Larsen chapter 16
Personality and Social Interaction
Selection
Situational selecttion In everyday life, people cthoose to enter some situatons and avoid other
situatons
Decisions are ofen based on personality characteristc of the selector
For example mate decision
Personality Characteristics desired in a long-term romantic partner
Personality traits play a central role in the selecton of mates
Most likely was …
Dependable character
Emotonal stability
Pleasing dispositon
honesty
Intelligence
Humor
Assortative Mating for Personality: The Search for the Similar
Two fundamentally ctompeting sctientifct theoriies have been advanced for who is atracted to whom
Complementariy needs theoriy postulates that people are atracted to those who have
differient perisonality dispositions than they have
Attriacttion similariity theoriy postulates that people are atracted to those who have similari
perisonality cthariactteriisticts.
o More support for the later one
One of the most common fndings in the mate selecton literature—that people are married to
people who are similari to themselves—is a phenomenon known as assoritative matingg
Do People Get the Mates They Want? And Are They Happy?
As a general rule, people seem to get the mates they want in terms of personality.
one's partner's personality had a substantal effect on marital satsfacton
o Specifcally, people were especially happy with their relatonships if they were married
to partners who were high on the personality characteristcs of Agrieeableness,
Emotional Stability, and Openness.
The key to marital happiness is having a partner who is agrieeable, emotionally stable, and open,
regardless of whether the partner departs in specifc ways from what one wants
Having a partner who is agrieeable is an especially striong priedicttori of being happy with one's
marriage for both men and women.
, The personality dispositon of optimism also predicts high levels of satsfacton in romantc
relatonships over tme
There are however larige ctulturial differienctess
Personality and the Selective Breakup of Couples
According to one theory of confict between the sexes, breakups should occur more when one's
desiries arie violated than when they are fulflled
Following the violation of desirie theoriy, we would predict that people cohabitng or are
married to others who lactk desiried cthariactteriisticts, such as dependability and emotonal
stability, will more frequently dissolve the relatonship
emotonal instability has been the most ctonsistent perisonality priedicttori of relatonship
instability and divorce
o they mostly display characteristcs like being veriy jealous
Other studies also point to two other infuences of personality on relatonship satsfacton or diss
satsfacton.
One is similarity in overall personality profle, rather than similarity in individual personality
traits
The second is ctloseness of match between an individual's concepton oo an ideal mate and
their partner's actual personality
In summary, perisonality plays two key rioles in the selecton of mates.
First, as part of the inital selecton process, it determines the mates to whom we are
atracted and the mates whom we desire.
Second, personality affects satsfacton with one's mate and therefore determines the
selectve breakup of couples
Shyness and the Selection of Risky Situations
Shyness is defned as a tendency to feel tense, woririied, or anxious during social interactons or even
when antcipatng a social interacton
Indeed soctially anxious individuals were more likely to engage in relatonship promotng
actvites and were rated as more socially competent when they were surrounded with close
friends
o They also tend to avoid social situatons, resultng in a form of isolaton
Selection in the digital era: Personality expressed using facebook
Several studies show that neuriotictism is positvely correlated to the amount of time spend on
factebook
Mostly in order to avoid loneliness and create a sense of belonging
Narictistict people upload more selfspromotng and sexy images of themselves in their
facebook profle and are more likely to use profane and aggriessive worids when describing
themselves
Extriaverited people report less riegriet over content they uploaded
,Agrieeableness is found to be largely unrielated to Facebook
Together these fndings suggest that personality factors indeed affect the choice and use of social
networking sites
Heavy Facebook users are more likely to believe that other people are happier and have beter lives
than they do
The favorable way in which we tend to priesent ouriselves on Facebook indeed makes otheris believe
we are living enviable lives
Other Personality Traits and the Selection of Situations
Other personality traits have been shown to affect selectve entry into, or avoidance of, certain
situatons
Those who are morie empathict, for example, are more likely to enter situatons such as
volunteeriing for community actvites
Another way personality affects the selecton of situatons to which we expose ourselves is by a
process called affecttive foriectasting
Refers to the accuracy with which we antictipate our emotional rieacttions to a certain future
event
Impactt bias make us overiestimate the length and the intensity of emotons following events
Evocation
Once we select others to occupy our social environment, a second class of processes is set into
moton—the evoctation of reactons from others.
Evocaton may be defned as the ways in which featuries of perisonality elictit rieacttions from
others.
o A peroect example oo the process oo evocaton at work is— a personality characteristic
(in this case, actvity level) evokes a predictable set oo social responses orom others
(hostlity and power struggles)
Aggression and the Evocation of Hostility
Hostile attriibutional bias, the tendency to inferi hostile intent on the part of others in the face of
uncertain or unclear behavior from them.
Because they expect others to be hostle, aggressive people tend to trieat otheris in an
aggressive manner.
Evocation of Anger and Upset in Partners
Personality characters can evoke emotions in others through the acton performed
By far the striongest priedicttoris of evoked anger and upset, however, were the personality
characteristcs of disagreeableness and emotonal instability.
Disagreeable husbands evoked anger and upset in their wives (husbands) in the following
ways:
o being ctondesctending, such as treatng them as if they were inferior;
, o neglectting and riejectting them, such as failing to spend enough tme with them and
ignoring their feelings;
o abusing them, such as slapping, hitng, or spitng; commitng infdelity
Indeed, low agreeableness of the husband was a betteri priedicttori of evoking upset in the wife than
any other personality variable in the study.
The emotonally unstable men tended to upset their wives by demanding too much atenton,
monopolizing the wife's tme, being too dependent, and fying into jealous rages
High in agreeableness and conscientousness and low in neurotcism tended to evoke less
interpersonal conficts
Indeed, studies from the United States, Australia, the Netherlands, and Germany reveal that
agreeableness and emotonal stability are the traits most consistently conducive to evoking
satisfacttion in relatonships
Evocation through Expectancy Confrmation
Expecttancty ctonfrimation is a phenomenon whereby people's beliefs about the personality
characteristcs of others cause them to evoke in others actons that are consistent with the inital
beliefs
Also called selo-oulflling prophecy
o Specifc form of expectancy effect are the Rosenthal efect or the Pygmalion efect
Manipulation: Social Infuence Tactics
Manipulation, or social influence, includes all the ways in which people intentionally triy to cthange
the behavior of others.
A Taxonomy of Eleven Tactics of Manipulation
A taxonomy is simply a ctlassifctation sctheme—the identfcaton and naming of groups within a
partcular subject feld.
Personality and Social Interaction
Selection
Situational selecttion In everyday life, people cthoose to enter some situatons and avoid other
situatons
Decisions are ofen based on personality characteristc of the selector
For example mate decision
Personality Characteristics desired in a long-term romantic partner
Personality traits play a central role in the selecton of mates
Most likely was …
Dependable character
Emotonal stability
Pleasing dispositon
honesty
Intelligence
Humor
Assortative Mating for Personality: The Search for the Similar
Two fundamentally ctompeting sctientifct theoriies have been advanced for who is atracted to whom
Complementariy needs theoriy postulates that people are atracted to those who have
differient perisonality dispositions than they have
Attriacttion similariity theoriy postulates that people are atracted to those who have similari
perisonality cthariactteriisticts.
o More support for the later one
One of the most common fndings in the mate selecton literature—that people are married to
people who are similari to themselves—is a phenomenon known as assoritative matingg
Do People Get the Mates They Want? And Are They Happy?
As a general rule, people seem to get the mates they want in terms of personality.
one's partner's personality had a substantal effect on marital satsfacton
o Specifcally, people were especially happy with their relatonships if they were married
to partners who were high on the personality characteristcs of Agrieeableness,
Emotional Stability, and Openness.
The key to marital happiness is having a partner who is agrieeable, emotionally stable, and open,
regardless of whether the partner departs in specifc ways from what one wants
Having a partner who is agrieeable is an especially striong priedicttori of being happy with one's
marriage for both men and women.
, The personality dispositon of optimism also predicts high levels of satsfacton in romantc
relatonships over tme
There are however larige ctulturial differienctess
Personality and the Selective Breakup of Couples
According to one theory of confict between the sexes, breakups should occur more when one's
desiries arie violated than when they are fulflled
Following the violation of desirie theoriy, we would predict that people cohabitng or are
married to others who lactk desiried cthariactteriisticts, such as dependability and emotonal
stability, will more frequently dissolve the relatonship
emotonal instability has been the most ctonsistent perisonality priedicttori of relatonship
instability and divorce
o they mostly display characteristcs like being veriy jealous
Other studies also point to two other infuences of personality on relatonship satsfacton or diss
satsfacton.
One is similarity in overall personality profle, rather than similarity in individual personality
traits
The second is ctloseness of match between an individual's concepton oo an ideal mate and
their partner's actual personality
In summary, perisonality plays two key rioles in the selecton of mates.
First, as part of the inital selecton process, it determines the mates to whom we are
atracted and the mates whom we desire.
Second, personality affects satsfacton with one's mate and therefore determines the
selectve breakup of couples
Shyness and the Selection of Risky Situations
Shyness is defned as a tendency to feel tense, woririied, or anxious during social interactons or even
when antcipatng a social interacton
Indeed soctially anxious individuals were more likely to engage in relatonship promotng
actvites and were rated as more socially competent when they were surrounded with close
friends
o They also tend to avoid social situatons, resultng in a form of isolaton
Selection in the digital era: Personality expressed using facebook
Several studies show that neuriotictism is positvely correlated to the amount of time spend on
factebook
Mostly in order to avoid loneliness and create a sense of belonging
Narictistict people upload more selfspromotng and sexy images of themselves in their
facebook profle and are more likely to use profane and aggriessive worids when describing
themselves
Extriaverited people report less riegriet over content they uploaded
,Agrieeableness is found to be largely unrielated to Facebook
Together these fndings suggest that personality factors indeed affect the choice and use of social
networking sites
Heavy Facebook users are more likely to believe that other people are happier and have beter lives
than they do
The favorable way in which we tend to priesent ouriselves on Facebook indeed makes otheris believe
we are living enviable lives
Other Personality Traits and the Selection of Situations
Other personality traits have been shown to affect selectve entry into, or avoidance of, certain
situatons
Those who are morie empathict, for example, are more likely to enter situatons such as
volunteeriing for community actvites
Another way personality affects the selecton of situatons to which we expose ourselves is by a
process called affecttive foriectasting
Refers to the accuracy with which we antictipate our emotional rieacttions to a certain future
event
Impactt bias make us overiestimate the length and the intensity of emotons following events
Evocation
Once we select others to occupy our social environment, a second class of processes is set into
moton—the evoctation of reactons from others.
Evocaton may be defned as the ways in which featuries of perisonality elictit rieacttions from
others.
o A peroect example oo the process oo evocaton at work is— a personality characteristic
(in this case, actvity level) evokes a predictable set oo social responses orom others
(hostlity and power struggles)
Aggression and the Evocation of Hostility
Hostile attriibutional bias, the tendency to inferi hostile intent on the part of others in the face of
uncertain or unclear behavior from them.
Because they expect others to be hostle, aggressive people tend to trieat otheris in an
aggressive manner.
Evocation of Anger and Upset in Partners
Personality characters can evoke emotions in others through the acton performed
By far the striongest priedicttoris of evoked anger and upset, however, were the personality
characteristcs of disagreeableness and emotonal instability.
Disagreeable husbands evoked anger and upset in their wives (husbands) in the following
ways:
o being ctondesctending, such as treatng them as if they were inferior;
, o neglectting and riejectting them, such as failing to spend enough tme with them and
ignoring their feelings;
o abusing them, such as slapping, hitng, or spitng; commitng infdelity
Indeed, low agreeableness of the husband was a betteri priedicttori of evoking upset in the wife than
any other personality variable in the study.
The emotonally unstable men tended to upset their wives by demanding too much atenton,
monopolizing the wife's tme, being too dependent, and fying into jealous rages
High in agreeableness and conscientousness and low in neurotcism tended to evoke less
interpersonal conficts
Indeed, studies from the United States, Australia, the Netherlands, and Germany reveal that
agreeableness and emotonal stability are the traits most consistently conducive to evoking
satisfacttion in relatonships
Evocation through Expectancy Confrmation
Expecttancty ctonfrimation is a phenomenon whereby people's beliefs about the personality
characteristcs of others cause them to evoke in others actons that are consistent with the inital
beliefs
Also called selo-oulflling prophecy
o Specifc form of expectancy effect are the Rosenthal efect or the Pygmalion efect
Manipulation: Social Infuence Tactics
Manipulation, or social influence, includes all the ways in which people intentionally triy to cthange
the behavior of others.
A Taxonomy of Eleven Tactics of Manipulation
A taxonomy is simply a ctlassifctation sctheme—the identfcaton and naming of groups within a
partcular subject feld.
