Lecture 4: interpersonal processes in social media Flashcards
what is an impression?
- we evaluate others, and they evaluate us
- we use cues to form impressions of others (what people say about themselves, what they omit, what others say)
- we engage in tactics to impress
Impression management vs. impression formation
forming:
- we form an impression of someone when we combine all number of ideas into a unified impression of this person
managing:
- when interacting, we have an idea of how we wish to appear to them
- is any effort aimed at influencing perceptions other people have about ourselves. Done by regulating and controlling info in social interaction
3 characteristics of affordances
- communication is asynchronous (editable and delay in responses)
- cues are reduces (info sites have about users is provided by users themselves)
- the context is shared (sites have specific norms and rules that users learn once they spend time on them –> perspective of how to behave)
Uncertainty reduction
- strangers are motivated to reduce uncertainty
- people seek to explain other people’s behavior
- want to make sense of others, see behavior as predictable
- communication plays a key role (reduces uncertainty)
Hyperpersonal communication
cues filtered out:
impressions are difficult –> old strategies fail –> we lose nuance
cues filtered in
we make use of available cues –> we read into cues and use imaginative thinking –> relationships can become idealized over time
hyperpersonal communication of computer-mediated communication
- communicating via mediated channels gives us more control over our self-presentation
- we can be selective, asynchronous and make carefully crafted displays of the self
Lens model (part of impression formation)
Elements in the environment can serve as a kind of lens through which observers indirectly perceive underlying construct (see slide 20 for model)
- cue utilization: link between observable cue and observer’s judgement
- cue validity: link between observable cue and occupant’s actual level of underlying construct (organized bedroom)
if both match there’s observer accuracy
Warranting theory (part of impression formation)
some cues have more warranting value than others
- cues that are less vulnerable to manipulation by the self-presenter have more warrant
- cues should be more influential in the impression formation process
(instagram (photo’s) is more warrant than twitter(texts))
definition warranting principle, credibility, value and diagnosticity
warrating principle = the greater the difficulty to manipulate, the higher the value of info
warranting credibility = the degree to which an online cue is believed to be immune to manipulation
warranting value = the degree to which observers rely upon certain cues to judge user personality
warranting diagnosticity = the predictive value of a warrant
3 profile elements (which has most warrant?)
- self -generated (Photos, profile information) –> most warrant
- friends-generated (Tags in photos of friends, comments from friends)
- System-generated (Number of friends) –> least warrant
Results article Hall, Penningtion & Lueders
agreeable profile: more pictures with friends, had more positive messages and interactions with others
extraverted: more comments by friends, more pictures with friends, more humorous self-presentation
conscientious: listed music preferences or romantic relationships on their page, more serious topics, more status updates
neurotic: less friendly pictures, negative affect in pictures, emotional support seeking, posting too frequently
open: music, literature, media, political discussions that are more liberal in content
results:
- cue validity and cue utilization match for openness, extraversion and neuroticism
- but no warranting theory can be applied: authors found that other-generated cues were not more diagnostic of their personality than the information users provided themselves.
correspondence bias
the tendency to assume that others’ actions and words reflect their personality or stable personal disposition, rather than being affected by situational factors (seeing happy pictures on FB, users conclude that they’re happy, while ignoring the circumstances that make them happy)
self disclosure
depth: degree to which info revealed is personal
breadth: amount of personal topics covered in a conversation
self disclosure vs. self presentation
self disclosure: just a part of the way in which we present ourselves (we tell the world who we are and what are the elements that characterize us
- part of self-presentation
- determined by level of attachment within the relationship
self presentation: the performance whereby people try to control the impression they give to others
- varies by social context (work, friends, sport) and is broader
Self presentation characteristics
- in every human interaction people strategically perform to give a particular impression
- audiences to a performance interact by believing/disconfirming a performance
- reinforces the performance, suggesting way in which it can be improved
- setting determines the performance and can require it to change
- overall, an individual’s identity is composed by different facets each audience sees a different side, although the origin is a common one
