Familiarity as a variable in anticipated communication

Abstract

Persons anticipating interaction with another person respond differently as a function of their familiarity with the other person. It was predicted that a person anticipating interaction with another from a familiar ethnic background would engage a broader cognitive schema which would be reflected in the number of additional items of information, questions asked, and elements of a written impression generated by a subject. Conversely, it was expected that a person anticipating interaction with another whose was from an unfamiliar ethnic background would select fewer additional items of information, ask fewer questions, and write fewer elements of a written impression. This prediction was supported in the whole in two of the three dependent measures.

A second prediction was that persons anticipating interaction with a target from a familiar ethnic background would select personality-related items in the information selection, questions asked, and impressions generated. Conversely, persons expecting to interact with another from an unfamiliar background would represent the target in descriptive items of information, questions, and elements of their impression. This prediction was not supported in any of the three measures.

An unpredicted finding was that all subjects, regardless of their familiarity of the ethnic background of the target, represented the target in personality-related items. This result was obtained in all three measures including the additional items selected, questions asked, and impressions recorded.