Studying Social Interaction with the Rochester Interaction Record

doi:10.1016/S0065-2601(08)60332-9

Advances in Experimental Social Psychology

Volume 24, 1991, Pages 269-318

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0065-2601(08)60332-9 Get rights and content

Publisher Summary

This chapter gives an overview of the Rochester Interaction Record (RIR), with its rationale, usages, and limitations. The reader and potential researcher is oriented to the technique, and is furnished with an overview of the various procedural and psychometric concerns that have guided the work. Theoretically useful conclusions are the “sine qua non” of methodological innovation in behavioral sciences. The chapter also describes some of the findings that have emerged from studies using the RIR and related instruments. It explains the rationale for the RIR, including comparison with traditional methods in interaction research, the technique in terms of its essential procedural and data analytic details, a discussion of reliability and validity issues, and the application of the RIR and related methods to other problems in social psychology. The chapter provides an overview on the self-reported questionnaires, behavioral observation, and comparison of the RIR with global questionnaires.

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For each of the interactions, we asked who was present, the start and end time, and the perceived pleasantness, energy, and intimacy of the interaction. These questions were inspired by the widely-used Rochester Interaction Record (Reis and Wheeler, 1991). Moreover, the students were asked about their affect (I-PANAS-SF; Thompson, 2007) and stress (PSS 4; Cohen et al., 1983).
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Studying Social Interaction with the Rochester Interaction Record

Publisher Summary

Social Science Research

Behaviour Research and Therapy

Social Networks

Journal of Experimental Social Psychology

Social Networks

The environment and social behavior

Studies of independence and submission to group pressure: I. A minority of one against a unanimous majority

Psychological Monographs

The American freshman: Twenty year trends, 1966–1985

The positivity and intensity characteristics of selected emotion terms

Ecological psychology: Concepts and methods for studying the environment of human behavior

The design and understanding of survey questions

Informant accuracy in social-network data II

Human Communication Research

The Relationship Closeness Inventory: Assessing the closeness of interpersonal relationships

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

Physical attractiveness

A controlled evaluation of thermal biofeedback and thermal biofeedback combined with cognitive therapy in the treatment of vascular headache

Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology

Affect and memory: A review

Psychological Bulletin

Friends of friends. Networks, manipulators and coalitions

Effects of daily stress on negative mood

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

Love acts: The evolutionary biology of love

Companionship and support in organizations: A microanalysis of the stress-reducing features of social interaction

Paper presented at the 4th International Conference on Personal Relationships, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

Convergent and discriminant validation by the multitrait-multimethod matrix

Psychological Bulletin

Implications of relationship type for understanding compatibility

Interpersonal attraction in exchange and communal relationships

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

Interpreting the expressive behavior of others: The interpersonal perception task

Journal of Nonverbal Behavior

Being adolescent

Validity and reliability of the experience-sampling method

The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease

The ecology of adolescent activity and experience

Journal of Youth and Adolescence

Behavioral manifestations of social support: A microanalytic investigation

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

Articulated thoughts during simulated situations: A paradigm for studying cognition in emotion and behavior

Cognitive Therapy Research

Patterns of self-disclosure in natural social interaction

The daily life of ambulatory chronic mental patients

The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease

Everyday lies

Diaries and logs

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your retrospections: Rhetoric and reality in personal relationships

Charting the development of personal relationships

On the origin of the specious: Are personal relationships really interpersonal states?

Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology

Affect and memory: Effects of pleasant and unpleasant odors on retrieval of happy and unhappy memories

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

Verbal reports as data

Psychological Review

Childhood and society

How do attitudes guide behavior?

Gender differences in effects of physical attractiveness on romantic attraction: Comparison across five research domains

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

Social cognition

Praise or blame: Affective influences on attributions for achievement

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

Cognitive consequences of emotional arousal

The give and take of friendship: The effects of reciprocity and social support on psychological well-being

Award address presented at the Iowa Network on Personal Relationships Conference, Iowa City, IA.

Marital interaction: Experimental investigations

Conversations of friends