Virtual Relationships Flashcards
Self disclosure
Revealing personal information about yourself. Romantic partners reveal more about their true selves as their relationship develops. These self disclosures about one’s deepest thoughts and feelings can strengthen a romantic bond when used appropriately.
Reduced cues theory
Sproull and Kiesler - CMC removes cues we normally depend on, e.g. physical appearance or cues to our emotional states such as expressions or tone. This can lead to losing identity (deindividuation) and acting in a way they wouldn’t normally (disinhibition). CMC - aggressive and blunt communication which leads to a reluctance to SD.
Hyperpersonal model
Walther - self disclosure is higher. CMC relationships are more personal and have greater SD than FtF. CMC RS can develop fast as SD happens earlier so they become more intense and intimate. Can end quicker as online persona can be heavily manipulated and controlled, causing distrust. Anonymity makes people less accountable so more likely to reveal things they would otherwise keep secret if FtF.
Gate
Any feature / obstacle that could interfere with development of RS. FtF interaction is said to be gated as it involves many features that can interfere with the early development of RS, e.g. physical unattractiveness and social anxiety.
Absence of gating
These gates can remain hidden. People free to create online identities that they could never imagine FtF. Allows SD and intimacy to develop without distraction of superficial features. The gate may be revealed but because of the SD it doesn’t matter as much now.
Yurchisin et al
Interviewed online daters. Some interviews admitted they would steal another dater’s ideas or copy peoples images as a way of making themselves more popular.
Yurchisin did however find that most online identities were still close to the person’s true identity in order to avoid unpleasant surprises in real life encounters.
- P - A lack of research support for reduced cues
E - Walther and Tidwell - cues in CMC different from FtF. Found more cues in CMC just not nonverbal ones.
E - Emoticons and acrostics considered effective substitutes in CMC for lack of nonverbal cues, so the concept that there are reduced cues in CMCs is unsupported.
L - There may be no differences in SD between CMC and FtF relationships, which doesn’t support the reduced cues theory.
+ P - Supporting research
E - Whitby and Joinson - supporting evidence for both hyper honest and hyper dishonest online disclosures.
E - Questions asked in online discussions tend to be direct, probing and intimate and responses direct and to the point which is different from FtF conversations.
L - This is consistent with the prediction of the model that there are distinctive types of disclosure in CMC.
- P - Don’t recogonise CMCs as multifunctional
E - Theories need to include that RS are usually conducted both online and offline.
E - The interaction between people online will influence the interaction in the FtF RS, including the level and speed of SD as these two types of communication need to be considered together and not separately.
L - Current theories may underestimate the complexity of virtual relationships.
