For this assignment I decided to use the Brunswikian Lens Model to assess my sister’s personality from an online space. I used to keep up with sister with phone calls every couple of weeks, but since she is Sweden this fall doing an internship, we have been forced to catch up over e-mail. For several weeks we have been exchanging e-mails back and forth, and it is from these messages that I can apply the Brunswikian Lens Model to analyze her personality. Specifically, the model outlines four mechanisms which will be discussed that will link my sister to the environments that she inhabits: self-directed identity claims, other-directed identity claims, interior behavioral residue, and exterior behavioral residue.
According to Walther, self-directed identity claims are “symbolic statements made by occupants for their own benefit, intended to reinforce their self-views.” In our conversation through e-mail, self-directed identity claims are few and far between, since she is mainly writing things to inform me about her life, rather than remind herself things for herself. However, it can be argued that some of the things she told me, specifically how happy she is in Sweden, can serve to influence my perception and reinforce her own. Say, for instance, she has a bad day and starts to regret her decision to move to a foreign country for four months; she can read the e-mail to remind herself how much she actually is enjoying herself. Other-directed identity claims are “symbols that have shared meanings to make statements to others about how they would like to be regarded.” I found an other-directed identity claim in every e-mail my sister sent me – her signature. Recently my sister has changed her signature from Mrs. Tory Goode to Dr. Tory Goode. Although I’m pretty sure she hasn’t earned that title completely yet, she’s taken the liberty to use it before she graduates this year, mainly for the respect that such a title denotes. Interior behavioral residue is “physical traces of activities conducted in the immediate environment.” Interior behavioral residue was also quite common since we would simply hit reply to each e-mail when conversing; thus, below each new message was every e-mail we had sent to each other before in the thread. These old e-mails showed the progress of our conversation. Exterior behavioral residue is a “residue of behaviors performed by the individual entirely outside of those immediate surroundings.” The exterior behavioral residue within our e-mails was common, considering our conversations were based upon her internship and my school life. Also, she sent me a few pictures highlighting her trip to the ABBA Museum (which I am still jealous about).
Based on these findings with the Brunswikian Lens Model, in addition to the Five Factor Model, I am able to make a few assessments about my sister’s personality. I would rate my sister high in terms of extroversion, agreeableness, and openness. This is probably mostly because she is my sister and is extremely forthcoming and trusting with me. I would then rate her average in terms of conscientiousness and neuroticism. Being in Sweden has been a culture shock for her to say the least, so I would have to say that any anxiety or conformity she is undergoing is a very normal reaction.
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Eden—I think you applied each aspect of the Brunsikian Lens Model really well in order to assess your sister’s personality from an e-mail. It is particularly interesting to look at your assessments since your sister in currently in another country and therefore CMC acts as one of the only ways for you to be aware of what is going on in her environment. Your sister’s new signature is a great example of an other-directed identity claim. I definitely agree that she could have chosen to use this title before graduating to earn respect from others she is e-mailing. In addition, your example of interior behavioral residue fits perfectly, being that e-mails are recordable and old e-mails stay in the body of the text when simply hitting reply. I think the most interesting aspect of the Brunsikian Lens Model to focus on in your current form of communicating with your sister is exterior behavioral residue. Since you are far away from her right now, it makes sense that you both will be talking about your respective “real life” environments. Since you are already aware of your sister’s consistent personality, applying the Five Factor Model in this case is probably highly influenced by what you already know about her. However, your mention of culture shock allowed me to realize that by applying the Brunswikian Lens Model to this space, you could identify a variety of state assessments giving you insight into how your sister currently feels while in Sweden.
Hey Eden,
First, let me say that I am very jealous that your sister is in Sweden. That sounds awesome! I think that your comments and observations where very interesting and it was neat to look at the model from an email stand point. I liked how you talked about interior behavioral residue and how the nature of emails makes it easy to see how she has acted in the environment. I also thought it was cool to note that she could be reminded on a bad day that she had a number of good days as well. Overall, I think that you took advantage of these unique opportunity because you were able to take this situation and apply the model to get a complete idea of how your sister is doing abroad. I also like how the situation biased how you would rate her on the 5 factor model because of the differences within the culture she lives in now compared to the one she lived in here. Neat post!!
Eden, I like your observation that certain modes of communication, or certain situations lend themselves more or less than others toward particular Brunswikian mechanisms. It’s also a good point that one can take a communication that was produced specifically for someone else (your sister’s email to you) and read it to herself as a self-identity claim (reminding her why she loves Sweden). You did a great job of identifying reply emails and their record of past message as interior behavioral residue. I think it’s tough to find interior behavioral residue in the CMC world because you don’t have physical rooms and spaces where you can leave stuff lying around. But messages and strings of messages that track previous communication are a perfect example. The only question I would have had is whether or not you would assess your sister’s personality differently than a stranger’s, but you addressed that in your final paragraph.
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