Perceptions of Social Behavior

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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.

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