The Regulation of Social Interaction in Everyday Life

The Regulation of Social Interaction in Everyday Life: A Replication and Extension of O’Connor and Rosenblood (1996) Jeffrey A. Hall Associate Professor, Dept. of Communication Stuides, University of Kansas Background • • • O’Connor and Rosenblood (1996) proposed that people regulate social interaction in a homeostatic fashion – seeking solitude at some times and contact at others • • Past Desire to be Alone Used then-novel experience sampling methodology and student sample to test hypotheses • 1) Future state of contact was predicted by desired to be alone/contact at past time • 2) People did not merely continue in same state of contact over time • 3) Satiation moderated future contact Methodological problems: collapsed variance of desire to be alone variable into dichotomous variable, confounded satiation variable, did not account for non-independence of observations, included night before data Methods • Past Social Contact Student sample (N = 54) and adult sample (N = 62) Experience sampling technique: 5 times per day, 5 days; N = 2, 722 experiences Two questions: “Have you had a social interaction in the last 10 minutes? ” (Y/N) & “Would you like to be completely alone right now” (1 -7 scale) Replication Analysis Plan • Use MLM in Mplus to account for non-independence • Create lagged model to replicate original tests • Create interaction between interaction state and desire to be alone to test satiation Extension Analysis Plan • Are effects moderated by age or sample? • Does inclusion of last night’s interaction state and desire predict next morning behavior? • Does time lapsed between samples moderate effect of desire on future contact? • Does prior day’s desire to be alone influence following day’s interaction pattern? β = -. 18 (. 13) p = ns Future Social Contact β = -. 11 (. 03) p <. 001 Conclusions • Original claims of O’Connor & Rosenblood (1996) replicated, despite 20 years social change (e. g. , media use), adult and student participants, change in data collection (i. e. , paper vs. smart phone), and different statistical analyses • Frequency and desire to be in contact rises throughout the day, and tapers off into evening • People move from satiated aloneness in mornings to satiated interaction in evening • Social interaction is regulated within, not between days, and for 2 -4 hours between experience samples (also O’Connor & Rosenblood, 1996) • Satiation results not supported. Why? • Different operationalization • Must create new measurement of satiation and tolerance to develop social affiliation model • Could satiation be lower in energy expenditure toward contact and/or felt motivation to interact? • Communicate Bond Belong Theory (Hall & Davis, in press) suggests further attention to variation in satiation by type of interaction and interaction partner • Social calories by communication episode? • Predicts how energy conservation is balanced with need satiation Results • Supported two findings of original study • Past desire to be alone predicts future contact • Past contact did not predict future contact • But, did not support satiation claims • Extensions • Effects not moderated by age or sample • Last night’s desire does not influence next morning’s contact state • Prior day’s desire to be alone does not influence next day’s contact • Time lapsed between contact did not moderate effect of desire on future contact Acknowledgements University of Kansas General Research Fund #2301064. Hall, J. A. (in press). The regulation of social interaction in everyday life: A replication and extension of O’Connor and Rosenbllood (1996). Journal of Social and Personal Relationships.