ABSTRACT
Participants showing up for a psychological study on “Social Interaction” are greeted by an experimenter and told that in a few minutes they will be led in to a room where they will be seated next to another participant of the opposite sex whom they have never met. They are informed that they will be videotaped in a few different activities with their partner and at various points will be asked to report confidentially on how they are getting along. As they take their seats a few feet apart from each other-on armless typing chairs that roll easily-the experimenter tells them to introduce themselves and to get acquainted for a few minutes while she prepares for the study to begin. When the time comes, the participants are told they are to imagine that the Department of Psychology is going to provide them with $20,000 to travel around the world together as part of an investigation on relationship formation. They are asked to plan a trip around the world. Their only guidelines are that they must travel together (i.e., arrive and leave the same city at the same time taking the same mode of transportation) and they must make it back home using no more than their allotted funds. They are given a large map of the world and $20,000 in play money and are asked to estimate the cost for each leg of the journey.
