Evidence for the Effectiveness of Manipulations of Communal and Exchange Relationships

Abstract

This study examined the effectiveness of manipulations of desire for communal and exchange relationships that have been used in several studies. In these past studies, to create desire for communal relationships subjects have been exposed to an attractive target person who, they discover, is single, new at the university, and anxious to meet new people. To create desire for exchange relationships subjects have been exposed to the same attractive target who, they discover, is married and has been at the university for two years. In the present study, half of the subjects were exposed to the communal manipulation and half to the exchange manipulation. In addition, to examine whether the effectiveness of the manipulations depends upon the confederate being physically attractive, half the subjects were exposed to an attractive and half to an unattractive target. Following these manipulations subjects' desire to follow communal and exchange norms in their relationship with the other was measured. The results supported the effectiveness of the relationship manipulations and demonstrated their impact does not depend upon the confederate being attractive. Attractiveness did have a marginally significant main effect such that high attractiveness created greater preference for following communal relative to exchange norms.