The Relevance of the Microstructure of Interaction to Relationship Change

Abstract

Theory and research in social and personal relationships has paid lip service to the importance of interaction in the formation, growth and dissolution of such relationships. However, except for a few cases, interaction research has had little concrete to offer to the understanding of outcomes of interpersonal encounters. The present article describes a program of research in interaction analysis whose aim is to forge strong links between the research in the microstructure of interaction and that on interpersonal outcomes. In order to do so, it is argued that studies of interaction must adopt a functional perspective on the behaviors studied, must move from studies of pure structure to those linking structure to outcome, and must be capable of studying longer periods of interaction through the different lenses of multiple behaviors.