Relationships - Virtual relationships Flashcards
What are virtual relationships?
Relationships that happen in online spaces which have become increasingly prominent due to social media, with many people communicating with people daily that they have never met face to face.
Research concerning virtual relationships
- Mesch - Israeli teenagers said they spend less time talking to online friends about personal topics
- Stephure - very few people report using online sites to find marital partners
- Mishna - 16-24yo consider online relationships to be as real as real life ones and the internet is crucial in experiences
- Smith - 54% of people believe they have come across other misrepresenting themselves, 28% suggested harassment
- Parker - both genders feel online affairs are less serious, although females do not like the use of porn
Evaluating virtual relationships
+ Facilitated an increase in inter-racial, homosexual and sexual minority relationships
+ Filter theory allows for people to find those who are more like minded
+ Develop social skills
- misrepresentation
- social media evolves and so the type of relationship will also change
- may stop people from committing to long term relationships
Factors of forming romantic / platonic relationships in the context of online relationships
Self disclosure - there is less fear of reaction and embarrassment and so more information is disclosed. Creates a deeper and closer relationship sooner
Physical attractiveness - without the initial view the relationship can develop without this, allowing those who may struggle to access relationships (absence of gating)
Filter/matching - deindividuation occurs as people are finding themselves in groups of people who are like minded. This means that relationships are more likely to continue due to common interests
Research evidence for self disclosure in online relationships
In support:
1) Walther (1996, 2011) proposed the hyperpersonal model of virtual relationships, suggesting that, as self-disclosure in online relationships happens earlier than in face-to-face ones, relationships quickly become more intense and feel more intimate and meaningful.
- They can also end more quickly, however, as it is difficult to sustain the same level of intense self-disclosure for a long time. Walther also suggests that virtual relationships may feel more intimate because it is easier to manipulate self disclosure online than face-to-face.
- Participants in online conversation have more time to ‘edit’ their responses to present themselves in a more positive light; Walther calls this ‘selective self-presentation’. Projecting a positive image will then make an online partner want to disclose more personal information, increasing the intensity of the relationship.
2) Rubin (’75) found a similar phenomenon when studying personal disclosure of information in normal relationships, with people being far more likely to disclose highly personal information to strangers as they knew (a) they would probably never see the person again and (b) the stranger could not report disclosures to the individual’s social group.
Evidence against this:
- Sproull and Kiesler (1986) suggested that online relationships might be less open and honest than face-to-face ones, because in real life we are relying on a lot of subtle cues, such as facial expressions and tone of voice, and these cues are absent in virtual communications (Reduced Cues Theory).
- According to this theory, reduction in communication cues leads to deindividuation because it diminishes people’s feelings of individual identity and brings on behaviours that people usually restrain themselves from displaying, such as aggression.
- This may make online communications more aggressive, and the consequence of this is less self-disclosure from other people, as they may fear becoming victims of verbal violence.
Research evidence surrounding absence of gaiting / physical attractiveness
- Gating in relationships refers to a peripheral feature becoming a barrier to the connection between people. This gate could be a physical feature, such as somebody’s weight or disfigurement, or a feature of one’s personality, such as introversion or shyness.
- It may be that two people’s personalities are very compatible, and attraction would occur if they spoke for any length of time, but a gate prevents this from happening.
- In face-to-face relationships, various factors influence the likelihood of a relationship starting in the 1st place: e.g., geographic location, social class, ethnicity, attractiveness, etc. These ‘gates’ are not present in virtual relationships and, in fact, people may mislead others online to form a false impression of their true identity: e.g., fake/photoshopped photos, females posing as males, etc.
- McKenna and Bargh (1999) propose the idea that CmC relationships remove these gates and mean that there is little distraction from the connection between people that might not otherwise have occurred. Some people use the anonymity available on the internet to compensate for these gates by portraying themselves differently than they would do in FtF relationships.
- People who lack confidence may use the extra time available in messaging to consider their responses more carefully, and those who perceive themselves to be unattractive may choose an avatar or edited picture which does not show this trait.
1) Baker and Oswald (2010) suggest that the absence of gating in virtual relationships may be particularly useful for shy people.
- They asked 207 male and female participants to complete a questionnaire, scoring their answers in terms of shyness, internet use and perception of quality of their friendships.
- They found that those people who scored highly on shyness and internet use, perceived the quality of their friendships as high; this correlation was absent for people with low shyness scores.
- The findings imply that as online communication helps people to overcome their shyness, so the quality of their face-to-face communication also improves.
2) Zhao et al. (2008) claim that the absence of gating, and more meaningful self-disclosure online also has positive effects on people’s offline relationships.
- As they can create an online identity that is appreciated by others, it enhances their overall self-image and increases the quality of their face-to-face relationships as well. This supports the suggestion
Research concerning deindividuation
- Lack of cues to assess behaviour
+ Individuals rated each other more highly when they met online
Strengths of factors involved in virtual relationships
The positive impact of virtual environments on developing romantic relationships is supported by research.
- For example, Rosenfeld and Thomas (2012) found that out of 4,000 participants studied, 71.8% of those with internet access were married or had a romantic partner, compared with only 35.9% of those without Internet access.
- The findings suggest that the virtual environment helps people to establish and maintain romantic relationships, endorsing explanations for virtual relationships.
Weaknesses of virtual relationship theories
- Asexual or homosexual relationships are ignored / work differently in terms of relationship factors
- Self-report studies used tend to have bas due to the demand characteristics
- Cultural bias in the imposition of Western cultural dating values
