EFFECTS OF PREINTERACTION EXPECTANCIES AND TARGET COMMUNICATION ON PERCEIVER RECIPROCITY AND COMPENSATION IN DYADIC INTERACTION

The current investigation examined the influence of expectancies and t arget communication on perceiver behavior during social interaction. T wo common adaptation patterns in interpersonal interaction are recipro city and compensation, both of which may occur in response to another' s interaction behavior or in anticipation of it. Expectancy signaling literature predicts that perceivers should initially reciprocate the b ehaviors they expect from a target. Strategic communication models pre dict that perceivers induced to hold preinteraction expectancies will reciprocate expected pleasant behavior but compensate for anticipated unpleasant behavior. Interaction adaptation theories hold that perceiv ers will adapt their behavior to the target's actual (rather than expe cted) communication, reciprocating desired behavior as a way of reinfo rcing it and compensating undesired behavior as a way of modeling the preferred pattern, Expectancy violations theory holds that the choice of interaction pattern will also be moderated by the rewardingness of the target. An experiment crossed positive and negative preinteraction expectancies with greatly increased pleasantness (a positive violatio n) or decreased pleasantness (a negative violation) by target confeder ates. Overall, results conformed most closely to the interpersonal ada ptation theory explanation, with some influence also due to target val ence and violation status. Perceivers interacting with pleasant target s reciprocated increased pleasantness initially and over time. Those i nteracting with unpleasant targets (a) matched the target in adopting a lower level of pleasantness/involvement on average, (b) showed modes t compensation or nonadaptation on channel-specific measures but recip rocity on global ones over time, and (c) showed the most compensation when the unpleasant behavior followed a positive expectancy. Preintera ction expectancies yielded modest effects but did intensify or attenua te results relative to their absence, a conclusion corroborated by int raclass correlation analyses. (C) 1995 Academic Press, Inc.