Mind the Gap: Interpersonal Complementarity and Goal-Behaviour Matching in Daily Life

This study investigates how satisfaction of interpersonal goals relates to affect in everyday social interactions. Interpersonal goal satisfaction emerges from dyadic processes in which actor’s behaviour or goals align with those of their partners. Traditionally, goal satisfaction is assessed via interpersonal complementarity between actors’ and partners’ behaviour (similarity in communion and reciprocity in agency) or interpersonal matching between actors’ goals and partners’ behaviour. We introduce intrapersonal goal-behaviour matching – the alignment between actors’ desired and enacted behaviour – as a novel goal satisfaction measure. We hypothesized that interpersonal complementarity, interpersonal goal-behaviour matching, and intrapersonal goal-behaviour matching would each be associated with positive affect. We used Ecological Momentary Assessment to capture interpersonal goals in their natural environment. Data from 224 adults evaluating their own and partners’ desired and enacted behaviour across 3,366 social interactions over one week were collected and analyzed using multilevel polynomial regressions and response surface analyses. Results supported the hypotheses, except for agentic complementarity. Exploratory analyses revealed more complex response surface patterns, highlighting the value of methods capturing nuanced joint effects. Our findings underscore the dynamic interplay between intra- and interpersonal processes and suggest that improving the alignment between desired and enacted behaviour may be a promising intervention target.