Effect of Target Position and Target Task on Judge Sensitivity to Felt Rapport

The present studies investigated the effects of target context on judge sensitivity to target felt rapport. The results suggest that judge sensitivity may be increased by: (a) positioning the target to the judge’s left so that the judgment task may benefit from the specialization of the right hemisphere for processing nonverbal behavior, and (b) assigning targets to a task unconstrained by social norms that allows for more spontaneous and revealing target behavior. These results have major implications for the way that interpersonal sensitivity and rapport research is conducted and for understanding interpersonal perception in everyday life.