Workshop

ECP15 Pre-conference Workshop

Tuesday, July 20, 2010, 10.00 a.m. – 5.20 p.m.

Understanding dyadic processes in personality research using social relations analyses

Mitja Back; Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Germany; back@uni-mainz.de
Stefan Schmukle; Westfälische Wilhelms University in Münster, Germany; schmukle@uni-muenster.de

• Workshop price: 60 €
• Minimum number of participants: 5

Background

The Social Relations Model (Kenny, 1994; Kenny, Kashy, & Cook, 2006) is a conceptual and statistical approach to model and analyze dyadic processes. It accounts for the fact that everyday social behaviors (e.g., smiling, flirting, being aggressive) and interpersonal perceptions (e.g., liking, feeling liked, perceiving as aggressive) consist of three distinguishable components: actor effects (e.g., smiling at others, liking others), partner effects (e.g., being smiled at by others, being liked by others) and relationship effects (e.g., unique smiling, unique liking). The SRM is an intriguing tool for personality psychology because it allows to analyze the interplay of personality, actual social behavior and interpersonal perceptions in a dynamic and differentiated way. Possible research questions pertain to various topics of personality research, such as the influence of personality on social behavior (e.g., Who acts aggressive?, Who evokes aggressive behavior?, Who acts aggressive towards whom?) and interpersonal perceptions (e.g., Who is a liker?, Who is liked?, Who likes whom?), the accuracy of personality judgments (e.g., knowing who behaves aggressive, knowing how much aggressiveness oneself evokes, knowing who uniquely behaves aggressive towards oneself), and the question of consistency (e.g., How stable and transsituational consistent are expectations, reputations, and unique perceptions?), just to name a few. These potentials notwithstanding, the SRM is still seldom used presumably because it appears to be too complex and difficult to implement.

Goals

In the workshop we show that the SRM is a conceptual framework that applies to all dyadic phenomena and can easily be understood and used. We give a brief introduction into the basic concepts of the SRM, outline how it can fruitfully be used for personality psychology and use real data sets for a step-by-step exercise of social relations analyses.

Outline

• Basic concepts of the SRM (about 30 min)
• Design considerations (about 30 min)
• Presentation of data-sets (liking from first sight to friendship, speed-dating flirting behavior and mate choices) (about 45 min)
• Possible social relations analyses in personality research (about 1h15)
• Lunch Break (about 1h)
• Practical step-by-step introduction using real data-sets (including variance decomposition, calculation of reciprocities, bivariate social relations analyses, reading out social relations effects, advanced analyses using social relations effects) (about 3h)
• Discussion of and material for further information (about 20 min)

Participants

• Up to 20 participants interested in the interplay of personality and social phenomena and the analysis of dyadic data using the social relations model are welcome.
• More information and material will be provided in advance.
• Participants are kindly requested to bring their own laptops.

Registration

To take part at the ECP15 Pre-conference Workshop, you have to choose the option within the participant registration at http://www.ecp15.cz/reg_abstract_sub/