INTERPERSONAL PROBLEMS AND
INTERPERSONAL EXPECTATIONS
IN EVERYDAY LIFE

KENNETH D. LOCKE
University of Idaho

Are interpersonal problems related to interpersonal expectations? To answer this
question, 150 undergraduates reported problems with being too agentic,
unagentic, communal, or uncommunal. Then, over one week, each time they
imagined how someone might react to them, they recorded who the other person
was, how the person reacted, their feelings, and any imagined counter–reactions.

Whereas uncommunal people imagined others not caring and themselves not dis-
closing, agentic people imagined others criticizing and themselves arguing.
Agentic and uncommunal people also expected unresponsive and unsupportive
reactions. Unagentic people did not expect more negative reactions, but did ex-
pect being unable to listen or speak openly when negative reactions or feelings did
occur. Imagined reactions generally tended to evoke feelings of anger in agentic
people, insecurity in unagentic people, shame in communal people, and discon-
nection in uncommunal people. Thus, changing everyday interpersonal
expectations may help reduce chronic interpersonal problems.

Interpersonal problems are recurrent difficulties in relating to others,
and are a common reason why people seek psychotherapy (Horowitz,
Rosenberg, & Bartholomew, 1993). The interpersonal circumplex pro-
vides a general model for organizing and assessing interpersonal dispo-
sitions, including interpersonal problems (Gurtman, 1992). The model
maps interpersonal stances onto two dimensions: agency and commu-
nion (Horowitz, 2004). Figure 1 shows that these two orthogonal dimen-
sions together define an “interpersonal circle” (Kiesler, 1983) that can be
subdivided into eight octants. Analyses of clinical intake interviews

I am grateful to Tom Sneed for his help in collecting and entering the data.
Data from this study was presented at the 2001 annual meeting of the Society forInterpersonal Theory and Research.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Kenneth Locke, Depart-
ment of Psychology, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID 83844. E–mail: klocke@uidaho.edu.
shows that people complain of interpersonal problems associated with
all regions of the interpersonal circle (Alden, Wiggins, & Pincus, 1990).
The most common self–report measure of problems associated with each
octant of the interpersonal space is the Inventory of Interpersonal Problems
(IIP; Horowitz, Alden, Wiggins, & Pincus, 2000). Figure 1 shows the names
(and two–letter codes) for the eight IIP octant scales. The following are ex-
amples of IIP items from each octant (moving counterclockwise from the
top of the circle): “I try to control other people too much” (agentic), “I fight
with other people too much” (agentic and uncommunal), “It is hard for me
to show affection to people” (uncommunal), “I am too afraid of other peo-
ple” (unagentic and uncommunal), “It is hard for me to be assertive with
another person (unagentic), “I am too gullible” (unagentic and communal),
“I try to please other people too much” (communal), “I tell personal things
to other people too much” (agentic and communal).

Individual differences
in these types of interpersonal problems have been shown to predict indi-
vidual differences in such variables as personality disorder symptoms (e.g.,
Matano & Locke, 1995; Pincus & Wiggins, 1990; Soldz, Budman, Demby, &
Merry, 1993) and psychotherapy processes and outcomes (e.g., Gurtman,
1996; Horowitz et al., 1993; Muran, Segal, Samstag, & Crawford, 1994).

A social cognitive approach to understanding interpersonal problems
assumes that people who react differently to social situations think dif-
ferently about those situations. Of particular importance may be inter-
personal expectations—expectations about how others will react to the
self and how the self will respond to those reactions. When a person
imagines the reaction of another person, the imagined reaction is proba-
bly a reflection of expectations specific to the particular situation and re-
lationship as well as more general interpersonal scripts and schemas
(Andersen & Chen, 2002; Baldwin, 1992). For example, if Ben is consider-
ing asking a favor of Sue, the reaction Ben expects may depend on the
particular favor being asked, past experiences with Sue and other people
reminiscent of Sue, and implicit schemas concerning how people gener-
ally respond to such requests.

To the extent that different people have
different schemas and those schemas shape momentary expectations,
different people will tend to have reliably different expectations. These
individual differences in interpersonal expectations may explain some
of the individual differences in interpersonal problems (Pierce & Lydon,
1998). To the extent that they do, changing chronic, maladaptive
interpersonal expectations may help people to overcome chronic,
maladaptive interpersonal patterns.

The purpose of the current study was to test if there was in fact a rela-
tionship between interpersonal expectations and interpersonal prob-
lems. There are several ways in which interpersonal problems and inter-
personal expectations might be related. First, interpersonal problems
may be related to expectations for how others will act.

For example,
problems with being too uncommunal might emerge in people who ex-
pect others to act cold and rejecting (i.e., uncommunal) toward them and
so defensively and preemptively act cold and rejecting toward others.
Second, interpersonal problems may be related to how sensitive or in-
sensitive people are to the reactions of others. For example, problems
with being too avoidant might emerge in people who (even if they do not
expect to receive more negative reactions than others do) expect to be
more stung by the negative reactions they do receive.

Finally, interper-
sonal problems may be related to expectations for the self. For example,
people who have developed chronic problems with being too
uncommunal are likely to anticipate themselves being uncommunal in
future interpersonal encounters.

To assess spontaneous, naturalistic, imagined reactions, the study em-
ployed an event–contingent self–recording procedure (Wheeler & Reis,
1991). During a seven-day period, each time participants noticed them-
selves anticipating how another person might react to them, they com-
pleted an “Imagined Reaction Record” (IRR).1 The IRR assessed who
was the imagined other and how they reacted, as well as any imagined
counter–reactions and feelings that the imagined reaction evoked. The
IRR specifically assessed one reaction and one counter–reaction from
each quadrant of the interpersonal circumplex. The participants also
completed the IIP. Thus, the study was designed to examine the nature
and impact of brief imagined reactions that occur in the course of every-
day life, and whether the nature and impact of those everyday imagined
reactions were associated with more enduring interpersonal problems.