Selection, evocation, and manipulation

Abstract

This article proposes three key mechanisms by which personality and social processes are intrinsically linked. Selection deals with the manner in which individuals choose to enter or avoid existing environments. Evocation is defined by the ways in which individuals unintentionally elicit predictable reactions from others in their social environments. Manipulation deals with the tactics that individuals use intentionally to alter, shape, exploit, or change the social environments they inhabit. Empirical findings from 57 dating couples (undergraduates), and previous research within social, personality, and developmental psychology, are used to illustrate the heuristic value of this framework.