Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society /993 . 3/ (6), 548-550

The relationship between interaction levels and impression formation DANIEL L. WANN Murray State University, Murray, Kentucky and KENNETH A. WEAVER Emporia State University, Emporia, Kansas (Stephen F . Davis, Sponsor) In two experiments, we tested the hypothesis that increases in the level of interaction between a subject and an apparent stranger would result in a more positive impression of the stranger. The research was conducted in both actual (Experiment 1) and hypothetical (Experiment 2) settings. The pattern of results differed significantly between the two settings, with support for the hypothesis being shown only in the hypothetical condition. A discussion centers on gender differences in personal-space needs and the importance of reality in research.

Interpersonal proximity , or the distance between two individuals, appears to be a valid measure of interpersonal attraction (Hare, 1962; Monge & Kirste, 1980; Morton , 1959). For example , Rosenfeld (1965) instructed female introductory psychology students to either gain or avoid the approval of a female stranger. Each subject was given a chair and asked to enter a room where the stranger, a confederate, was seated . Rosenfeld, using a one-way mirror, recorded where the subject sat and measured the distance between her chair and that of the stranger. He found that the subjects who were instructed to gain the approval of the stranger sat significantly closer to this person than those who were asked to avoid this individual's approval. Becker , Gield, and Froggatt (1983) also investigated the relationship between seating position and impression formation. However, instead of studying proximity , these researchers were interested in the types of impressions formed in certain situations. In their study, subjects were presented with a diagram depicting various floor plans of an office, showing the seating position of a student and a professor. They found that the subjects formed impressions that were significantly more formal of the professor seated at a desk across from the student than of the professor seated at a round table next to the student. Although the validity of using proximity as an index of attraction has been documented, little research has investigated the factors contributing to increases in proximity . One possibility is the amount of contact between two individuals. Researchers have found that mere expoThe authors thank Stephen F. Davis for his helpful comments on an earlier version of this manuscript. Requests for reprints should be addressed to D. L. Wann, Department of Psychology, Murray State University, Murray , KY 42071 (e-mail: [email protected]).

Copyright 1993 Psychonomic Society, Inc.

sure to an object can lead to increases in that object's attractiveness (Moreland & Zajonc, 1982; Zajonc , 1968). With regard to the contact between two persons, increases in the interaction between them should produce higher levels of attraction. However , the link between interaction and interpersonal proximity has not been empirically researched. Therefore, in the current investigation, we tested the hypothesis that subjects would decrease the physical distance between themselves and a stranger as their contact with that stranger increased. The research by Becker et al. (1983) is representative of the methodology employed in a large portion of the research on impression formation-subjects are simply presented with a diagram of a social setting and asked to indicate where they would sit. Such a methodology may be problematic in that it artificially portrays the real-life occurrence of impression formation. Participants in this type of research may underestimate powerful situational forces that influence behavior (Ross & Nisbett, 1991) and consequently respond in an unrealistic, albeit honest , fashion. Certainly, the findings from research employing contrived environments differ from those incorporating real-life settings (Mullen, 1991), especially if the research lacks experimental reality for the participants (Aronson, Brewer, & Carlsmith, 1985). This methodological weakness warrants a more ecologically valid approach to impression-formation research (Neisser, 1976). As such, the present research , in addition to investigating the differential effects of various levels of interaction, was an attempt to address the issue of ecological validity, and thus to further explore the utility of interpersonal proximity as a dependent measure. To accomplish this, our hypothesis concerning the impact of various levels of interaction on impression formation was tested in two different settings . Specifically , Experiment 1 was con-

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INTERACTION LEVELS ducted in an actual setting, and Experiment 2 was conducted in a hypothetical setting . EXPERIMENT 1 Method

Subjects and Design . The subjects were 48 (24 of each gender) introductory psychology student volunteers. The participants were blocked on gender and randomly assigned to a 2 (confederate gender : male or female) x 3 (interaction level: no interaction, eye contact, or eye contact with conversation) between-subjects factorial design. Procedure. One fourth of the subjects (all of one gender) were tested at a time . After reading and signing an informed consent statement, the subjects were told that they would be asked to proceed one at a time to another room , enter it, have a seat in any of the chairs, and wait for further instructions . The I7 x 23 ft testing room was vacant except for seven chairs, with a confederate seated in the sixth chair from the door. The confederate was seated so that the subject could see him/her while entering the room . The confederates, taken from another university to ensure their anonymity, were trained to interact with the subject in one of three ways. In the no-interaction condition, the confederates looked at the ground and did not acknowledge the subject as he/she entered the testing room. In the eye-eontact condition, the confederates established eye contact with the subjects and greeted them with a natural smile . Finally, in the conversation condition, the confederates established eye contact, smiled naturally , and said, " Hi, how are you? " The interaction s were carried out as the subjects entered the room , before they sat down. Once a subject was seated, the confederate removed a note card from his/her pocket and recorded the number of chairs that separated them . This measure of proximity was used as the dependent variable, with less interpersonal distance separating the subject and confederate (i .e ., smaller numbers) serving as an indication of increased interpersonal attraction . The subjects were then instructed by the confederate to move to a third room, where they were thoroughly debriefed.

Results A 2 (subject gender: male or female) x 2 (confederate gender: male or female) x 3 (interaction level: no interaction, eye contact, or eye contact with conversation) between-subjects analysis of variance performed on the proximity measure did not support the hypothesis that subjects would sit closer to a stranger as their interaction with this person increased (p > .25). However, the means were in the predicted direction for the no-eontact (M = 3.(0), eye-eontact (M = 2.71), and conversation (M = 2.56) conditions. Only the confederate gender effect achieved statistical reliability [F(1,36) = 5.82,p < .05]; the subjects sat significantly closer to the female (M = 2.46) than the male confederate (M = 3.13) . EXPERIMENT 2 The results of Experiment 1 did not statistically support the prediction that interaction can cause an increase in attraction and that interpersonal proximity is sensitive enough to detect that attraction. To determine whether or not the contradictory results could be attributed to the reallife setting of the study, Experiment 1 was replicated with one exception-it was conducted in an artificial manner. Method Subjects and Design. Again, 48 (24 of each gender) introductory psychology student volunteers were blocked on gender and randomly assigned to a 2 (confederate gender : male or female) x 3 (interaction

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level: no interaction, eye contact , or eye contact with conversation) between-subjects factorial design . Procedure. The subjects, tested in groups of 12, were presented with a diagram of the testing room exactly as it had appeared in Experiment 1. In addition, the participants were instructed to read a scenario describ ing the stranger's gender and the level of interaction. The respondents were then asked to circle the chair in which they would sit.

Results The data were tabulated and analyzed in the same manner as in Experiment I . Consistent with Experiment 1, the subjects across all levels stated that they would sit closer to the female than to the male confederate [F(1 ,36) = 5.58, p < .05]. However, in contrast to Experiment 1, both the subject gender and interaction-level main effects also reached significance . Specifically, the female subjects stated that they would sit closer to the confederate than did the male subjects [F(I,36) = 8.95, P < .01] . The hypothesis concerning the inverse relationship between interpersonal space and interaction was supported [F(2,36) = 9.62, p < .001]. As predicted, the participants in the conversation condition (M = 1.44) believed that they would sit closer to the confederate than did those in the eye-contact condition (M = 1.94), who, in turn, stated that they would sit closer to the stranger than did the respondents in the no-contact condition (M = 2.81) . The only interaction to reach significance was the threeway interaction [F(2,36) = 4.26, P < .05] , which was further probed by using the Newman-Keuls procedure. In viewing Figure 1, two findings become readily apparent. First, with the exception of the male subject-male confederate condition, the distance separating the subjects and confederates decreased dramatically from the nocontact to the eye-eontact condition, whereas little change was exhibited in the eye-eontact to the conversation condition. The Newman-Keuls tests substantiated this pattern of effects . The change in proximity from no contact to eye contact was significant for each of these three conditions, whereas the change in proximity from eye contact to conversation was not statistically reliable . Second, in the male subject-male confederate condition, the distance

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WANN AND WEAVER

separating the subject and the stranger actually increased from the no-eontact to the eye-eontact condition, although post hoc tests indicated that this change was not statistically reliable. However , the decrease in the distance from eye contact to conversation did reach statisticalsignificance. Thu s, the data from Experiment 2 support the hypothesized relationship between interaction and proximity , but perhaps the most interesting finding was the discrepancy between the actual (i.e. , Experiment I) and hypothetical (i.e. , Experiment 2) methodologies. To investigate any significant differences in the responses of the subjects in these settings, a t test comparing the overall means from the two studies was conducted. This analysis showed that the participants in the hypothetical condition (M = 1.96) sat closer to the confederate than those in the actual setting [M = 2.77; t(94) = 3.66, p < .00 1]. DISCUSSION In the present study , we tested the hypothesis that increases in the interaction between a subject and an apparent stranger would result in increased interpersonal attraction, as indicated by the amount of personal space separating the indiv iduals . Our results showed limited support for this prediction in an actual setting and strong support in a hypothetical setting. Below, we discuss in further detail several of the more intriguing finding s of this research. The results from both the actual and hypothetical settings demonstrated that the subjects sat closer to the female than to the male confederate. Thi s fmding extends prev ious work indicating that females often require less personal space than males (Severy , Forsyth, & Wagner, 1979). In addition , in the hypothetical setting , the male subjects tended to maintain a great deal of phys ical distance between themselves and the male confederate, unless the confederate began a conversation. It appears that these subjects were suspicious and believed that they would feel threatened during such an encounter. In fact, other studies have shown that men often perceive another man who invades their personal space as being pushy or homosexual and , subsequently, may become upset in such a situation (Richmond- Abbott, 1983) . The responses from the actual setting failed to stat istically support the hypothesis that increases in interaction levels would result in increases in attraction , as indicated by the proximity measure. This finding also seemingly contradicts research demonstrating that simply increasing an individual 's exposure to an object can increase the attractiveness of the object . However, the methodology of such research fundamentally differs from that employed in the current investigation. First, subjects are typically presented with various objects (such as Chinese characters) for a spec ified number of exposures. After the exposures, the subjects rate the objects ' likability and attractiveness. As a result, the operational definition of increased exposure is simply repetitive presentations of the same stimulus. In our research, increases in exposure were characterized by qualitatively different levels of interaction, versus the quantita-

tive differences typically employed . That is, our participants were exposed to different forms of interaction (e .g. , eye conta ct vs, eye contact plus conversat ion ) rather than simply increasi ng exposure to the same type of interaction (e .g . , varying the number of times subjects view the same face) . Therefore, more work investigating the effects of qualitative exposure is needed to extend and validate the findings reported here . The two studies reported here expand previous resea rch highlighting differences between actual and hypothetical sett ings ( Wann, Weaver, & Davis , 1992). Thu s, when poss ible, researchers should utilize experimental sett ings that mirror real-world environments and must proceed with caution when incorporating hypothetical sett ings into the ir research. In artificial environments such as these, subjects will most likely underestimate certain situational forces impinging upon their behavior and consequently react in an unreal istic manner.

REFERENCES ARONSON, E ., BREWER, M ., &< CARLSMITH, J . P. (1985) . Experimentation in social psychology. In G . Lindzey & E. Aronson (Eds .), Handbook ofsocial psychology (Vol. I, pp. 441-486). Hillsdale, NJ : Erlbaum. BECKER, F. D. , GIELD, B., &< FROGGATT, C. C . (1983) . Seating position and impression formation in an office setting . Journal ofEnvironmental Psychology, 3, 253-261. HARE , A. P. (1962). Handbook ofsmall group research. Glencoe: Free Press. MONGE, P. T . , &< KIRSTE, K . K . (1980 ). Measuring proximity in human organizations. Social Psychology Quanerly , 43, 110-115 . MORELAND, R. L., &< ZAJONC, R. B. (1982) . Exposure effects in per son perception: Familiarity, similarity, and attraction. Journal ofExperimental Social Psychology , 18, 395-415. MORTON , A. S. (1959) . Similarity as a determinant offriendsh ip: A multidimensional study. Princeton: Educational Testing Service. MULLEN , B. (1991). Group composition , salience, and cogn itive representations: The phenomenology of being in a group. Journal ofExperimental Social Psychology, 27, 297 -232. NEISSER, U. (1976 ). Cognition and reality . San Francisco: Freeman. RJCHMONI>-ABBOTT, M. (1983). Masculine andfeminine : Sex roles over the life cycle . Read ing, MA : Addison-Wesley . ROSENFELD, H . M . (1965 ). Effect of approval-seeking induction on interpersonal proximity. Psychological Reports, 17, 120-122. Ross , L. ,&< NISBETT, R. E . (1991) . The person and the situation: Perspectives of social psychology. New York : McGraw-Hill . SEVERY, L. J., FORSYTH, D . R., &< WAGNER, P. J . (1979) . A multi method assessment of personal space development in female and male , black and white children. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 4, 68-86. WANN, D. L., WEAVER, K. A., &< DAVIS, S. F . (1992) . The effects of disposition, situation, and setting on in-group favoritism. Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society, 30, 268-270. ZAJONC, R. B. (1968) . Attitudinal effects of mere exposure. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 9, 1-27.

(Manuscript received June 11, 1993.)