The impact of personality traits on interpersonal dynamics at zero acquaintance

Abstract

The current study aimed to examine the relationship between personality traits and interpersonal states. Eighty undergraduate participants were administered personality trait inventories, then 40 dyads were video recorded doing collaborative tasks. These video recordings were coded for moment-to-moment communion and agency using Continuous Assessment of Interpersonal Dynamics. Actor-Partner Interdependence Modeling was used to understand the impact of personality traits on interpersonal dynamics (average, variability, slope, complementarity on agency and communion). The results showed that there were no relationships between personality traits and dynamics. There were two main limitations that may explain these results. First, behavior may have been influenced more by social norms to be friendly and take turns than personality traits, especially in this “strong situation”. Second, it may be useful to aggregate behavior over multiple situations to capture variance attributable to traits. Future studies should aggregate behavior over multiple situations and/or change the situational constraints on behavior in order to determine the relationship between states and traits.