Competitive Interaction Leads to Perceptual Distancing Between Actors

Abstract

People physically distance themselves from competitors and the disliked and cooperate less with those who are further away. We examine whether social interaction can also impact the space people perceive between themselves and others by measuring the influence of competitive dynamics on visual perception. In two experiments, participants played a ball toss game until they reached a target score. In Experiment 1, a confederate stood across the room from the participant and either a) played the same game competitively, b) played the same game cooperatively, or c) observed the participant without playing, while in Experiment 2, two participants played the same versions of the game with each other. After the game, participants provided an estimate of the distance between themselves and the other player. Participants in Experiment 1 who competed with the confederate consistently judged her to be more distant than participants who cooperated with the confederate or played alone. In Experiment 2, players who lost the competition perceived more distance between themselves and their opponents than did players who won, suggesting that the experience of losing a competition drives this perceptual distancing. These findings demonstrate the power of a socially distancing interaction to create perceptual distance between people.People frequently use distance metaphors to characterize social relationships: friends who were once close can drift apart, while an unpleasant colleague should be kept at arm's length (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980;1999). These metaphors reflect the power of spatial relationships to influence, and be influenced by, social interactions. For example, people physically distance themselves from competitors and the disliked (e.g., Kleck et al., 1968; Sommer, 1969;Tedesco & Fromme, 1974) and cooperate less with those who are further away (Bradner & Mark, 2002;Sensenig & Reed, 1972). Here, we examine whether social interactions can also impact the space people perceive between themselves and others.Our work is grounded in the theory of embodied perception, which proposes that perception is related to actions within, and thoughts and feelings about, the environment (e.g., Glenberg, et al., 2013 , Doerrfeld, et al., 2012), and success (e.g., Witt & Proffitt, 2005) can influence many psychophysical judgments including estimates of size, distance, speed, and weight (see Witt, 2011). The vast majority of these studies focus on a single individual's perception during an isolated activity. However, people commonly perform actions in social contexts where others are present and interacting in some manner. Social contexts are important determinants of one's expectations, actions, and attitudes that may also affect perception in systematic ways. Here, we consider the effects of two contrasting scenarioscompetition and cooperation-in order to establish the existence of socio-perceptual effects and to investigate the mechanisms that govern their emergence.How might social contexts influence perception? One intriguing ...