0.1 What is subtle about social interaction?  (Page 6/26)

During the encounter itself, A is concerned with eliciting certain responses from B, or with establishing and maintaining some relationship with B. In order to do this, A needs continuous information about B's reaction to his own behavior, so that he can modify it if necessary. A may simply want B to like him, or he may have other quite personal motivations with regard to B, or A may want B to learn, buy, vote, or respond in terms of mainly professional goals which A has. In either case A needs to know what progress he is making with B. He may be concerned with B's attitude towards himself, with B's emotional state, with B's degree of understanding, or with other aspects of B's response.

In some situations A's main concern is with B's opinions, attitudes, beliefs or values. This is obviously true of social survey interviews, but in many more informal situations people want to find out how far their own attitudes have social support from others, and how far their ideas about the outside world are correct. People want positive reinforcement and feedback about their ideas and themselves.

In other situations, for example interviews for personnel selection and personality assessment, the main object may be to assess personality, either in order to understand its clinical origins, or to decide upon its suitability for a given job. In other situations, such as law courts, or interviews with administrators, it is more a matter of deciding what sanctions to apply; here the personality is matched against some social norm of the behavior that is required.

The effect of interpersonal attitudes

If A likes or dislikes B, his judgments of B become systematically affected. If he likes B he will perceive B as liking A, more than he actually does. If A likes B, he also tends to see A in a favorable light, and bias all judgments in a socially desirable direction. This may be the result of interaction: if A likes B he will behave more pleasantly towards B, and elicit more favorable behavior from B.

If A likes B he will see B as more like himself and having more similar attitudes than is really the case. This effect is called assimilation, or simple projection; it would be expected that if A and B are really alike, A's judgments will be more accurate.This kind of projection is quite different from the Freudian kind - in which people fail to see their shortcomings in themselves, and instead believe that other people suffer from them.