Tuesday, September 4, 2007
Assignment#2
Assignment 2: Lets Stare at (observe) that Guy!
In a chat room, one is plugged into a synchronous multiple user messaging service. With conversations about many different things occur simultaneous between just a select group of “chatters” or among the whole room. This is the online space I ventured out to find my target.
Upon entering the chat, I did not immerse myself in the conversations, I merely took a step back and observed the conversations unfold. In this specific chat room, the users were discussing peer-to-peer software, another form of an online space where both discussions and files are shared between users. Most of the users ignored the trivial questions asked by the “noobs” as new users are often called, but my target seemed very friendly and ready to assist any of the other users with his knowledge. The gender was assumed on my part from the nickname used: “Tyler_Durden”. The reference to the main character in Fight Club could easily have been made by a female user, but it seemed unlikely.
As the conversations became further involved, acquaintances became like best-friends. Even though the users had seemingly just met, their use of sarcasm and good humor led me to believe that my impression of Tyler and the others could not be SIP. The impressions were neither negative nor neutral, in fact the friendly, open users had already grown on me and the jokes that they told induced a few chuckles here and there from my part.
Stalking a Wikipedian
Wikipedia is an especially interesting online space because not only is every user’s actions, edits and comments visible to anybody, every past action is kept in its history. In this assignment I chose the user Check-Six as my target. I observed his user page, article contributions as well as discussions with other users for the last year. Creepy huh? While I did not have any direct interaction with the user I can make quite a few assumptions about his interests, personality, and demographics. My preconceptions of the Wikipedia community are that the average Wikipedian has a higher probability of being a white male, being technically inclined (dorky), having access to a computer, and having too much time on their hands.
A Wikipedia user page naturally has many more cues than other text based online spaces like blogs, or forums but still conveys its information through text and is drastically different from a user page in another social network like Facebook. Check-Six has chosen to include a great deal of information about himself in his About Me section and his userboxes (self identifying boxes). What was initially surprising was the sheer amount of information given about himself on his user page; he is well educated, lives in San Francisco, speaks English and Chinese, has published a book on airplanes, likes guns and is a Star Wars geek. When compared to other social networks or Ftf interactions, Wikipedia users are still 1. Hidden behind a text only profile 2. Aren’t explicitly linked to other users through friend or school networks. This is probably why users are comfortable sharing more information than they normally would in Ftf or on other social networks.
From his contributions to talk pages, he obviously knows a lot about certain subjects but he occasionally mixes up phrases (for example he said pick nit instead of nitpick) which immediately shifted my perspective of a well educated person to an immigrant who has learned English as a second language.
My impression of Check-Six is still very impersonal even though I know could list more facts about him than anybody I would meet in a normal Ftf interaction over a few days. It is like I have exhausted any verbal and interpersonal probes about Check-Six but am clueless about non verbal, vocal and situational characteristics. I feel that my impression fit closely with CFO predictions. There was definitely decreased social presence even when compared to Facebook just because I couldn’t associate a face or personality to a genderless username. I ended up relying on verbal cues to deduce non verbal factors.
Harsh, though quasi-friendly when in privacy
I entered an asynchronous online chat with a user, “HarshLick,” on a forum entitled I Hate Music. Though I was previously registered on the site, I had never participated in a discussion on the forum, nor had I frequented the forum more than several times since joining one year ago.
I chose HarshLick as a chat partner because his sexually aggressive (extraverted) yet silly avatar cued an attempt at self-selective presentation. The genderless HarshLick was using the "zero-history" anonymity of the forum to create a mostly brooding, detached persona, as if to mimic the avant-garde music HarshLick was devoted to. The curt, and obviously carefully crafted forum responses indicated neuroticism more than any other traits in the Big 5.
The forum's users do not self-identify with gender, geo-locations or age, though demographic information can be intuited from the topics discussed in the forum, the location of attended concerts, and the age’s mentioned (estimated). The topics—including various aspects of creating, finding, and listening to experimental music—tend to attract a male, above-21 demographic. HarshLick, due to cues written in his messages, e.g. "when I saw them in '89," revealed himself to be male and in his early 40s. Between HarshLick and me, there were no talks of relationship drama, nor exchanges of information regarding emotional or quotidian activity. However, this “task-oriented” exchange did not confirm the "coldness" of our computer mediated interaction, as the Reduced Social Cues Theory might suggest.
From the forum posts, which usually appeared at the rate of 7 per hour, I observed that positive intra-member connections were formed, though through shared or common experiences, through strong agreements on certain subjects, and through a mutual appreciation of pertinent music. Certain linguistic cues—use of hyperbole and other words semantically indicating intensity—helped me ingratiate myself to HarshLick. Walther’s Hyperpersonal Model predicts that feedback tends toward this “Behavioral Confirmation.”
Keeping with the forum’s topic, I noted and praised a recent release by the artist, Aaron Dilloway, and specifically referenced HarshLick’s review of his earlier work; it would not be considered unusual in the forum to single out an individual to engage in a user-to-user chat. Upon taking a liking to my musical taste, Harshlick was willing to personal message (or PM) me with a list of other websites I should check out. HarshLick used a minimum of verbal cues that I imparted to form a more detailed, though group-stereotyped impression of me – in line with the "over-attribution processes" of the Hyperpersonal Theory. In this personal, peer-to-peer space, HarshLick was more warm (agreeableness). In a forum situation, he was more careful to choose what he wrote (lack of openness). Overall, our interaction fell in with tenets of the SIP and Hyperpersonal Theories.
ASL?...Assignment 1
For this assignment, I decided that the best way to interact with and observe another person online would be via a form of synchronous chat room. Since this is not the sort of thing that I usually do, I simply "Googled," "chat rooms," and sifted through some of the options, finally deciding on "chat-avenue." At first I entered a chat room specifically created for college students, but was extremely overwhelmed by the pace at which people were conversing; it seemed as if everyone already knew each other, and it was a little too much for me to take, so I left that chat fairly promptly. The next chat room I entered was for Singles. I thought this would be an interesting environment in which to get acquainted with a stranger, mostly because I was interested in what types of people I would find and what they were looking for in such an environment. While this chat room too had a fairly fast pace going already, and messages strewn with sexual provocations, I stayed it out and it didn't take long for me to find a viable subject to study. The first person I acknowledged in this overwhelmingly fast-paced and hard-to-follow environment was a user named "duane." Duane was apparently interested in chatting with a nice girl that he could get to know better. Because my username had the number 44 in it, duane automatically assumed that I was 44 years old, which I found very interesting that he immediately made that judgment about me. This, of course, was his first question because due to my name he could already assume that I was a "grl." Upon assuring duane that I was not 44 years old but that I was infact 22 (lie), he told me he was 47. I then moved on to "
World of Warcraft: A World of Its Own Indeed (Assignment 2)
I approached one of my fraternity brothers who I suspected might play this game, and I was pleased to discover that my assumption had been correct. He logged on as his character, a warlock who was both an “enchanter” and a tailor. I was skeptical of this game, but I decided to give it a chance. What I discovered over the next half hour of playing is mind-boggling. In fact, World of Warcraft actually, in its own right, is its own, separate world. Its complexity astounded me. There were so many things to take into account that I found my head spinning. Even with a play-by-play explanation of what was going on in front of me by my friend didn’t completely help the situation.
After the brief tutorial my friend gave me, I decided to engage in my first interaction. My friend was on a very high level in the game, so I decided to talk with a lower level player who, like my friend, was also a warlock. His user name was Avaleen while his real name was not revealed, leaving some sense of anonymity in the game. He was only on Level 7, so we began discussing what specification my character was. In other words, what my character specialized in. Avaleen was trying to decide was specification he wanted to pursue, so he was grateful for the advice my friend and I gave him.
Avaleen’s character was a warlock, but a female one with purple hair. If I was going to create a character online, I certainly would not want to be a female with some weird hair color. In addition, the language Avaleen used completely confused me. He used endless amounts of mysterious abbreviations and acronyms. To my surprise, my friend knew exactly what he was saying. Apparently, the game even had its own language! I was quick to judge Avaleen, as I pictured a huge nerd with glasses and a pocket protector, sitting at his computer all day, speaking his magical language, trying to rise to the elite rankings of World of Warcraft. I pictured him staying home on the weekends, avoiding parties and other large social gatherings. In other words, I pictured Avaleen to be a huge dork who I would not really want to associate with. I made all these judgments based on the way he looked in a computer game and on the way he talked to other fictional characters.
I think that my experience was most in line with the Cues Filtered Out theory. Because of the nature of the communication, my impression formation was obviously only based on verbal cues. While I could see their character and interact, it is not the same as face-to-face communication with nonverbal and vocal cues. Therefore, I made hasty, harsh judgments about Avaleen based solely on what he was saying and how his character looked. In face-to-face communication, we base our judgments on many things, not just verbal cues. I realize that people probably think of my friend in the same manner I thought of Avaleen. Yet in my mind, my friend is a completely normal person. It is very possible that Avaleen is very similar to my friend. Therefore, this type of computer mediated technology caused me to make negative, underdeveloped judgments, which is in line with the CFO Theory.
A Whole New World...to me
Although I am not typically a big fan of chat rooms, I decided to venture outside of my comfort zone and explore the psychological space of chat rooms on the Internet. I was curious to understand why it is so appealing to have a random conversation with a random person. In this nearly synchronous space, I wanted to see how much I could really learn about a person in just a small chat. I thought it necessary to take the plunge and choose a chat room environment that covered topics that were entirely outside my normal social interaction to make it truly an interesting experience. Let me preface this assignment by saying that I am neither a male nor do I have homosexual tendencies…
After selecting the first chat room website that I stumbled upon in my search for a psychological space to explore, I was fascinated by the wide array of topics that were covered on just one website. With my desire to explore something entirely outside of my element, I decided to enter a chat room for gay men. Not expecting to strike up many conversations, I chose a rather sexually ambiguous name, Jessie, to be able to just observe the chat room and observe people’s interactions with one another. However, after logging into the chat, I was almost immediately asked to have a private conversation with Le, a thirty-five year old man from Upstate New York (at least that’s what he told me). I assumed that he was a rather forward and open about himself. He appeared to be very extroverted, he was directing the conversation and he was the one who initiated the conversation after all. For the first time I truly experienced reciprocal self-disclosure. After Le told me some details about himself, I felt compelled to tell him about myself (minus my gender & sexuality). I am normally a person who doesn’t trust people and am hesitant to reveal details about myself, however, in this social interaction I felt an obligation to disclose information. Although ASL is the norm, Le asked my age and location but made the assumption that I was Male. Just because I was in that chat room and he didn’t bother inquiring if his assumption was true, re-confirming that you can’t just assume things, like you can in face-to-face interactions.
The conversation with Le started out as friendly and harmless, discussing our age, where we’re from and finding commonalities between us (he’s from upstate New York & has friends that live on Long Island). Going along with the Hyper-Personal model, Le exhibited traits of selective self- presentation; He typed responses with no mistakes, correct grammar & punctuation (capitalizing the names of towns), which led me to think that he was educated and conscientious. However, this harmless conversation was thrust towards a rather inappropriate direction after I asked what I thought was a safe question, “ What are your interests?” and after that I quickly ended the conversation and my impression of Le was entirely replaced by a far more negative impression. Again, his forwardness and openness are apparent in just his few selected words.
My impression of Le was most in line with the Hyperpersonal model. With just the 10 minute conversation with Le, I believed him to be extraordinarily open, forward & uninhibited. I was repulsed by how quickly the tone of our conversation changed and in that short instance, my impression of Le was formed. In addition to the selective self-presentation, I think that Le exhibited the behavioral confirmation of the Hyperpersonal Model. By being in this particular chat room, it may have led Le to behave more openly and more forward, because implicitly he behaved the more like the way people may have expected him to in this channel. The limited cues in the short interaction that described his age & sexuality already created a stereotypical image in my mind of who this person was.
Chatting with SmarterChild would have been much more interesting.
At the beginning of this assignment, I decided the best psychological space in which I could observe and interact with a target was a chat room. The synchronous nature of this forum would allow me to obtain the feedback necessary to form an impression of one of the people with whom I was chatting and judge his or her personality characteristics. Also, I hoped there would be enough people in the chat room so that I could avoid mistakenly chatting with a web bot that wanted me to look at her web cam.
I entered a chat room and after lurking and reading the conversation for several minutes, I accepted another user’s invitation to chat privately. I thought, since he had initiated the chat, he would at the very least hold up his end of the conversation. When we did start conversing, his responses seemed cold and often left much to be desired. Reflecting back on the conversation, the reason I found his responses to be inadequate and began to develop an unfavorable impression of him was that he continually violated the Gricean maxim of quantity. When in a conversation with another person, one’s contribution should be as informative as required and not more so. My new friend “Cardinal1408” seemed to be trying to answer my questions with as few words as possible and never once asked me a question in turn. After telling me that he didn’t go to school, I asked if he had a job. His response was simply, “No.” When I asked what he did for fun, he replied, “Hang out at home.” After about ten minutes of answers similar to that, I bid my new friend farewell.
Based on my impression of Cardinal, I would have rated him as being extremely introverted and having below average openness and agreeableness. I do not feel as though I gathered enough information to rate his neuroticism or conscientiousness. One aspect of our conversation that I found quite striking was the fact that Cardinal didn’t seem to be engaging in selective self-presentation. He was barely presenting himself at all in fact. The details about himself that he did reveal were all direct answers to questions that I had asked him. If he was indeed reallocating cognitive resources that ordinarily would be used in a face to face conversation to better manage the impression he was making, it didn’t seem to make much of a difference. The strong impressions I formed about his level of extroversion, openness, and agreeableness were more intense than they might have been in person due to over-attribution processes. Having little else to go on, his short answers, lack of reciprocity, and the effect of the fundamental attribution error, may have caused me to overvalue the effect of personality and undervalue situational factors in the behaviors I observed.
Overall, my chat experience conformed more closely to the hyperpersonal model than the CFO perspective or Social Information Processing Theory. The impressions I formed lacked breadth (I only felt comfortable making a judgment on three out of five personality measures) but certainly made up for it in intensity. The CFO perspective would have predicted that my impression would have been fairly neutral and that was not the case. My impression of Cardinal suffered from the common problem of CMC in that the environment made me over-attribute the limited information I had solely to his personality. Our conversation was not noteworthy because he engaged in selective self-presentation and reallocated cognitive resources, but rather it was interesting that he did not. Another reason for Cardinal’s reticence could have been that I never allowed a significant amount of time to pass between his answer and my next question. The behavioral confirmation aspect of the hyperpersonal model may have been at work since I eventually established myself as the dominant information seeker and he as the passive informer. Treating him as a passive participant in our conversation may have made him become one.
Midnight has fallen on the world of Aetolia and blah blah blah....
As stated before, MUDs have long since lost their appeal, with users migrating towards games with a bit more "eye candy." Most people consider MUDs to have gone the way of the dodo and newsgroups, but a small number of people still participate in them. The most popular MUDs normally have an average number of 100-250 users in them at a time.
I spent a pretty good while conversing with two players who had been playing the game since it was created in 2001 and another newbie who had never been in a MUD before. I found the newbie to be incredibly annoying and distracting... continually asking questions and never pausing long enough to get any answers. "Where am I supposed to go?", "Can I join a Guild?", "What do I do with this mystical staff thing?" The two veteran players, however, were very understanding of him. Patiently answering all of the newbie's questions while passing nerdy inside jokes back and forth about the uneducated n00b.
When I finally signed off Aetolia, I did so thinking all three players were definitely "kind of strange". However, in the hours since I ended my "adventure" I had a change of heart. I started to realize that my impression of these people was created long before I ever entered the MUD. I honestly never really gave these people a chance. By my own account, the two veterans were patient and kind, but I had considered them strange. And the only reason I wasn't asking as many questions as the other newbie, was because I never intended to enter the MUD again. Despite this, I'd dismissed him as annoying.
I think it's fair to say my impressions fall into the hyperpersonal model-- I had a little piece of information and I heavily extrapolated and stereotyped accordingly.
However, something a little more unique happened in my situation. My stereotype was based solely on the medium being used. All the stereotypes that I brought up were because of where in online space I was interacting.
The models we've examined so far, point out that the lack of social cues available in CMC cause us to heavily stereotype, but they never really address the specific stereotypes that online spaces themselves carry.
I think it definitely raises an interesting research possibility:
Are the opinions of others heavily influenced by the medium in which they meet me whether it be AIM, or a MUD or on Match.com?
The Heated Comments Section of a News Article
The comments section is asynchronous, anonymous, and fairly persistent. I say “fairly” because this dimension of psychological space is persistent, yet only as long as the news remains “todays” news. Once a breaking story hits the website, the comments on the old news dwindle. I also observed the effect asynchronous dialogue has on the “conversation.” For example, a controversial post was made followed by several unrelated posts and then a day later a second post was made as a follow up to the first controversial post. This caused a great deal of confusion. The result was a fight and name-calling. User “slickbgone” posted right after the controversial post was made and despite his/her comment being unrelated, the comment was interpreted incorrectly.
I decided to use the flame war between ‘slickbgone’ and several of the other users, such as “WI Cynic,” “Northern Dog,” and “Strike3” to take a closer look at impression formation. At no point in the comments did anyone deviate from referring to one another as anything but their username until the flame war came about. At this point, users began making assumptions. For no reason at all, slickbgone took on a female identity (perhaps because she sided with Hillary Clinton). Slickbgone began calling several of the users “he,” perhaps because he/she felt like men are more likely to fight. Furthermore, personalities which seemed already cold got even colder. In terms of several of the big 5 traits, all users were very open, not at all conscientious of each other, and had no care for agreeableness. This is could all be due to the anonymous nature of this CMC.
The flame war which arose as a result of the confusion follows the ideas set out in the Social Information Processing theory explored by Joe Walther in 1993. Due to a lack of FTF there was a delay and disruption within the chain of communication. The SIP theory explains that nonverbal cues are not totally missing, just delayed and must be fed through a different channel. In the comments section, there was a delay without any nonverbal cues to explain the confusion. This elapsed time caused the flame war to arise and aided in users online impression formation. Clearly, CMC can lead to conflicts which would otherwise be avoided in FTF communication.
Chat Rooms...or houses of ill repute?
This evening I ventured into a place I never thought I would encounter- an online chat room. I found that although this space is supposedly, “synchronus” or “nearly synchronus” often bad internet connections and people continually entering and leaving the chat room made the communication process conversation span over several minutes. Conversely, if the conversation has been conducted in real time, the things said would have only taken a few minutes.
Alas, I’m getting too technical already, let me back up. So, after finally finding a chat room to enter (there were only a few English ones to select), I happened upon a chat room called “Dreams.” Already I had preconceived notions about the “chatters.” I imagined the members of the chat room as middle-aged men looking for some fodder for their sexual fantasies. I pictured perverts with plenty of time on their hands, willing to prey on sexually curious teenage girls. Chat room reputations are comparable to houses of ill repute in my opinion. Everyone knows they’re there, but no one wants to talk about them or admit that they’ve explored those “dirty” areas of society.
I began chatting with Thomas07 and drew the opinion that he was not very smart and an unimaginative person. He continually left out essential words from sentences and could not articulate what he was feeling (especially in regards to dreams he had experienced). He over-used “LOL” giving me the impression that he wasn’t very interesting and had no backup conversation topics or substance to his character. Thomas told me that he was a freshman at a community college in
Around this time, Sunflower820 entered the room. She claimed to have “taken my chat room virginity,” and then began talking about being a vegetarian. Sunflower also claimed to be a bit of a “hippy.” Immediately, I pictured an
Already, you realize that I immediately determined the sex of my subjects strictly based on their screen names, although they never came out and said their gender.
I had a very one-sided view of both of my subjects, since I had only encountered them in this one space, at this one given moment in time. I was unable to observe the target in a variety of situations and was only exposed to the information they disclosed to me in this close format. I had no pictures or non-verbal cues to rely on, strictly text and the limited connotations one can get from text and symbols. Given the limited time and setting, I did receive an impoverished impression of the chatters.
I concur with the Social Info Processing Theory, that with time, I could have reduced unfamiliarity and increased the positive image of the strangers. However, I believe that my experience in this online space was more relevant to the Hyperpersonal Model. With my limited information I received from Thomas and Sunflower, I deduced exaggerated impersonations. Selective self presentation would also be a strong aspect of this situation, since Thomas and Sunflower were choosing the way to present themselves to myself and the rest of the chatters.
Finally, I concluded that I subconsciously formed very exaggerated dimensions of Thomas and Sunflower based on singular impressions.
I was also wondering what the significance of the online space or medium is in forming impressions of individuals in online communication- obviously we will encounter more of this in the future lectures…J
Monday, September 3, 2007
Blog assignment #2: chatrooms and new people!
First, finding chat rooms. It seems like they are starting to fall out of favor because MSN chats apparently closed, Yahoo chats are hard to find and so on. I ended up finding ICQ chats which let me join chat rooms through an online interface.
This is when I encountered my next problem. Most of the chat talk is about sex. People looking to private chat and discuss relationships. Clearly, this would not work for the assignment. I checked many different rooms: teens, 20's, 30's, 40's, computers, science fiction, etc. and all were talking about the same thing.
So, then I changed my name to "nosexjustlife" and joined the 20's chatroom. I openly said that I am 20, male, from NY and would like to have a decent conversation with somebody that is not just sex.
One of the responses ended up being a ~1 hour long conversation with a girl from Nebraska. This actually turned into something very nice and I made a new friend!
At first the conversation was kind of cold. I've never done "chat rooms" so I did not know what to say, and the questions we asked each other were stupid. However, after a few minutes we found that we both liked poetry and then the conversation took off. I started finding out a lot more things about her. My impressions after an hour of talking - she is a quiet, but emotional girl and expresses herself through poems and other forms of art. She is going through some rough times and feels kind of lost. She likes most forms of art and can be "dark" or "light" depending on the mood. As a description, she was a girl, 18 and white. Overall I would say her personality was warm.
We eventually talked about colleges, movies, art and a lot more.
The funny thing is right now I feel like I have a very good impression of her. If I met her on the street I would know how to talk to her even though I don't know how she carries herself in RL.
I think my experience fits very well with the Hyperpersonal Model. I can basically go down the list and check off every single attribute. I got a very good - warm impression of her and might actually end up being good friends with her. I see her as an Art person because of a few lines of our conversation. And of course that one statement that she liked art carried through the whole conversation so Overattribution processes and selective self preservation took place. Reallocation of resources definitely happened as we got into some lengthy discussions that are easier to do online. Finally, I tried to be a friendly guy who enjoys poetry and movies. She probably tried to be an art person from the get-go. So, behavioral confirmation also took place.
Overall, this was a lot of fun and I think I actually made my first online-only friend.
Can Body Odor be Detected Over the Internet Because Nobody is Talking to Me?!??-Assignment 2
You would think that the Internet is just overflowing with people eager to engage in discourse about life, music, or pretty much anything! However, God must have been playing a sick, practical joke on me because I barely made a single friend after visiting several chat rooms. Maybe my troubles spurred from my unique alias or nickname choice, which was EOTC—my friend’s band which stands for Envy On the Coast. I figured, why not advertise a little for them while schmooze with total strangers from around the world.
After numerous rejections, which were quite rude (supporting the chilly nature of the internet fueled by anonymity), I eventually encountered ugadawg. He—I never found out his real name—was a senior from the University of Georgia and turned out to be a very nice guy, at least that was the impression I formed. To be fair, he got major brownie points in the Big 5’s openness and warmness traits just by simply not blowing me off like many of the chat’s members. We spoke about how gorgeous the southern girls are at UGA, music (he asked what EOTC stood for), and what our respective majors are. He is a Biology major and used to play football for his school. For all I know though, he could be a 45 year old, 120 pound, level 30 dungeons and dragons master, but I digress. He also nonchalantly added that he neverrrr goes into these chat rooms and that tonight he was just very bored. Again, sounds suspicious, but I will give ugadawg the benefit of the doubt.
Ugadawg seemed, from what little cues I had, to be a nice person. Like we read in class, it was hard to get a sense of his level of neuroticism, extroversion, and agreeableness via CMC. I potentially fell victim to the hyper-personal model’s behavioral confirmation process because right off the bat, I believed that ugadawg was nice since he was one the few individuals to respond to me. This process’s notion of the self-fulfilling prophecy may have added to my positive feelings toward him regardless if they were warranted or not. Additionally, the channel in which the encounter took place, a chat room, and the disrespectful members present influenced the impression I made of ugadawg. I encountered a lot of rude people in the chat, hostile remarks, and some very interesting and lewd emoticons. My conversation with ugadawg was even interrupted numerous times by these individuals when they, for the sake of being irritating, sent large blank blocks or paragraphs in the chat room. This made it incredibly annoying and difficult to follow the chat room discussion. Due to this blatant contrast, ugadawg seemed like Mother Teresa.
My overall experience in the chat room can be explained by many of the theories. The impression I formed of ugadawg would agree with the SIP and hyper-personal theory. Contrary to the CFO perspective, I did not have a neutral or negative impression of ugadawg, but rather a very positive one. I felt that, given more time, I would be able to make a more accurate, positive impression of ugadawg, which is in accordance to SIP theory. Additionally, the hyper-personal model may have influenced my potentially exaggerated, positive impression of ugadawg because of the behavioral confirmation process and the contrast between him and the other members in the chat. The hyper-personal model may also explain the impressions formed concerning the rude individuals in the chat room. Due to the over attribution process, I judged all the members in chat solely on the few very rude things I witnessed them say. This caused me to put more weight on their malicious comments which potentially helped form my exaggerated, negative impressions of them.
I "think" I am talking to "you"
Hi, instead of telling a new experience, I want to tell an old experience first. It still happened in
When I was in
And we also has some chat tool called “QQ”, just like MSN or Google Talk function, but maybe much more beautiful on the surface. If somebody wants to talk to you, may be a friend and may be a total stranger, a little blue window will jump out. When movie time came, and some blue window jumped out, usually the girl sitting nearest to the keyboard would reply for the computer owner Zhou if she permitted. And the girl would type in what Zhou said.
One Friday night, when we were watching a movie, a blue window jumped, it was from the computer owner Zhou’s high school classmate. He wanted to talk to Zhou. So as usual, another girl replied for Zhou. It was the best part of the movie, so after a few words, Zhou said “You just type in what you want to say, I have to watch the movie”. So that girl typed in some words to answer the guy’s questions. We were all busying watching the movie, so no one paid much attention to the content of the chat. Then suddenly, that boy said “Zhou, you changed”.
This blog topic brings me back to that night. That boy didn’t know it was a total different person, but he realized there were some changed. Maybe the opinion, maybe the language, maybe the favored symbols (like some appearances, some signals…)
That boy is a friend of Zhou, so Zhou most probably will express the true self when chat with him usually. The girl replying for Zhou is busy watching movie, and she is not familiar with that guy, besides, there is nearly no opportunity and need for her and that boy to make friends with each other. So under this situation, the girl most probably will express the true self or just type some meaningless answer, at least there is really no need for her to pretend to be someone else to reply. Even if she pretended to be Zhou, the result proved to be failed.
I’ve talked a lot, I don’t know if you have gotten my point. I agree more with the SIP, “impression formation will develop more slowly in CMC”. And from the SIP picture, you can see the red line and the green line goes closer with time going on. At first, the guy chatted with the girl thinking she was Zhou, but as time passed, he realized “Zhou” was different, and this result was much closer to the fact, the red line. However, in CFO, it says “lack of cues in CMC should lead to neutral, negative, undeveloped impressions”. Under my situation and my example, I can’t agree with this CFO perspective easily.
My example may be a special case, but after all it happened in the internet space and the only reason makes it special is that it happened between acquaintances. But I think the CFO or SIP doesn’t have this limit.
(I am sorry I didn’t get into a chat room, because I didn’t find one, or I don’t quite know how to find one. Sorry.)
I'd Rather Not Talk To My Friends On The Phone
The Facebook message thread is a captivating psychological space. I happen to be best friends with the nine other females who participate in the thread, so I will attempt to dissect my impressions of these people with the perspective of an outsider.
One thing that makes this example different from other asynchronous discussion forums it is that the participants all know each other quite well. This seems to have a significant effect on the way in which the girls speak to one another. Theoretical perspectives still prove useful in understanding some of the behavior exhibited in this space, but the fact that the participants also know each other very well in real life makes understanding this space a bit more complicated. In almost any other asynchronous chat, participants have much more control over their Social Identities, but in this Facebook message thread, those involved do not seem to worry quite as much about the impressions they might form, for FtF experience almost always overrides a questionable CMC message.
This particular Facebook message thread is the easiest way for my friends from home and me to share stories, collegiate anecdotes, and other random thoughts that pop into our brains. A fair amount of behavioral confirmation goes on. This aspect of the Hyperpersonal Model is probably the most salient theoretical perspective of my message thread. My ditzy friends, E and AR, like to purposely use big words incorrectly as they tell the rest of the group about their preferred Disney Channel programming. The worldly New Yorker, A, shares witty stories on celebrity sightings, cross-dressers, and museum exhibits. The borderline alcoholics (there are more than a few) describe the strange places they find themselves on Sunday mornings. These stories often involve typos and excessive repetition of letters in certain words, as these are the CMC versions of hangover-induced FtF speech slurring. M, the quietest one, embraces her role as such, and therefore only writes when something important needs to be expressed. L, my fellow Cornellian, and I, are more often than not telling the group about our assigned blog entries.
Overall, my impressions of the Facebook message thread participants seem well aligned with aspects of the Hyperpersonal Model, especially the Behavioral Confirmation portion. The interplay of real life experiences and computer-mediated communication make this psychological internet space more complicated, and therefore at times, much more interesting.
lovemygirl18
I messaged the mystery person, giving him/her a simple "Hello", hoping that he/she would respond. They did, and gave the typical "a/s/l" inquiry that is routine for chatting with new people. I told them that I was 19, female, and located in New York City. Lovemygirl is an 18 year old male from Idiana, or so he says. Me, not familiar with Indiana or the Midwest, made the assumption that he is a small-town boy, has a think accent, and works on a farm. My assumptions were quite inaccurate.
I spoke via person-to-person messaging with lovemygirl (who's name is Tory, fyi) for more than an hour. I learned that he is obtaining his GED and may attend college in the future. He works at a factory that packages and ships various items (spaghetti jars, tools, beer, etc.). He has a girlfriend (with the same name as me, weird) who he has been dating for 4 months. His half sister has one child, and is about to have a second. I could tell that he really loves his family and is very devoted to them. For fun, he goes rollerblading and plays video games. He likes metal and rock music.
The time it took me to get to know Tory by CMC could have taken 10 minutes on the telephone or in a face-to-face conversation, thus demonstrating the Social Information Processing Theory (SIP). The absence of non-verbal cues in CMC with Tory made the process of getting to know him even slower. On my part, I used the hyperpersonal model to direct the conversation in a way that I thought would keep it going longer. For instance, I assumed Tory was not much of an academic, so I stayed away from talking about school and college. Instead, I asked him what types of recreational activities he does. Overall, talking with Tory was a real pleasure, and I will most likely talk with him again in the future!
A Chat with Guest3928
I was expecting a fury of chatting to pop up, but to my surprise, the chat was rather slow. Before "going private" I wanted to get the feel of the chat. I typed, "Yo whatsup?" and waited. A person replied, "ANY CHiX IN HERE??". I replied that I was indeed a "CHiX". She then says that she is a "CHiX" too and that she is from "CALi". I tell her I am from MD. Then, she leaves. Quite a shame...
Next, a person with screen name Guest3928 asks if anyone wants to chat, and if they do, private message him. I jump at the opportunity. I im him "yo whatsup?" and he replied "n2m asl". I was very temped to tell him to divulge his "asl" first, but decided to go with it. I gave him my stats, and asked his. He said he was a 15 year old male from WI. My immediate reaction was that I cant believe Im talking to a 15 year old. My second reaction was that this was probably an FBI agent and I was going to land myself a spot on the hit TV show "Dateline: To Catch a Predator" .
I asked him what his hobbies were. He said he was a "sk8tr". I told him I liked video games. I asked him if he played Nintendo. He said no. He sent me his myspace page, which can be seen here. I think he is trying to make himself look significantly more "big and bad" in his myspace profile. Its a little ridiculous actually.
Then, the conversation took a surprising turn: He asked me if I was cute. I wasn't sure how to respond, so I said it depends who you ask. He asked me if I had any pics. I said I did, and I sent him a particularly small older picture of myself. After about 5 minutes, I got no more response. Guest3928 had left.
I imagine that Guest3928 left for a variety of reasons. Maybe I wasnt cute enough for him. Maybe I wasn't his type. Maybe h e found a more interesting lady friend. Maybe he was the FBI agent and he had decided I wasn't a predator. What ever it was, Guest3928 certainly did not tell me many secrets of his life .
I got some pretty big impressions of guest3928. Over all, I would say that I thought of him as a 15 year old trying to rebel or sound cool for his age. I got the impression that his parents didnt spend much time regulating what he looked at on the internet (as evident because he was talking to a 20 year old female). My strong impressions would suggest that the conversation was more evident of the hyperpersonal model. I also dont know much about him other than that he likes to "sk8". Thus, the lack of breadth also supports this model.
I also believe that he was trying to act older and more "gankster" (or something equivalent) by asking me if I was cute, which he portrayed through his myspace. If this is true it would be behavioral confirmation. I think he was also selective portraying himself as someone who really is big and bad in real life... even though he is apparently only 15.
My experience with gyest3928 was overall negative and rather insincere. The whole conversation made me more and more cynical towards him as it went on. I dont think I will be visiting meebo rooms again in the near future.
A Flight Attendent and a Car Enthusiast
Yesterday, I made friends with a flight attendant. At least that is what “littlemysie” told me she did for a living when I initiated a chat with her while playing a game on pogo.com.
We chatted about where we are from, where we’d like to travel to, and how we spend our time. Within the next forty five minutes, it got even more personal; we chatted about 9/11 and airports and how she prays before she gets on every flight. Then I mentioned my cat and all of a sudden there was a wave of messages about her two
Immediately before I started talking to “littlemysie,” I chatted with “jesta”, a 29 year old male. In those five minutes, I discovered he likes working on cars, prefers 1970s mustangs, and lives in
These two experiences definitively show that in order to get to know someone you need time, and according to Social Information Processing theory (SIP), the lack of nonverbal cues in CMC make the process of getting to know someone even slower. But SIP fails to address some of the other aspects that influenced my online impressions of these strangers.
I think my impressions are most closely associated with what the Hyperpersonal theory would predict because despite the time difference between the two conversations, I developed rather intense impressions of both strangers. In reality, I think the limiting nature of CMC due to the lack of nonverbal cues contributed to my impressions because I was left to purely concentrate on their verbal cues and what they chose to tell me (also referred to as the re-allocation of cognitive resources).
After looking back at my conversations, I also realize that I presented very different aspects of myself (selective self presentation) according to the need of conversation. I would therefore predict that both strangers have a very different impression of me. For example, I had no reason to tell littlemysie that I own a mustang! But it was pretty important in the conversation with jesta.
And even with these super strong first impressions, their first names are still a mystery to me. Weird!
Assignment 2: Is anybody out there?
I have seen many people talk on the DC++ chat option before but never thought to enter the conversation myself. For those who are confused about the online space I entered, THCHUB on DC++ is the Cornell hub for peer to peer downloading. There is a chat option that allows you to interact with other people who are also online at the same time.
I entered in the midst of several conversations with a simple hi. At first I was ignored which was understandable since I was a newbie and was not adding much to the conversation. After being ignored for a while, I decided to take another approach. I jumped into one of the ongoing conversations about how to beat a certain level of some computer game I had never even heard of. My suggestion (that the person look up cheats on Google) was not appreciated much but it did get someone talking to me.
Before I even looked at what the person wrote back to me, I looked at his/her screen name to get an initial impression. The screen name was 007trayn. Automatically, I assumed that the person was a James Bond fan. This led to my thinking of the person as someone who loved action, violence and movies.
In response to my wayward comment, 007trayn replied that I was obviously someone who did not appreciate the true value of beating video games with hard work. I replied stating that I wasn't one who spent a lot of time playing video games so I didn't really see the difference between beating it one way or the other. This angered her/him into going into a spiel about how people "like me" did not appreciate the time and effort people put into not only creating the game but discovering small nuances about the game that allowed a player to beat it. Just based on this quick 5 minute conversation, I felt as if I had enough information about him/her.
We talked about five traits; Neuroticism, Openness, Extraversion, Agreeableness and Conscientiousness. Based on my first impression about this person, I would state that the person is not very extraverted due to the fact that he/she obviously spends a lot of time playing video games (often a one man activity). He/she was definitely rude and not open to the fact that people have a variety of opinions on video games (Agreeableness and Openness). As to neuroticism and conscientiousness, I did not get enough information to make a valid judgment.
My findings prove the hyperpersonal theory. I over attributed the few cues I was able to attain through the medium to stereotypical views of the stranger. I definitely have a strong, negative impression of the person I conversed with. This was due to the fact that I had very few non verbal cues to work with. There was also behavioral confirmation since I perceived my partner to be someone who was nerdy and loved video games, he/she started to exhibit those characteristics stronger than before.
Meeting Crystal- Assignment #2
She typed with a lot of slang words such as "nah, hot fiyah, chillaxin, yo son," and that just kept feeding into my original assumptions. We liked the same type of music, reggaeton and her "spanglish" started coming out. Now I felt like I was talking to one of my cousins so several other characteristics were added onto the list. She had graduated high school two years ago and never went to college. She jumps around from one part time job to another. This lead me to think that she did not do well in school, wasn’t very educated and didn’t really have goals for herself. It didn’t seem like she was able to hold down a job, so I saw her as lazy and not much of a worker. Her name was Crystal (we had forgotten to do the whole name exchange) and it just so happened that her boyfriends’ name was the same as mine, Anthony.
We wrapped up the conversation because she had to "bounce to her mans crib". Afterwards I read over our conversation and looked at the things I had written down to see if I saw them the same way. I saw my impressions of Crystal were in line with the Hyperpersonal model. I was willing to make exaggerated and stereotypical impressions of her based on the minimal amount of information I knew. I assumed that because she did not go to college she was not a good student and uneducated. I didn’t bother to think that maybe she had personal issues that didn’t enable her to go to school. I let her way of speaking represent her whole manner, instead of thinking that she can switch into a professional phase when needed. I formed an initial impression from the start by her screen name and just kept finding things to support my impression. The over attribution processes came into play here when I made an intense, exaggerated impression based on few pieces of information. This exercise definitely served as realization of how we jump to conclusions about people and keep to our impressions no matter what else we learn about the person.
Pitiless in Pink
I was hit with an explosion of pink when I entered Hilton’s site. Senses overwhelmed, I proceeded to read his blog. It took a while for me to adapt to Hilton’s blogging style; he liked to add pictures to his posts, often adding crude, infantile drawings onto celebrities’ faces. He was also crass in his judgment of celebrities, mocking them for their erratic behavior and their tactics to grab attention.
I thought Hilton’s judgments of celebrities were hypocritical since he had no shame in advertising his ventures on his site; for instance, in promoting his TV show, he encouraged readers to watch, claiming that they would, “love it. We know! LOVE. LOVE. LOVE.” He told readers, “You must watch!!!!” I got the impression that Hilton’s brashness and immaturity was a part of his selective self-presentation. He probably chose to highlight his immaturity because he loved attention, and he knew that he would earn attention by acting childishly. I concluded that Hilton had to be extroverted in person because being loud would allow him to bring attention to himself.
I also thought that it was ironic that Hilton felt that he was worthy enough to judge celebrities on their class, while Hilton himself was far from classy with his attention-getting ways and his vulgar jabs at celebrities. I was able to get some visual cues of Hilton because of some pictures of himself that he posted on the blog—they only confirmed my view of him. With dyed, neon-colored hair and a thin moustache, I was only further convinced of my impression that Hilton was tacky and brash.
From Hilton’s verbal and visual cues and overall presentation, I formed a negative impression. I was greatly repelled by Hilton’s constant mockery and childishness. However, even though I believed him to be extroverted, I would not be confident enough to judge Hilton on traits such as agreeableness, neuroticism, and conscientiousness. My lack of confidence in judging Hilton on a breadth of traits and my exaggerated impression of him would suggest that my impression of Hilton is in line with a hyperpersonal prediction. If I spent more time reading Hilton’s blog, I may have eventually been more confident in judging Hilton on more character traits, confirming the developmental aspect of the hyperpersonal theory. However, unfortunately for Hilton, I will be staying far away from his blog in the future.
"Curious 1": Your Everyday Finincial Advisor
At first, my impression was that “Curious 1” was pretty nice and outgoing; a dabbler among chat rooms. However, as he began to describe his life in more detail (mainly focusing on his sexual life), I became uncomfortable and formed an awkward yet still empathetic feeling about “Curious 1.” I also began to understand why he chose that particular nickname. In relation to the particular theories discussed in class, I would attribute the Hyperpersonal model to my impression of “Curious 1.” Initially, it involved the over-attribution aspect of the model. After finding out he worked in a financial firm and graduated from Northwestern I began making some assumptions about what kind of person he might be and questioning why he might be in the chat room. I assumed that he was secure, probably a bit older, and well-educated. I figured that he probably might converse about something interesting or intellectual. I think that my initiation of the conversation and my honest responses may have led to a factor selective self-presentation. For him, the combination of the obvious liberal connotations that come with Cornell and my integrity may have induced his openness and willingness to answer my questions about chatrooms. After sometime, the SIDE theory aspect of the Hyperpersonal model became apparent. I was able to understand his open ended conversation without specific punctuation. He also left me sarcastic cues that were easily distinguished from his normal language. Generally, my impression of him was positive. I was surprised at the intensity of his openness and ability to speak about his life. Personally, I would not be so revealing or open but it made for an extensive conversation.
Learning About "Kyle22"
As soon as our private conversation started “Kyle22” begin looking for cues to determine more information about me, and I did the same. We started with the typical “asl?”. I learned that “Kyle22” was a 22 year old male from Californian. I immediately started to make assumptions about Kyle based on stereotypes that are engrained in pop culture with shows like Laguna Beach and the OC. I assumed Kyle was a surfer dude and really laid back, especially considering that he was in a chatroom about rock music. After telling Kyle where I was from, our conversation returned to the topic of music. We started talking about how we first started liking the All American Rejects and what our favorite songs were from their two albums. He had some really interesting insights into some of the tracks and he seemed really knowledgeable about music.
As our conversation progressed I told Kyle that I work for our local rock station her in Ithaca and he told me that he works for his college’s radio station as well (he is currently a senior). Having the experience of working for a radio station this really seemed to tell me a lot about Kyle too because you have to be really responsible and passionate to be successful at the radio station.
Based on our whole conversation I feel that I painted a rather vivid image of Kyle in my head. He’s in his senior year of college in California who likes to surf, and hang out with his friends and listen to music. More in depth however, Kyle is a very down to Earth guy who has a lot of insight into lyrics and a lot of passion for music. He can be depended on in many situations and is always willing to reach out to new people and is always up for a good time.
Thinking back to our readings and lectures I feel that my impression of Kyle follows the hyperpersonal model because the impression that I formed is a very positive impression, not neutral, and has very little breadth. First, I definitely over attributed the few cues that I did have about Kyle: his age, that he was from California, he likes rock, and that he works for a college radio station. I used stereotypes as well as my own personal experience to fill in a lot of the blanks with other aspects of his personality that fit in with these cues. Secondly, because we had met in a chatroom that was on the set topic of music, Kyle definitely selected what he was going to present to me. Our conversation didn’t venture too far out of the realm of music; Kyle chose to reveal a great deal about his musical like/dislikes and other experiences relating to music. This leads to a much more intense impression to be formed because I was given such a great deal of information in regard to this one aspect of his life. Finally, because I wasn’t having a face-to-face conversation with Kyle and that I was only listening to music while chatting with him my cognitive abilities were readily available to help me form an impression of Kyle rather quickly because I was able to pay a lot of attention to his phrasing and the emoticons that he used a lot to show how he felt about something. In turn all of these phrases like “cool dude”, “yeah man”, and the emoticons with sunglasses were also over attributed to help form a very strong impression of Kyle.
Getting One to Relate
Communication 245 has been an extremely interesting class so far; and our first assignment has been extremely fun. Doing homework that is so interactive really enables me to understand and apply what we learn in class. Given the assignment to enter a psychological space I was somewhat skeptical. How am I going to get someone I don't even know to talk much less open up to me? Putting myself in the position of the receiver, I assumed anyone I tried to interact with would automatically sign off. In this way I was applying the idea of homogenization i.e. that everyone would act like I would.
Interestingly enough the first person I im'd did sign-off; therefore my hypothesis was confirmed. However, I tried again and suprisingly the person responded with a simple, "hi." Just from the first words I assumed the person was skeptical and would be very guarded. In class we have discussed how instant messaging can be both asynchronous or synchronous but in this particular situation the interaction seemed solely synchronous. AOL has added a feature to instant messages that enables the receiver to see what the sender is typing thus we can tell if the person is actually taking a long time to answer the questions.
At the beginning of our conversation the person seemed quite introverted and was not very open to conversation. All my questions received one word answers and they did not inquire about my persona at all. It was not until I found that we had similar activities that the male opened up to me. After this I was able to get more descriptive and elaborate answers. From this I concluded that the person was actually somewhat extroverted once you broke the surface and very open. When I asked him if he would go on a blind date he not only said he did but implied that he would do it again. This particular fact shed new light on my previously formed impression of him. He seemed quite calm, lacking in any trait of neurotism; yet he did admit to being "ADD crazy" in highschool. He was neither agreeable or unpleasant to talk with and was conscious of what was going on but did not pay very close attention to detail (both of what he was saying and what I was asking).
My particular interaction directly supports the idea that our impression formation is enhanced with time when we are in a computer mediated area. At the beginning of the discussion I believe I definately overattributed the short answers as meaning the person was not friendly and uninterested. Additionally, later in the discussion he discussed how he was shy and then when we talked about relationships he said he was too embarrassed to ask someone out. In this instance I can see a little bit of the behavior confirmation theory taking place. I thought it was cute that he was shy and after that he seemed to play up the innocent and sweet guy.
Overall my impression changed and became more dense over time thus it was proven to be in line with the SIP model which states that our impressions develop slower in a CMC environment,.
It was a very interesting assignment. I was suprised that I actually wanted to continue talking to the person after I had all the information I needed!
My Friends Friend
My friend John, who is from PA, has tons of friends whether they be from his hometown, here at Cornell, or his study abroad trip he did in Australia. After chatting with this person for about 10 minutes, I was informed that SHE also lives in PA and that she was 19. We'll say her name is "Ashley" for privacy reasons and ASHLEY'S favorite color is BLUE. She is still in HIGH SCHOOL and has a pet lab named COCO.
I got the feeling as we were talking that she was pretty uncomfortable. She thought I was John at first, but when I revealed to her that this was John's friend she definitely became a little standoffish. Time passed and she started to warm up to me. From that I incurred that she is a trusting person, and from her constant lol's, OMG's, and smiley faces I figured she must have a somewhat loving and bubbly personality. As the conversation continued the more she talked up herself. So I would say even though she seemed to have a loving personality and wouldn't care what people thought of her too much, she followed the Hyperpersonal Model, namely the selective self-presentation process. The more we talked the more she revealed about her body type and how "nice" it was. She also informed that she was pretty popular at her school and only few people disliked her. She continued to tell me that they probably dislike her because they are jealous of her. So after that non-sense I told her that I had to go take a shower and the conversation ended.
After our conversation ended, I told John what I thought about her and he said most of my impressions were pretty accurate. She does have a loving personality, but she is somewhat full of herself. He did reveal to me that the physical makeup I had of her was totally off. Though I thought she was brunette with dark eyes, turns out she was red-headed wish blue eyes. Can't win them all I guess.
My SWG Family I Never Knew... Assignment 1
First Impressions
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.
Chattabodz
anyone looking for a relationship?
My initial impression of John was that he was boring and cold, making me carry the conversation and answering with short and to the point responses. However, as I continued to talk to John my impression turned to one more of pity. After getting over the initial age, sex, location, and looks information, he asked if I wanted to play a game where we could each ask each other three questions and no matter what the question was we had to respond honestly. I agreed to this game, and we started asking questions.
Although some of his questions were sexual and a little uncomfortable, I learned a lot about this 19 year-old from a small town in Indiana after only an hour of talking. I found out about his job working the 4am-1:30pm shift at the local Target, his shy personality that made it hard for him to meet girls in person, and the death of his dad when he was ten years old that led him to get a tattoo on his arm in his memory. At the end of my conversation, after giving this boy a fake email address, I was left with an overall good impression of him. I thought he was a lonely boy, looking for comfort from other people in any way that he knew how. He seemed open and agreeable but extremely introverted, which made me feel a sad warmth emanating from him that made me want to keep the conversation going.
The theory that was most influential in my impression formation was the Hyperpersonal Model. The first factor was the over-attribution process, which made me think John was unintelligent or of low economic status for not attending college and having to work a hard shift. We never discussed his intelligence but from the information he revealed to me I formed this impression, which ultimately made me feel pity for him. The next factor was the developmental aspect, where initially I was uninterested and turned off by the conversation. However, as we continued talking, I was able to learn more about this boy and in turn develop a better relationship and a better impression of him that I think may be even greater than if I had talked to him in person. Due to his shy nature, and the intensity of some of the topics we discussed, he only revealed the information about his father and even the status of his virginity to me because the CMC allowed for it. He was able to feel a sense of anonymity and comfort from talking to this stranger and therefore divulged more personal information about himself.
:-(
I ordered the Wallace Psychology of the Internet book online because the Cornell store was sold out until 9/14. So if anyone wants to buy the book from me for $12 let me know either through AIM (Jason2811), email jag243@cornell.edu, or Facebook.
Good luck with your blogs!