Behavioral and Cognitive Consequences of Reciprocal Versus Compensatory Responses to Preinteraction Expectancies

Abstract

It is proposed that there are two basic interaction strategies by means of which a perceiver's preinteraction impression of a target person can mediate both the perceiver's and the target's subsequent interaction behavior. The first is the “reciprocity strategy” that underlies the process of behavioral confirmation (i.e., the “self-fulfilling prophecy”) described by various theorists; the second is the “compensation strategy” suggested by the results of studies by Bond (1972) and Swann and Snyder (1980). The results of Experiment 1 provided consistent behavioral and self-report evidence for the operation of each of these strategies in the context of unstructured, face-to-face interactions. The data converged to suggest that the creation in one dyad member of a “friendly” preinteraction expectancy led to the adoption of the reciprocity strategy, whereas the creation of an “unfriendly” expectancy led to the adoption of the compensation strategy, and that in each case the behavior of both perceivers and targets was influenced. Use of the reciprocity strategy in the friendly-expectancy condition was evidenced by a high level of interpersonal attraction, whereas use of the compensation strategy in the unfriendly-expectancy condition was indicated by an atypically high level of positive affect (smiling), distrust of the target by the perceiver, and a low level of interpersonal attraction. Experiment 2 involved the manipulation of a similar-dissimilar preinteraction expectancy in subject-confederate pairs. The results indicated that the dissimilar expectancy, like the unfriendly expectancy in Experiment 1, evoked the compensation strategy. An important finding in both studies was that the perceivers' original expectancies persisted, regardless of which interaction strategy they employed. The relevance and implications of these data for the literature on impression management and social cognition are discussed.