Alphabet and attraction: An unobtrusive measure of the effect of propinquity in a field setting.

Segal, Mady Wechsler

doi:10.1037/h0037446

Cited by 100 publications

(56 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…Research has revealed the power of physical closeness in determining social ties (Festinger, Schachter, & Back, 1950;Segal, 1974). One reason why close physical distance and frequent encounters may promote social connection is because each occasion in which a person is encountered presents the opportunity for that partner to be perceived as instrumental to one's goals (and for one to be instrumental to that person's goals).…”

Section: Relationship Initiation and Evaluationmentioning

confidence: 99%

A People-As-Means Approach to Interpersonal Relationships

Orehek¹,

Forest²

2017

Preprint

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Interpersonal relationships and goal pursuit are intimately interconnected. In the present paper, we present a people-as-means perspective on relationships. According to this perspective, people serve as means to goals-helping other people to reach their goals in a variety of ways, such as by contributing their time, lending their knowledge, skills, and resources, and providing emotional support and encouragement. Because people serve as means to goals, we propose that considering relationship processes in terms of the principles of goal pursuit can provide novel and important insights into the ways that people think, feel, and behave in these interpersonal contexts. We describe the principles of means-goals relations, review evidence for each principle involving people as means, and discuss implications of our approach for relationship formation, maintenance, and dissolution. for relationship processes? In the pages that follow, we present a people-as-means approach to interpersonal relationships, summarize evidence linking principles of goal pursuit to instances in which people are means, and discuss the novel insights gained from adopting a people-as meansperspective on relationships.

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Section: Relationship Initiation and Evaluationmentioning

confidence: 99%

A People-As-Means Approach to Interpersonal Relationships

Orehek¹,

Forest²

2017

Preprint

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“…Echoing Segal's (1974) work on propinquity, Satoshi revealed he developed a close circle of friends amongst the people who happened to sit near to him during inductions and the initial classes of his first few days at university, and it was with these people that he spent nearly all of his time with for the next couple of years. He explained how he and his fellow first years tended to be assigned seats according to their student number and thus cliques of students regularly placed in adjacent seats soon developed.…”

Section: Silence and Embarrassmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Silence in the Second Language Classroom

King¹

2013

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This mixed-methods investigation reports on the under-researched issue of silence within Japanese university second language (L2) classrooms. An extensive, multi-site study using a structured observation methodology was employed to investigate the classroom behaviour of over 900 language learners across nine universities in Japan. To effectively measure the extent of macro-level silence within their classrooms, an original observation instrument called the Classroom Oral Participation Scheme (COPS) was specially developed for the task. A total of 48 hours of data was collected using a minute-by-minute sampling strategy which resulted in some startling results.Learners were found to be responsible for less than one percent of initiated talk within their classes, while over a fifth of total class time observed was characterised by no oral participation by any participants. Complementing the COPS' quantitative evidence of a robust national trend of silence in Japan's universities, a parallel qualitative phase of the investigation gave students a voice about their silences by drawing on over seventy-thousand words of transcribed data collected during a series of semi-structured interviews. This phase of the research provided a valuable individual-level analysis of learners' fundamental beliefs about and personal experiences of not speaking in L2 educational contexts. The final phase of the project adopted an event-specific focus on classroom silence by utilising a stimulated recall methodology to uncover what students were actually thinking and feeling whilst silent i episodes were in progress during lessons. Using Dynamic Systems Theory (DST) as its conceptual background, the investigation moves away from reductionist, single-cause explanations for learner reticence to suggest that silence actually emerges through multiple, concurrent routes. These routes (termed attractors in DST) are so abundant, and appear to be so well supported both educationally and culturally in the Japanese context, that silence has fossilised into a semi-permanent attractor state within university language classrooms.ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

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“…Many studies have shown that proximity predicts liking (e.g., Back, Schmukle, & Egloff, 2008;Festinger, Schachter, & Back, 1950;Nahemow & Lawton, 1975;Segal, 1974). People tend to encounter others in close proximity more often; hence, they become more familiar.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Familiarity does indeed promote attraction in live interaction.

Reis

Maniaci

Caprariello

et al. 2011

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

232

189

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Does familiarity promote attraction? Prior research has generally suggested that it does, but a recent set of studies by Norton, Frost, and Ariely (2007) challenged that assumption. Instead, they found that more information about another person, when that information was randomly selected from lists of trait adjectives, using a trait evaluation paradigm, promoted perceptions of dissimilarity and, hence, disliking. The present research began with the assumption that natural social interaction involves contexts and processes not present in Norton et al.'s research or in the typical familiarity experiment. We theorized that these processes imply a favorable impact of familiarity on attraction. Two experiments are reported using a live interaction paradigm in which two previously unacquainted same-sex persons interacted with each other for varying amounts of time. Findings strongly supported the "familiarity leads to attraction" hypothesis: The more participants interacted, the more attracted they were to each other. Mediation analyses identified three processes that contribute to this effect: perceived responsiveness, increased comfort and satisfaction during interaction, and perceived knowledge.

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Alphabet and attraction: An unobtrusive measure of the effect of propinquity in a field setting.

Cited by 100 publications

References 9 publications

A People-As-Means Approach to Interpersonal Relationships

A People-As-Means Approach to Interpersonal Relationships

Silence in the Second Language Classroom

Familiarity does indeed promote attraction in live interaction.

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