic Ss, high-EAT Ss, and control Ss all differed on Perceived Fraudulence, and bulimic Ss and high-EAT Ss scored higher than control Ss on Public Self-Consciousness and Social Anxiety. The findings strongly support the hypothesized link of social self concerns to body dissatisfaction and bulimia nervosa. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)