Abstract
The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of the subject-receiver relationships on the description of other persons.
Subjects in “father” condition (n=30) were asked to choose 5 persons and introduce them to the subjects' “father” . Subjects in “best friend” condition (n=30) were asked to choose 5 persons and introduce them to the subjects' “best friend” . It was found that the nature of the presumed receivers (“father” or “best friend”) influenced the amount of information and the number of categories used in the description of the other persons. It was also found that subjects in “best friend” condition tended to choose more intimate others when describing the persons of opposite sex and less intimate others when describing the persons of same sex than subjects in “father” condition.
These results were discussed in terms of the function of “editing” in the interpersonal communication.
