The Relationship Of Relational Mobility To Interpersonal Sensitivity

As a socioecological approach to behavior and psychological tendencies on interpersonal communication,relational mobility is concerned with person-context interaction phenomenon.This study combined survey witch experiment method to demonstrate that the individual exposure to the surrounding social context and social capital and how they perceived their social environment,which results from relational mobility might also predict lower levels of interpersonal sensitivity.In Study 1,a survey was conducted to investigate the relationship between relational mobility and interpersonal sensitivity.Specifically,392 adults’ volunteers submitted a questionnaire on the internet,which includes the Relational Mobility Scale(RMS),Interpersonal Sensitivity Measure(IPSM),Scale for Online Social Capital and Scale for Offline Social Capital.The result suggests that higher social capital partially mediates negatively relation between relational mobility factors and individual interpersonal sensitivity.The same conclusion may also be found in both online and offline social capital.In Study 2,an experiment was conducted to provide support for this idea.222 volunteers were randomly assigned to two different groups by a prior work to experimentally manipulate the relational mobility levels they have perceived.Study 2demonstrated that relational mobility offered positive predictive validity of individuals’ social capital and negative predictive validity of interpersonal sensitivity.However,the result also shows that the mediation effects of social capital didn’t exist.Next,to replicate the result from study 1,The study improved the experimental manipulation of study 2.Study 3 examined the different levels of relational mobility’s impact on individual social capital as well as interpersonal sensitivity by asking 259 participants to recall specific conversational experiences.The result showed that online social capital mediated individuals’ differences in relational mobility and interpersonal sensitivity,which partially provided support for the causal effect of relational mobility on interpersonal sensitivity.Overall,this study supports that higher relational mobility induces a stronger sense of online social capital,which led to lower level of interpersonal sensitivity.The study suggests that relational mobility can be an essential socioecological factor that helps explain social behaviors’ differences observed across social environment,especially in interpersonal interaction.The main conclusion from the study follows:(1)Relational mobility offered negative predictive validity of interpersonal sensitivity.(2)Relational mobility offered positive predictive validity of individuals’ social capital.(3)Online social capital mediated individuals’ differences in relational mobility and interpersonal sensitivity.In other words,higher relational mobility induces a stronger sense of online social capital,which led to lower level of interpersonal sensitivity.