A real-time assessment of interpersonal complementarity

Abstract

The principle of complementarity asserts that the interpersonal behaviors of interaction partners tend to complement each other by encouraging partners to act similarly in terms of warmth and opposite in terms of dominance. The current study applied Sadler's computer joystick tracking device (originally designed to assess personality perception) to examine complementarity. Sixty-six unacquainted females were videotaped during an unstructured dyadic interaction, and their warmth and dominance behaviors were coded using the joystick. Results indicated that both partners tended to alter their behaviors in a complementary manner. In addition, partners who complemented each other in terms of warmth tended to like each other more and performed tasks more accurately and quickly than dyads who were not as complementary on this dimension.