Personality Mediators of Interpersonal Attraction.

The current study was an examination of the effect of personality variables on the relationship between attitude disagreement and attraction. Attraction was measured in a neutral situation, designed to maximize any existing affective predispositions toward attitude agreement-disagreements. Subjects were placed in an ambiguous face-to-face situation in which an accomplice agreed with the subject on 7 of 14 attitude issues. The personality variables of interest were Spielberger's (1966) state-trait anxiety measures and the Marlowe-Crowne (1964) scale of social desirability. In the context of attraction toward neutral strangers, anxiety and social desirability were expected to have quite different, in fact, complementary, effects. Specifically, two hypotheses were advanced: (1) that high anxiety would be related to disliking others and enhanced recall for disagreements; and (2) that high social desirability would be associated with liking others and heightened recall for agreements, when the proportion of attitude agreements-disagreements was constant. Results supported both hypotheses. Neutral interactions elicited very different affective reactions from high anxiety and high need for approval subjects despite the fact that proportion of attitude agreements was constant. Anxiety and social desirability apparently influenced interpersonal attraction by promoting selective perception in an ambiguous social situation. (Author)