Up until yesterday, I had not been in a public Internet chat room for at least 7 years. My days in the “AOL Kids Chat Zone” are well over, as I turned twenty just a few days ago. In honor of my recent exit from teen-hood, I decided to enter ICQ’s “20-somehting chat” where I met my target—Brandon. We exchanged our Age/Sex/Location in the main chat room (he was 24/M/FL) before he sent me a request to go into a private chat. After our hour and a half conversation, I developed a first impression of Brandon which encompassed various aspects of the five-factor model of personality.
Brandon seemed fairly conscientious, aiming to be thorough in all his questions, responding to my comments thoughtfully, and clarifying his emotions by frequently using emoticons. Throughout our conversation Brandon seemed to vary in agreeableness. He wasn’t pushy on what type of description I should give when he asked what I looked like and he seemed to be very laid back. However, Brandon wasn’t afraid to share his own opinion. After telling him I love sushi, he promptly responded with an “EW!” (blatantly expressing his divergent opinion). I did not notice any signs of neuroticism from Brandon. He seemed happy and calm throughout the conversation and even when I “x-ed” out our chat by mistake he immediately said it was no problem instead of acting angry or annoyed. I believe Brandon is extremely open to experience due to his appreciation for singing, dancing, and music as well as his curiosity in learning more about me. He even mentioned that I could ask him anything about his interests since he is “pretty open. “ The fact that Brandon seemed chat room savvy led me to believe that he is very extroverted, looking to speak to new individuals online on a regular basis. He was outgoing and friendly throughout our conversation further supporting this notion. Although I am not confident that I can accurately measure Brandon on all 5 traits, I would rank him very highly on openness and extroversion.
My impressions of Brandon are most in line with Walther’s Hyperpersonal Model. In support of the over-attribution process, our online interaction led me to form an exaggerated positive impression of confident-outgoing-friendly Brandon from the fairly small amount of information I learned about him. It is likely that Brandon formed an exaggerated impression of me as well. When speaking casually about relationships, Brandon shared that he has very high standards and therefore usually doesn’t go out with a girl again after the first date. In contrast, at the end of our Internet conversation, Brandon was hoping to chat in the future and expressed that I must have “met his standards” in order for him to talk to me for so long. The Hyperpersonal Model can be applied to this situation to explain that Brandon made judgments on a few cues (hints of wittiness, intelligence, openness—to name a few traits I might have portrayed) and exaggerated them. Since Brandon had less information about me than someone he dated face-to-face, he created an exaggerated positive impression of me throughout our conversation that apparently seemed to meet his standards. Selective self-presentation and behavioral confirmation were making us both seem different than we may be face-to-face, leading both of us to present ourselves in certain lights and behave in certain manners in order to fulfill each other’s expectations of one another.
1 comment:
Alyssa, It was really interesting to read a post about someone who had a positive experience with this assignment. I cant talk to my closest friends for an hour and a half, its amazing you managed to talk to a complete stranger without feeling awkward at all. When I was reading your post, the portion of the hyperpersonal model that jumped out at me was behavioral confirmation. You touched on it at the end of your post, but it seemed that because things started out smoothly and you both enjoyed talking to one another, there was a degree of self fulfilling prophecy. From reading many of the other posts that make up a collection of horror stories that make whoever reads them never want to go near a computer again, I am surprised your target never asked to swap photos or arrange a meeting. I'm sure your impression would have changed dramatically if he had.
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