The differential effects of three inferential rules on predictions about unknown interpersonal relationships within simple social structures as mediated by subjects involvement in the task activity

Abstract

Statement of the Problem. This study investigated the ways people construct "social schemas," the interpretive frames used to understand the nature of interpersonal relations within social structures. The construction of a "social schema" revolves around the use of inferential rules, principles by which perceivers can use information about a few relations within a set of elements to infer the quality of unknown, missing relations. This study investigated the differential effects of three inferential rules--positivity, source/target generalization, and balance--in accounting for individuals' predictions about the affective nature of unknown interpersonal relationships within simple social structures as mediated by their involvement in the prediction task.

Procedures. Subjects were shown four four-person social structures in which all of the interpersonal affective relationships were specified with the exception of one relationship, which was left unspecified. Half of the subjects were shown social structures consisting of four other people (the Observer condition) and the other half of the subjects were shown social structures in which they were involved with three other members (the Participant condition). Subjects were asked to predict the affective nature of the unknown interpersonal relationships for each of the four social structures. Subjects were also asked to write a short essay response which indicated their reason(s) for each of the predictions they had made.

Subjects' essay responses were content analyzed with respect to demonstrating the use of the inferential rules. Chi-Square nonparametric significance tests were used to test 24 "null" hypotheses.

Findings. The results were analyzed with respect to the three major research variables: (a) the influence of the inferential rules upon subjects' predictions about unknown interpersonal relationships within social structures (b) subjects' differential use of the inferential rules in their explanations about their predictions; and (c) the effects due to subjects' involvement in the prediction task upon the differential use of the inferential rules.

Subjects used significantly more negative predictions and significantly fewer positive predictions than was theoretically expected with respect to each individual social structure. The inferential rule of positivity was shown not to be able to account for subjects' predictions.

An analysis of subjects' essay responses indicated that subjects used the inferential rule of balance to a significantly greater degree than the inferential rules of positivity and source/target generalization when compared to what was theoretically expected with respect to each of the four social structures. In addition, subjects tended to use the inferential rule of positivity to a significantly less degree than was theoretically expected.

Subjects' use of the inferential rules of positivity, source/target generalization, and balance was not significantly affected by their involvement in the prediction task. Subjects did not demonstrate a significant difference between the type of predictions made or the differential use of the three inferential rules in their explanations.

Discussion. The results produced support for a differential use of the three inferential rules by unknown interpersonal relationships. The inferential rule of balance was shown to dominate in individuals' construction of a "social schema." The findings failed to confirm the proposed effects due to the involvement of the subjects in the prediction task as there were no significant differences between the two conditions with respect to the use of the three inferential rules. Thus, while subjects' involvement was not to be a significant factor, this study was able to identify conditions under which one inferential rule or another appeared to dominate in people's attributions and judgments about interpersonal and social relationships.