| Abstract: |  Mutual influence in human interaction refers to the tendency for persons to alter their verbal, vocal, and kinesic behaviors in response to the intensity, frequency or duration of those behaviors emitted by their partners. Numerous explanations of these processes have been put forward involving principles of approach-avoidance conflict, arousal, reward, and cognitive processes. These explanations are reviewed with special attention given to an arousal based theory, discrepancy-arousal. This theory holds that mutual influence is primarily the result of arousal changes due to the degree of discrepancy of partner's behavior from the receiver's expectation.The theory predicts that persons who differ in reaction to arousal should also differ in their response to a partner's immediacy. This hypothesis was tested on high and low sensation seekers under conditions of near and normal distances during an interview. Several different behavioral responses were coded, including eye gaze, posture and orientation, smiles and laughter, object- and body-focused gestures, vocalization, pauses, and latencies to respond. The hypothesized interaction did not materialize with a median split on sensation seeking. A measure of state-trait sensation seeking (STSS) was developed. The interaction between distance and a median split on the state-trait measure was significant for eye gaze and posture and orientation, with the high STSS subjects compensating less than the low STSS subjects. |
