On What It Means to Know Someone: A Matter of Pragmatics.

Abstract

Two studies provide support for W. B. Swann's (1984) argument that perceivers achieve substantial pragmatic accuracy--accuracy that facilitates the achievement of relationship-specific interaction goals--in their social relationships. Study 1 assessed the extent to which group members reached consensus regarding the behavior of a member in familiar (as compared with unfamiliar) contexts and found that groups do indeed achieve this form of pragmatic accuracy. Study 2 assessed the degree of insight romantic partners had into the self-views of their partners on relationship-relevant (as compared with less relevant) traits and found that couples do indeed achieve this form of pragmatic accuracy. Furthermore, pragmatic accuracy was uniquely associated with relationship harmony. Implications for a functional approach to person perception are discussed.

People as resources: Exploring the functionality of warm and cold

“…This prediction grows out of our proposed PAR model of impression formation which suggests that perceivers are not simply interested in being able to predict a target's behavior generally, but are interested in determining the target's relational value to them personally in social interactions (cf. Abele & Wojciszke, 2007;Gill & Swann, 2004;Peeters & Czapinski, 1990;Vonk, 1996;Wojciszke et al, 1998). Perceivers want to know if a target has resources that make their warm versus cold intentions interpersonally significant and consequential.…”

“…We expected that perceivers might infer warmth and coldness from role-related information alone, without receiving any explicit warm-cold dispositional information (see Jones, 1979). Additionally, while much work on impression formation employs global measures of target evaluation (e.g., liking) (Asch, 1946;Heider, 1958), other perspectives have emphasized the importance of considering both the social contexts within which impressions are formed and the objectives of the perceiver (Devine et al, 1989;Dubois & Beauvois, 2005;Gill & Swann, 2004;Neuberg & Fiske, 1987;Swann, 1984;Wojciszke et al, 1998). Consistent with these perspectives, we included measures in this study that were more relevant to social relationships and to impressions formed about a target in a specific interaction context-would I want this person as a friend?…”

“…Above all, what matters is whether a perceiver cares about a given resource in a particular context, which will depend on both the quality of the resource itself and on the perceiver's own personal interests and concerns (cf. Abele & Wojciszke, 2007;Cottrell et al, 2007;Jones & Davis, 1965;Jones & deCharms, 1957;Jones & Thibaut, 1958;Fitzsimons & Bargh, 2003;Fitzsimons, 2006;Gill & Swann, 2004;Neuberg & Fiske, 1987;Swann, 1984). Therefore, we make a specific prediction about when warm and cold should matter.…”

Investigating the Role of Two Types of Understanding in Relationship Well-Being: Understanding Is More Important Than Knowledge

“…A closer look at earlier studies reveals that the type of knowledge that should contribute to relationship well-being varies across studies. Whereas researchers focusing on the concreteness of knowledge argued and found that knowledge about the partner's personality is concrete and beneficial for relationship well-being (Neff & Karney, 2005), researchers focusing on the relevance of knowledge argued and found that knowledge about the partner's personality is not relevant and therefore does not contribute to relationship well-being (Gill & Swann, 2004). Our finding that knowledge about the partner's general personality is unrelated to relationship well-being is therefore consistent with Gill and Swann's (2004) findings that nonrelevant information about the partner is unrelated to relationship well-being.…”

“…Arguing that partners achieve pragmatic accuracy, Gill and Swann (2004) hypothesized and found that partners have more accurate knowledge on issues that are relevant to the relationship. Importantly, only this relationship-relevant knowledge was related to harmony in the relationship.…”