First Impressions

In order to form an online impression, I entered a teen chat room (synchronous online space). The first topic of conversation for any new member of the chat room always revolved around the four basic social identity questions: age/gender/location/myspace page (no doubt to view one’s physical appearance). According to the SIDE model, deindividuation leads to an increased reliance on these few remaining cues, which leads to stereotyping. Although the SIDE model was involved in my impression formation, it was not the predominant model. The Hyperpersonal Model, which is an extension of the SIDE and SIP Models, definitely had more of an impact on my impression of the members of the chat room.

In the chat room, I was able to observe and interact with many different people. However I will only focus on one online person, referred to as “tootsie”. I found myself judging tootsie from the moment she entered the chat room, even before she said a word. I began by stereotyping her as flirtatious and girly because of her name. This overattribution based on such a minimal cue (name), and the consequent stereotyping corresponds to the SIDE model. Once she spoke, tootsie confirmed my original impression. Her first line read: “who wants to talk to a hot blonde”. All my suspicions seemed confirmed and my impression of her went to the extreme end. This intense, overattribution to the extremes about a girl I don’t even know confirms the Hyperpersonal model. Tootsie’s first question to everyone was “are you a boy” and “how old are you”. Even though gender and age are basic social identity questions everyone asked in the chat room, coming from tootsie was different. Since I had already decided I did not like tootsie and that she was a “dumb blonde”, her inquiry about age and gender seemed promiscuous and aggressive. I also assumed she was extraverted because she was trying to talk to everybody. Later on in the chat room, tootsie and another female were involved in an altercation. Cap locks and exclamation points were used to show anger. Now that I am analyzing my reaction, I realize that it was the other female who started the altercation and tootsie was not at fault. However, during the incident I immediately thought that tootsie was the instigator. I overattributed the aggressiveness of the situation to tootsie’s personality, as opposed to the situation. I thought tootsie was aggressive, extraverted, and not agreeable.

In addition to the overattribution aspect of the Hyperpersonal model, self-presentation and behavioral confirmation were also most likely at play. People are dynamic and have many dimensions to their personality. Thus, there is clearly more to tootsie’s personality than all that was shown or made evident to me. Tootsie chose to portray and emphasize the flirtatious aspect of her personality and clearly tried to play on her blonde hair. But there is more to tootsie than she revealed (hopefully). Tootsie may also have been using behavioral confirmation. She clearly knew that her name would imply her to be playful and a girl as seen by her response below:
undertaker: tootsie are u a girl
tootsie: yes
tootsie: duh
Tootsie could just be behaving in the way others think she will behave.

My experience with this chat room supports the Hyperpersonal model, in that based on minimal cues, an exaggerated and intense impression of tootsie was formed.