One of the most common applications of imagined interaction theory is when a person has an upcoming job interview. So in this theoretical scenario, Keith will have an upcoming job interview with Target for a human resources position. Keith is about to graduate from college in the Spring, so he wants to land a job before then. He had a job interview for a similar human resources position at Best Buy a week ago, but he does not think it went very well, and since he has not heard back yet, he assumes he will not be selected for the position. He does not think that he was very well prepared for the first interview, and will want to fix that for the second one. So, going into the interview with Target, he wants to be well prepared in order to present…show more content… Since Keith used the imagined interactions, he was better prepared and able to respond to the questions with well thought out answers despite only hearing the questions at the moment of the actual interview. Having used the rehearsal function of imagined interactions Keith was also able to effectively answer some questions he did not expect to receive. This is because imagined interaction rehearsal helps the individual to quickly develop contingency plans when events occur in an unexpected manner (Honeycutt, 2003). Since Keith knew what he wanted to convey in the interview, and what he wanted to interviewer to hear from him, he was able to effectively do these things despite receiving a few unexpected…show more content… The students reported how imagined interactions helped them to remain calm and believable in actual conversations with others. (p. 129).
Even in a high stress situation, the students were able to stay calm and perform better because they had practiced doing just this in their imagined interactions with the government interrogators. Imagined interactions has also made huge strides in the realm of conflict management. This is especially true in areas of intergroup conflict. When adding imagined interactions to other methods of improving intergroup relations, more success can be found (Stathi et al., 2012). This can only be done, however, when positive interactions and outcomes are imagined. Otherwise, the imagined interactions will only serve to increase the conflict between the groups (Crisp et al., 2009).
Christian
