1. University of Kansas General Research Fund #2301064.
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
Past Social Contact
Past Desire to be Alone
Future Social Contact
β = -.18 (.13) p = ns
β = -.11 (.03) p < .001
O’Connor and Rosenblood (1996) proposed that people regulate social interaction in a homeostatic fashion – seeking solitude at some times and contact at others
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
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
Methods
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?
Acknowledgements
University of Kansas General Research Fund #
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.