Perceptions of Social Behavior

Abstract

Two experiments examined the difference between college students' perceptions of interpersonal and intergroup social interaction. In the first experiment, subjects rated the extent to which each of 50 personality-trait adjectives described one of these two types of interaction. Factor-analytic techniques yielded two seven-item adjective scales, "agreeableness" and "abrasiveness, " which served as the dependent variables in the two experiments. Subjects in the first experiment described interpersonal behavior as more agreeable and less abrasive than intergroup behavior. In a second experiment to clarify and extend the findings of the first, subjects anticipated interacting either alone or as part of a group (own interaction unit) with either a single other person or a group of others (other interaction unit). This 2 x 2 between-subjects design revealed no difference in the expected agreeableness of the interaction; however, subjects expecting interactions with a group predicted more abrasive interactions than subjects expecting interactions with an individual. Subjects' perceptions parallel typical game-playing behavior between individuals and groups.