Strangers in a Strange Lab: How Personality Shapes Our Initial Encounters with Others

Winner of the 2012 International Association for Relationship Research Book Award

Can we predict how well -- or how poorly -- two strangers will get along? According to social psychologist William Ickes, the answer is yes. Drawing upon relevant research findings from his 30-year career, Ickes explains how initial interactions are shaped by gender, race, birth order, physical attractiveness, androgyny, the Big Five dimensions, shyness, and self-monitoring.

Ickes's work offers unprecedented insights on the links between personality and social behavior that have not previously been compiled in a single source: how sibling relationships during childhood affect our interactions with opposite-sex strangers years later; why Latinos have a social advantage in initial interactions; how men react to the physical attractiveness of a female stranger in a relatively direct and obvious way while women react to the attractiveness of a male stranger in a more indirect and subtle way; and how personality similarity is related to satisfaction in married couples.