The perception of social episodes: Categorical and dimensional representations in two different social milieus.

A study of the perceptions of typical social episodes was carried out in two different subcultural groups, housewives and students. First, a sample of representative episodes was obtained using an open-ended questionnaire. A second sample of subjects from each group was required to perform a similarity-sorting task of the most frequently mentioned social episodes. A measure of psychological relatedness, based on the sorting task, was used as input to a multidimensional scaling and a hierarchical clustering analysis of the episode space. In the scaling solution, perceived intimacy and subjective self-confidence were the two most important attributes differentiating episodes; the clustering solutions also highlighted the nature of the relationship to the interaction partner. The results are discussed in terms of the differences between the objective social environments of the two subsamples and the relative adequacy of the dimensional and categorical solutions. The utility of analyzing subjective and consensual representations of social episodes as a basis for a taxonomic system is also discussed.