AI Insight
This study examined how sequences of approach and avoidance behaviors during imagined social interactions influence perceptions of interpersonal closeness. Researchers conducted parallel experiments with Spanish and Chinese speakers who read fictional episodes where they were the protagonist engaging in three consecutive approach or avoidance behaviors with another character. Results showed that approach-avoidance-approach sequences consistently led to greater perceived closeness than avoidance-approach-avoidance sequences across both languages, though Chinese participants overall rated interactions as closer and processed sentences faster than Spanish participants.
Why it matters
The findings demonstrate that interpersonal evaluations are dynamically shaped by the sequence of social behaviors rather than their simple accumulation, with implications for understanding how people mentally simulate and evaluate social interactions across different cultural contexts. This could inform approaches to cross-cultural communication training and therapeutic interventions focused on interpersonal relationships.
Understand the Science
We investigated how approach and avoidance motivational sequences shape evaluations of interpersonal closeness-distance during second-person verbally simulated interaction episodes, and whether these effects are modulated by linguistic formulation and language context. Two parallel behavioral experiments were conducted in Spanish (N = 20) and Mandarin Chinese (N = 20; 39 participants retained for analysis after one exclusion). Participants read fictional interaction episodes in which they adopted the role of the protagonist and interacted with a character through three consecutive approach- or avoidance-oriented behaviors. Episodes followed either an approach-avoidance-approach (Ap_Av_Ap) or avoidance-approach-avoidance (Av_Ap_Av) sequence and were expressed using either attitudinal formulations (e.g., “Juan asked you for he being a part of your class group and you accepted-rejected him”) or equivalent behavioral formulations (e.g., you said yes, said no to him). Following each episode, participants evaluated perceived interpersonal closeness-distance toward the character. Linear mixed-effects analyses revealed a robust effect of motivational sequence: Ap_Av_Ap episodes elicited greater perceived interpersonal closeness than Av_Ap_Av episodes across both language groups and linguistic formulations. Attitudinal formulations facilitated sentence processing, yielding shorter reading times than behavioral formulations, although linguistic formulation did not influence final interpersonal evaluations. Sequence effects emerged during earlier sentence processing but disappeared at the final sentence, consistent with dynamic updating of interpersonal representations across the episode. Cross-linguistic differences were also observed: Chinese participants showed overall faster reading times and rated episodes as involving greater interpersonal closeness than Spanish participants. These findings support an embodied and language-mediated account of interpersonal cognition in which readers dynamically integrate approach and avoidance information to construct evaluations of interpersonal closeness-distance during second-person interaction simulation. The results further suggest that motivational sequence effects generalize across languages while remaining sensitive to cultural and linguistic modulation.