Assignment #2: Yahoo! Messenger Chatroom

I chose to join a random chatroom on Yahoo! Messenger. I have to admit this was my first chatroom experience. No one seemed to be talking, and as this was my first time I was not quite sure if I had even entered the chatroom correctly. Though I knew I was totally anonymous, which probably encourages most people to just start a conversation with a random person, I decided to wait until someone else spoke first. As it seemed this may take a while, I started checking my email and stopped paying close attention to the chatroom. When I saw that someone had spoken I was pretty excited for my first chatroom conversation! The person had even spoken directly to me, the newest person in the chat, because I saw that I was addressed by my screen name! I assumed that this seemingly assertive person was going to be friendly and extraverted. I was about to respond when I saw that there were already four IMs from the same person. After the initial “hey [screen name]” there was an “asl?” followed by “ok..don’t answer” and then “nvm.” I was definitely taken aback by this person who so quickly judged and dismissed me after my initial slow response time. This consequently led me to rate this person low on agreeableness before I had even participated in the conversation.

Despite the rudeness, I chose to respond. I shared my Age-Sex-Location (ASL), asked for this person’s ASL, and gave a short apology for not responding fast enough. After two minutes of silence, I asked if this person was still there. After another long pause, my chatroom “buddy” finally asked, “so…do you like how it feels?” Not wanting to start an argument, I just explained that I had missed the IM because I was checking my email. This comment only seemed to put this person in an even worse mood. We only spoke for a few more brief moments because it seemed to me that my “buddy” wanted to start a fight. I tried to calm the situation and just start from the beginning by inquiring for ASL once again. Yet all of the responses I received were very short, accusatory, and uninformative. When I finally told my “buddy” that I did not have time for this, he or she snapped at me and signed off.

Though our conversation was very short, I was definitely able to form an impression of this person using the Big Five Personality Traits, with the exception of conscientiousness. I still do not know the gender of my “buddy,” nor anything else for that matter, so he or she is definitely low on the openness factor. My “buddy” absolutely lacked agreeableness as demonstrated by his or her continual criticizing; this had been my first impression and it held constant through to the end. While I would not describe this person as sociable, he or she was assertive and highly emotional which are also signs of extraversion. And finally, I think my “buddy” sits high on the neuroticism scale due to his or her insane instability and irritability. It is rather ridiculous that my brief, yet highly turbulent conversation could lead me to make such strong negative impressions just as Walther’s Hyperpersonal Model illustrates. I had very few characteristics on which to base my impression, yet I still managed to interpret them and then stereotype the rest. With the little information that I had, I used over-attribution processes to form a very exaggerated image of an angry, unstable, and antisocial person. I am just hoping that my next chatroom conversation is a little more civil than my first.