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Interpersonal Reasons for Interpersonal Perceptions: Gender-incongruent Purpose Goals and Nonverbal Judgment Accuracy

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Abstract

Women’s tendency to outperform men on measures of accuracy in interpreting the meaning of nonverbal behavior might be due to such measures being more congruent with women’s interpersonal goals than men’s. The present study examined undergraduate men’s and women’s (N = 41) nonverbal judgment accuracy on the Interpersonal Perception Task-15 (IPT-15; Costanzo & Archer, 1993 [.The interpersonal perception task-15 (IPT-15). Berkeley: University of California Center for Media and Independent Learning) when the purpose for using their judgment skills was manipulated to be either congruent or incongruent with stereotypic “masculine” and “feminine” interpersonal goals. Results showed that each gender was at a relative disadvantage in judgment accuracy in the gender-incongruent goal conditions: women were relatively less accurate when they thought the IPT-15 measured judgment skills of use to interrogators in the military, whereas men were relatively less accurate when they thought the IPT-15 measured judgment skills of use to social workers in the social services. Discussion centers on the importance of matching individuals’ interpersonal goals to the purpose goals of the measure when using measures of interpersonal sensitivity.

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Notes

  1. An ANOVA on men’s and women’s anticipated interest scores in only the 2 purpose goal conditions did not reveal a significant Gender × Condition interaction (p = .17).

  2. An ANOVA on men’s and women’s task-absorption scores in only the 2 purpose goal conditions did not reveal a significant Gender × Condition interaction (F < 1).

  3. Exploratory correlations (Pearson r) showed that participants’ anticipated interest in doing the IPT-15 was positively correlated with their interest in doing another set of judgment tasks (i.e., future interest), r(134) = .40, p < .001, expected performance on the IPT-15, r(134) = .26, p = .003, and feelings of task absorption while taking the IPT-15, r(134) = .34, p < .001. Also, participants’ task-absorption scores were positively correlated with their future-interest scores, r(134) = .33, p < .001.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by Grant No. T32-MH19728 from the National Institute of Mental Health to the first author. The authors wish to thank Brittany LaFuse, Sandra Lee, Jessica Peugh, Tanya Patel, Katie Riggle, Daveen Ruiz, and T. Ryan Snyder for their assistance with data collection and analysis, and Judith Hall, Marianne McGrath, and Marianne Schmid Mast for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of the manuscript.

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  1. Department of Psychology, University of Michigan-Flint, 411 William R. Murchie Science Building, Flint, MI, 48502, USA

    Terrence G. Horgan

  2. Montana State University, 304 Traphagen Hall, Bozeman, MT, 59717, USA

    Jessi L. Smith

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  1. Terrence G. Horgan
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Correspondence to Terrence G. Horgan.

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Horgan, T.G., Smith, J.L. Interpersonal Reasons for Interpersonal Perceptions: Gender-incongruent Purpose Goals and Nonverbal Judgment Accuracy. J Nonverbal Behav 30, 127–140 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10919-006-0012-4

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