Online Impression Formation

Initially, I wasn’t quite sure how to approach this week’s assignment, since the internet and the definition of a psychological space are both very broad. I knew I wanted to interact with people, instead of passively observing peoples’ blogs or posts; interaction plays a key role in developing impressions. The first idea that came to me was to enter a chat room and meet a completely random person; however, this would not allow me to actually meet the person in real life. This became another priority—meeting someone FtF after interacting with them in CMC would allow for comparison between the two worlds. It would also allow me to actually differentiate between the Hyperpersonal model and the CFO model. The main difference between these models is the intensity of impressions. If I were to just interact with a person online, and formed an extremely intense impression of him/her, this would not justify either model. It could mean that the Hyperpersonal model, is in fact, correct, or it could also mean that I happened to come across a very extreme person, which would not rule out the CFO model. Then I thought of meeting someone on Facebook or MySpace that went to Cornell, so I could actually meet them, but these social networks would give away too much information, and there would not be much to learn about them through the interaction. I resorted to emailing a random person on a general Cornell mailing list server, without telling them that this was for a class (in order to prevent excessive selective self-presentation because if I told him I was going to be writing about him, he would have tried harder to impress me). Surprisingly, I received a response and continued interacting with this person through email. After emailing this person a couple of times, I also had the opportunity of chatting with this person through a synchronous space, AIM, as well as meet him Face-to-Face twice.
My first impression of Alex (not his real name, but for the sake of not having to type “him” hundreds of times…) was that he showed a great deal of agreeableness. After all, he kept interacting with me for no particular reason, which showed that he was honest and friendly. As my almost 2 hour conversation on AIM continued, this impression heightened throughout the conversion. He was very compassionate and cooperative throughout the conversion:

ev***** (4:41:16 PM): Yeah, I can't wait to meet you too.
ev***** (4:43:38 PM): I also cannot help but think that we would be enjoying laughing in person
ev***** (4:43:57 PM): because of all of the sincere smiles that go along with laughter.

Another very apparent impression that I formed was that Alex was extremely conscientious. He seemed to be very organized and goal-oriented—I concluded this when he told me exactly what he wanted to do with his life. Also his strict, formal writing style throughout the conversation showed me that he had self-discipline.

I also felt that Alex was very extraverted, because there was not really any pause in our conversations for two hours. This doesn’t really show that he was extraverted, but it gave me a sense that he was outgoing and enjoyed the company of people very much.

It was hard to judge Alex’s neuroticism, since both of us enjoyed talking about positive issues. There were also no outbursts of anger, or sudden moments of depression. However, he did constantly complain about his high school (because it was originally designed to be a prison, not an education facility) and hometown. From this, I concluded that his neuroticism was generally high.

Interestingly at this point, I had no basis for judging his openness because we did not mention our appreciation for art, religious ideals, political views, thought process, etc.

As you can probably tell, most of these impressions are fairly extreme or intense, which supports the Hyperpersonal model. After meeting with Alex in real life, my impressions became less intense, which further supports the Hyperpersonal model.

Alex was not as compassionate or agreeable as I made him out to be. He was still friendly but just not as friendly as I thought. He also became less conscientious, as he acted more spontaneous and really did not plan out his day. Alex was also clumsier and not aware of his surroundings. He was also less extraverted, as he was not very energetic or outgoing. The same can be said about his neuroticism. After meeting Alex face-to-face, he seemed more normal person than I thought he would be.

However, I still could not judge his openness after emailing him, conversing through AIM, and meeting him FtF.

After meeting him in real life, we still kept in contact, and he finally showed a signs of openness. He showed that he had an appreciation for music and art, which is correlated with openness. He also proved that he had an abstract way of thinking:

ev***** (1:38:47 PM):It [pauses in conversations] is not as awkward online
…
ev***** (1:40:10 PM):I think that it [online conversations] is less awkward for other reasons. Awkwardness in speech is more associated with uncertainty about how to change your facial expression, where to walk, etc.
ev***** (1:40:15 PM):but you are the expert on this
ELLIS WENG (4:40:30 PM):omg the prof said the exact same thing in class… ev***** (1:40:43 PM):Really?
ev***** (1:40:59 PM):I swear I have only thought about this on my own, and I have not taken a class.

After I finally told him about this class, he was open to the ideas and began to formulate his own ideas about this subject (He managed to come up with the concept of reallocation of cognitive resources, while using the same exact examples as Prof. Hancock). He did not simply accept everything I told him about this subject. He challenged some of my ideas, while accepting criticism. He also showed that he was curious; he was open.

After interaction with Alex in a CMC environment I realized that my impressions were much more intense than the impressions that I formed when I finally met him—this supports the Hyperpersonal model. Through my interaction I also realized that certain aspects of the Hyperpersonal model were followed: over-attribution process, developmental aspect, selective self-presentation, and reallocation of cognitive resources.

The over-attribution process occurred when I used the lack of cues to formulate opinions about Alex’s extroversion and neuroticism, which turned out more intense than they should have. The developmental aspect was evident when I finally learned, after conversing with him several times through AIM, that he was open. It also became obvious that he was using most of his cognitive resources to present himself in a more positive way; he emphasized his agreeableness and conscientiousness when we were interacting in CMC.