The Social Psychology of Service Interactions

My talk today will be successful if I am able to persuade some scholars to study commercial interactions between strangers, a class of social interaction that has been neglected by researchers interested in social issues. Interactions between a provider of goods or services and a customer who are strangers to each other are important because they are now so common, a by-product of the modern service economy. In my talk today, I review and describe the traditional way services have been delivered—in relationships—and a newer way service is delivered—in service “encounters,” where a customer interacts with a different service provider, or even a machine, each time she needs the same kind of service. I will describe some research findings relating to how these two forms of service delivery differ and how the recipients of service respond to these different forms of service delivery. I will then describe some areas for future research, drawing on existing theories (such as attribution theory and stereotyping), and show how they apply to the study of service interactions.