A Dyadic Perspective on Speech Accommodation and Social Connection: Both Partners' Rejection Sensitivity Matters

Abstract

Findings from confederate paradigms predict that mimicry is an adaptive route to social connection for rejection-sensitive individuals (Lakin, Chartrand, & Arkin, 2008). However, dyadic perspectives predict that whether mimicry leads to perceived connection depends on the rejection sensitivity (RS) of both partners in an interaction. We investigated these predictions in 50 college women who completed a dyadic cooperative task in which members were matched or mismatched in being dispositionally high or low in RS. We used a psycholinguistics paradigm to assess, through independent listeners' judgments (N = 162), how much interacting individuals accommodate phonetic aspects of their speech toward each other. Results confirmed predictions from confederate paradigms in matched RS dyads. However, mismatched dyads showed an asymmetry in levels of accommodation and perceived connection: Those high in RS accommodated more than their low-RS partner but emerged feeling less connected. Mediational analyses indicated that low-RS individuals' nonaccommodation in mismatched dyads helped explain their high-RS partners' relatively low perceived connection to them. Establishing whether mimicry is an adaptive route to social connection requires analyzing mimicry as a dyadic process influenced by the needs of each dyad member.

Figure 1

A: Speech accommodation of person to their partner in matched and mismatched RS dyads. Grey bar indicates relatively lower speech accommodation of low RS people toward their high RS partners. Error bars show standard errors of means. B: Partner’s perceived connection to the person (who accommodated or did not accommodate to them in Figure 1A) in matched and mismatched RS dyads. Grey bar indicates HiRS partners’ relatively low perceived connection to LoRS people.

Figure 2

Mediation path model. The person RS contrast (upper path) was a dummy indicator of whether the person was a member of a dyad in which a LoRS person had a HiRS partner (=1) or not (=0). Similarly the partner RS contrast (lower path) was a dummy indicator of whether the partner was a member of a dyad in which a HiRS person had a low RS partner (=1) or not (=0). Equivalent paths were constrained to be equal. Equivalent residual variances were constrained to be equal. Path coefficients with an asterisk had confidence intervals that did not include 0.