David
A. Kenny
December 24, 2001
In the Social Relations Model, a perception that a
perceiver has of a target is separated into three components: perceiver,
target, and relationship. The perceiver effect reflects how the person
tends to see others; the target effect reflects how a person is seen in
general by others; and the relationship effect reflects how a perceiver
uniquely sees the target. These components are used to answer the
nine basic questions of interpersonal perception.
The Social Relations Model was developed by Larry La
Voie and myself and named after the interdisciplinary social science department
at Harvard University that no longer exists. The model describes dyadic
relationships when variables are measured on a continuous scale.
Round
robin: Each person in the group rates or judges everyone else in the
group. Most studies of interpersonal perception use this design.
Block:
The group is divided into two subgroups, and each person rates everyone
who is in the other subgroup.
If a each person is a member of one only dyad (e.g.,
married couples outside of places in Utah), then the Social Relations cannot
be used. However, sophisticated analyses of such designs are possible
(see my
Dyadic Analysis
page).
Chapter 2 of
Interpersonal
Perception: A Social Relations Analysis (See the acknowledgments
for more on the history of the model.)
To go to the page that describes the model in more detail.
To
go to the page that describes the mathematics of the model in more detail.
Go to the page that contains a bibliography of Social Relations Model studies:
pdf.
To
go to the page that describes triadic perceptions.
Go
to the next page.
Go
to the interpersonal perception page.