Communication and Perception

Interpersonal Gap intro

• gap between what the sender intends to communicate and what the listener perceives

• sender - private knowledge on what they wish to convey, verbal & non-verbal actions

• receiver - decode speaker’s actions, private interpretation

Power of non-verbal communication

• numerous different channels through which information can be transmitted (Hall, 2019)

  → eyes & gazing (eye contact)

  → body movements (posture, hand gestures)

Facial Expressions

• can be controlled: intensify, minimise, neutralise

• hard to control, truth often leaks out

• microexpressions - authentic flashes of our real emotions (Yan et al., 2013)

Verbal Communication : self disclosure

Aron et al., 1997:

• lab experiment to generate closeness

• participants randomly paired up

• answer fixed set of questions

Self-disclosure findings

• revealing personal information to someone else generates closeness (Aron et al., 1997)

• we tend to like people who disclose personal information to us (Slatcher, 2010)

• and we also like people more after we have disclosed (Slatcher, 2010)

Self-disclosure cont.

• disclosure can be “too much too soon” - patience & turn-taking (Buck & Plant, 2011)

• closeness develops based on:

  1) meaningful disclosure

  2) other responds with interest and empathy

  3) other perceived as responsive

Responsiveness

• attentive and supportive recognition of one person’s needs and interests by another

• perceived partner responsiveness:
  → feeling understood

  → feeling valued, respected, and validated

  → feeling cared for

• basis of secure, well-functioning and highly satisfying relationships

Interpersonal gap

accuracy of “reading” other people’s experiences, intentions, behaviours:

• moderately accurate (Nater & Zell, 2015)

• room for interpretation (Tversky & Kahneman, 1974)

Perceptions & Related Social Cognitive Processes

• the attributions we make

• positive illusions

• individual differences in relationship beliefs

Attributions

• explanations we use to understand each other’s behaviour

  → internal - cause is due to the person

  → external - cause is due to something else

Satisfaction and Attributions

• satisfied people make internal attributions for partners’ good behaviour, external for partners’ bad behaviour

• unsatisfied people make external attributions for partners’ good behaviour, internal for partners’ bad behaviour

Satisfaction and Attributions cont.

• people who make internal attributions for partners’ good behaviour, external attributions for partners’ bad behaviour become happier (relationship enhancing)

• people who make external attributions for partners’ good behaviour, internal attributions for partners’ bad behaviour become more unhappy (distress maintaining)

Positive Illusions

• emphasise partners’ positive qualities. minimise faults

• judge partners more favourably than they judge themselves

Advantages of positive illusions

• related to increased relationship satisfaction and stability

• give benefit of the doubt

• minimises conflict

• partner feels good and more secure

partners fulfilling prophecy → our partners may live up to our idealised image of them

Are positive illusions always beneficial?

• depends on how unrealistic the illusions are

• minor illusions smooth social interaction, major illusions minimise problems

• partner’s may feel pressure to live up to ideals

Positive illusions vs. self-verification

PI more beneficial than SV - when relationships are new

SV more beneficial than PI - longer term relationships, when related to aspects of self-concept that are very important

Relationship beliefs

Types of relationship beliefs:

• destiny beliefs: people are either compatible or they are not

• growth beliefs: relationship challenges can be overcome

Relationship outcomes of destiny beliefs

• initially happier with relationship, but when faced with conflict satisfaction declines

• disengage from relationship when there is a problem

• lower satisfaction when associated with challenges

Relationship outcomes of growth beliefs

• people with growth beliefs are constructive, optimistic, committed in the face of conflicts

• longer period of time, fewer one night stands

• try to maintain relationship when there is a problem

• higher satisfaction as work through challenges

Narrowing the interpersonal gap

• expect others to read our minds

• studies on romantic partners and college roommates showed that as relationships progress, accuracy did not increase, but confidence did

• need for communication

How to narrow the gap?

• time, effort, perspective taking

• actively encode information

• construe oneself at higher level of abstraction (see ourselves as we are others)