Relational Goals and Interpersonal Perceptions in Daily Life: A Preliminary Study

Research shows that increased pursuit of intrinsic goals and decreased pursuit of extrinsic goals are associated with elevated perceived communal behaviors. This preliminary study extends prior research by examining how day-to-day variations in intrinsic (i.e., community feelings) and extrinsic relational goals (i.e., self-image, conformity) link to fluctuations in perceptions of agency and communion during interactions in a clinical sample. Fifty-four psychotherapy outpatients completed ratings of their agentic and communal perceptions following each interaction and provided momentary ratings of their goals across 21 days. These ratings were averaged across surveys for each day to create daily aggregated scores. Multilevel models revealed that on the days when individuals rated themselves and others as interpersonally warmer during social interactions than they usually were, they rated their community goals as more important than their average. Communal perception of self was also positively associated with self-image goals but did not significantly covary with conformity goals. Between persons, individuals who reported lower communal perceptions of others than the prototypical participant rated their self-image goals as more important. These findings provide preliminary evidence that perceiving self and other as warm during interactions accompanies increased community and self-image goals, whereas this relation was not present for conformity goals. Furthermore, persistent concerns with one’s self-image goals appears linked to persistent views of others as interpersonally colder.