ABSTRACT
J ack and Jill met on a hill. They immediately hit it off and felt a strong sense of rapport and connection with each other. The initiation of this potential relationship could be interpreted in multiple ways. If Jack believes that people either “hit it off or they don’t,” then he will assign considerable positive meaning to that initial rapport, and doing so will probably make him feel more interested in pursuing a relationship with Jill. If Jill believes that people cannot forecast a relationship’s potential from only a brief encounter, then she might interpret the immediate rapport as irrelevant and unstable-as something that might be a fluke and that does not have great significance for the future of Jack and Jill.
