Zooming into Real-Life Extraversion – How Personality and Situation Shape Sociability in Social Interactions

Abstract

What predicts sociable behavior? While main effects of personality and situation characteristics on sociability are well established, there is little evidence for the existence of person-situation interaction effects within real-life social interactions. Moreover, previous research has focused on self-reported behavior ratings, and less is known about the partner's social perspective, i.e. how partners perceive and influence an actor's behavior. In the current research, we investigated predictors of sociable behavior in real-life social interactions across social perspectives, including person and situation main effects as well as person-situation interaction effects. In two experience-sampling studies (Study 1: N = 394, US, time-based; Study 2: N = 124, Germany, event-based), we assessed personality traits with self-and informant-reports, self-reported sociable behavior during real-life social interactions, and corresponding information on the situation (categorical situation classifications and dimensional ratings of situation characteristics). In Study 2, we additionally assessed interaction partner-reported actor behavior. Multilevel analyses provided evidence for main effects of personality and situation features, as well as small but consistent evidence for person-situation interaction effects. First, extraverts acted more sociable in general. Second, individuals behaved more sociable in low-effort/positive/low-duty situations (vs. high-effort/negative/high-duty situations). Third, the latter was particularly true for extraverts. Further specific interaction effects were found for the partner's social perspective. These results are discussed regarding their accordance with different behavioral models (e.g., Trait Activation Theory) and their transferability to other behavioral domains.

Do People Know What They’re Like in the Moment?

“…We used data from the first wave of the longitudinal Personality and Interpersonal Roles Study (PAIRS; Vazire et al, 2017). Other manuscripts have used the ESM personality state variables (Beck & Jackson, 2018;Breil et al, 2018;Finnigan & Vazire, 2017;Wilson, Harris, & Vazire, 2015;Wilson, Thompson, & Vazire, 2016) and other variables from this dataset (Colman, Vineyard, & Letzring, 2016;Edwards & Holtzman, 2017;Solomon & Vazire, 2016), but this is the first manuscript that examines within-person associations between self-reported and EAR-coded behavior.…”

Social Interaction Processes and Personality

“…In addition, experience-sampling research shows that personality trait measures robustly predict the mean level of self-reported personality in the moment (Fleeson & PERSONALITY AND SOCIAL INTERACTION 29 Gallagher, 2009), including extraverted, agreeable, and neurotic behaviors as reported after engaging in social interactions. In a recent experience-sampling study that extended the considered social perspectives, it could be shown that trait extraversion predicted both selfand interaction partner-reported sociable behavior (Breil et al, 2019). Together with the laboratory studies summarized above, these findings underline that people reliably differ with regard to the interpersonal behaviors they express during social interactions and that these differences are related to people's self-concept (i.e.…”

What Makes for a Pleasant Social Experience in Adolescence? The Role of Perceived Social Interaction Behavior in Associations Between Personality and Momentary Social Satisfaction

“…We propose that extraversion-the most observable of all traits (Back, in press;McCrae & Costa, 1989)-is most salient in an individual's behavior and corresponding selfperceptions. In previous studies that have used experience-sampling data (Breil et al, 2019;Geukes et al, 2019;Wilson et al, 2015) and ratings of videotaped interactions in unacquainted triads (Morse et al, 2015), extraversion was related to more sociable, friendly, and self-revealing behavior and to less emotion suppression. In addition, extraversion has been associated with perceptions of control in social interactions (Barrett & Pietromonaco, 1997;Cuperman & Ickes, 2009) and being the focus of attention (Sherman et al, 2013).…”

“…For example, extraversion is likely to affect both (a) how sociably people actually behave and (b) how sociable they perceive themselves to be in a social interaction (e.g., Breil et al, 2019). Likewise, personality can influence the perception of other either (a) by affecting the individual's general tendency to perceive another person's behavior or (b) by affecting the individual's behavior such as by triggering actual behavior in the interaction partner in a given social interaction (for a similar argumentation, see Back et al, in press).…”

“…Given the differential conceptual relevance of extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism for emotional-cognitive processes and social behavior in adulthood (McCrae & Costa, 1989;Wiggins, 1991), we had hypothesized that perceptions of self and other would serve as differential mediators of the interplay between personality and social satisfaction. For extraversion, we expected mediation through the perception of self on the basis of the trait's associations with sociable and expressive behaviors (Breil et al, 2019;Geukes et al, 2017;Morse et al, 2015). For agreeableness, we predicted mediation through both types of perception on the basis of its associations with expressive behavior (Geukes et al, 2017) and efforts to maintain relationships (Wagner et al, 2014).…”