218 Interpersonal Theory of Personality
fashion, tend to invite, elicit, pull, draw, or entice from inter-
actants restricted classes of reactions that are reinforcing of,
and consistent with, a person’s proffered self-definition”
(Kiesler, 1983, p. 201; see also Kiesler, 1996). To the extent
that individuals can mutually satisfy their needs for interac-
tion that are congruent with their self-definitions (i.e., com-
plementarity), the interpersonal situation remains integrated
(resolved). To the extent that this fails, negotiation or disinte-
gration of the interpersonal situation is more probable.
As noted previously, interpersonal theory includes in-
trapsychic elements. The contemporaneous description of the
interpersonal situation utilizing either the IPC or SASB to
delineate behavior and reciprocal patterns is not limited to the
observable behaviors occurring between two people. Thus,
interpersonal complementarity (or any other reciprocal
pattern) should not be conceived of as some sort of stimulus-
response process based solely on overt actions and reactions
(Pincus, 1994). A comprehensive account of the contempora-
neous interpersonal situation must somehow bridge the gap
between the interpersonal (or overt) and the intrapsychic (or
covert). Interpersonalists have indeed proposed many con-
cepts and processes that clearly imply a rich and meaningful
intrapsychic life (Kielser, 1996; Pincus, 1994), including per-
sonifications, selective inattention, and parataxic distortions
(Sullivan, 1953a, 1953b), covert impacts (Kiesler et al.,
1997), expectancies of contingency (Carson, 1982), fantasies
and self-statements (Brokaw & McLemore, 1991), and cog-
nitive interpersonal schemas (Foa & Foa, 1974; Safran,
1990a, 1990b; Wiggins, 1982). We agree with Safran’s
(1992) conclusion that the “ongoing attempt to clarify the re-
lationship between interpersonal and intrapsychic levels is
what is needed to fully realize the transtheoretical implica-
tions of interpersonal theory” (p. 105). Much of the field is
moving in this direction, as the relationship between the in-
terpersonal and the intrapsychic is a common entry point for
current integrative efforts (e.g., Benjamin, 1995; Florshiem
et al., 1996, Tunis et al., 1990).
Kiesler’s (1986, 1988, 1991, 1996) interpersonal transac-
tion cycleprovides the most articulated discussion of the
relations among overt and covert interpersonal behavior
within interpersonal situations. He proposes that the basic
components of an interpersonal transaction are (a) Person X’s
covert experience of Person Y, (b) Person X’s overt behavior
toward Person Y, (c) Person Y’s covert experience in re-
sponse to Person X’s action, and (d) Person Y’s overt behav-
ioral response to Person X. These four components are part of
an ongoing transactional chain of events cycling toward res-
olution, further negotiation, or disintegration. Within this
process, overt behavioral output serves the purpose of regu-
lating the interpersonal field via elicitation of complementary
overt responses in the other. The structural models of inter-
personal behavior specify the range of descriptive taxa,
whereas the motivational conceptions of interpersonal theory
give rise to the nature of regulation of the interpersonal field.
For example, dominant or controlling interpersonal behavior
(e.g.,Do it this way!) communicates a bid for status (e.g.,
I am an expert) that impacts the other in ways that elicit either
complementary (e.g., Can you show me how?) or noncom-
plementary (e.g., Quit bossing me around!) responses in an
ongoing cycle of reciprocal causality, mediated by covert and
subjective experience.
In our opinion, the conceptions of covert processes medi-
ating behavioral exchange have been a weak link in the inter-
personal literature, reflecting much less consensus among
theorists than do the fundamental dimensions and circular
nature of structural models. The diverse conceptualizations
proposed have not been comprehensively related to develop-
mental analyses, nor have their influences on the observable
interpersonal field been fully developed. In a significant step
forward, Kiesler (1996) has synthesized many concepts (i.e.,
emotion, behavior, cognition, and fantasy) in developing the
construct referred to as the impact message(see also Kiesler
et al., 1997). Impact messages are fundamental covert aspects
of the interpersonal situation, encompassing feelings (e.g.,
elicited emotions), action tendencies (pulls to do something;
i.e.,I should calm him downorI should get away), perceived
evoking messages (i.e., subjective interpretations of the
other’s intentions, desires, affect states, or perceptions of in-
terpersonal situation), and fantasies (i.e., elaborations of the
interaction beyond the current situation). Kiesler and his col-
leagues view the link between the covert and overt aspects of
the interpersonal situation to be emotional experience. Im-
pact messages are part of a “transactional emotion process
that is peculiarly essential to interpersonal behavior itself ”
(Kiesler, 1996, p. 71). Impact messages are registered
covertly by Person X in response to Person Y’s interpersonal
behavior, imposing complementary demands on the behavior
of Person X through elicited cognition, emotion, and fantasy.
Notably, the underlying structure of impact messages paral-
lels that of the IPC (Kiesler et al., 1997; Wagner et al., 1995),
allowing for description of covert processes that are on a
metric common with the description of overt interpersonal
behavior.
In summary, contemporaneous analysis of the interper-
sonal situation accounts for the patterned regularity of inter-
actions by positing that interpersonal behavior typically
evokes a class of covert responses (impact messages) that
mediate cycles of overt behavior—that is, patterned rela-
tional behavior occurs, in part, due to the field-regulatory in-
fluences of interpersonal behavior on covert experience and