7: Who Is Jane, Really?

The Brunswikian Lens Model describes a way in which CMC users make assessments of others’ personalities. According to this model, individuals conduct themselves and leave behind evidence that reflects their real-life personalities. The validity of cues such as identity claims and behavioral residue depends on how good the CMC user in question is at accurately portraying themselves in an online space. I decided to examine the Facebook profile of someone whose personality I am not particularly familiar with to utilize the Brunswikian Lens. I will refer to this person as Jane.

A self-directed identity claim reinforces ones view of his or herself. An example of this could be one’s Facebook profile picture. Jane’s profile picture features her kissing a boy. After looking at her relationship status, I see that she is in a relationship with a boy named Ken. Hopefully this is the boy in her picture. Jane is clearly very happy to be in a relationship with this person, and her profile picture serves as a constant reminder of her relationship status.

An other-directed identity claim often illustrates some shared meaning in an attempt to illustrate how the CMC user would like to be looked at. An example of this on Jane’s profile is the application she added that displays a different “Sex and the City” quote each day. This identity claim should show that Jane really enjoys this TV show, and it will have some sort of shared meaning for anyone who is familiar with the show. Jane and I have a shared interest in Sex and the City, and this common ground might make me want to get to know her better.

Interior behavioral residue consists of evidence of events that occurred within an online space. In the case of Facebook, one of the most obvious examples interior behavioral residue is the Wall. Jane’s last 10 wall posts were written by 2 or 3 people, which shows me that Jane relies rather heavily on Facebook to keep in touch with people she does not go to college with. As for exterior behavioral residue, which is evidence of happenings that have occurred completely outside of the online space, Jane has added several albums’ worth of photos from time spent in Saratoga, where she was attending horse races. From the amount of photos she took there, it became clear to me that Jane is very interested in equestrian activities. This is something I am not very familiar with, but I do think it is very cool that she has a hobby she is so devoted to.

If I utilized Jane’s behavioral cues correctly, and my assumptions about her personality and correct, this would be called functional achievement. I would have to guess that Jane has high personality levels of openness and extraversion because she has so much information about herself on her profile. She might also be conscientious because she has a lot of hobbies and seems to keep up with all of them well. I’ll have to get to know Jane much better to know if this goal was accomplished, but it was rather fascinating to consciously utilize the identity claims and behavioral residue of someone I otherwise would have known almost nothing about.

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