Virtual relationships in social media Flashcards
What have researchers turned their attention to in terms of social media relationships?
- the role of self-disclosure in social media relationships
- This is revealing personal & sensitive information about yourself > increases intimacy & can strengthen romantic bond
What are the two major & contrasting theories about how self-disclosure operates in virtual relationships?
- Reduced cues theory
- The hyperpersonal model
What psychologist devised reduced cues theory and what is it?
- Sproull & Kiesler
- argue that virtual relationships are less effective than face to face ones because they lack many cues we normally depend on in face to face interactions
- (e.g. non verbal = physical appearance, cues to emotional state facial expressions, tone of voice)
What does lack of social cues reduce and result to?
- a person loses sense of individual identity (de-individuation)
- in turn leads to disinhibition (many people feel freer to communicate in blunt & even aggressive ways)
- people are unlikely to want to express their real thoughts & feelings to someone who is so impersonal > fear of being victims
What psychologist devised the hyperpersonal model?
- Walther
What does Walther argue about virtual relationships & self-disclosure?
- argues that VR’s can be more personal & involve greater self disclosure than face to face ones
- because VR’s often develops very quickly as self-disclosure happens earlier & once established are more intense & intimate
What are the two reasons for quick and intense degrees of disclosure in virtual relationships according to the hyperpersonal model?
- sender can manipulate their image to present themselves in an idealised way due to greater control (known as selective self presentation)
- these self-disclosures can be both hyper honest and/or hyper dishonest
- this presentation of self results in other people self-disclosing quickly & receiver gives feedback which may deeply reinforces the selective self presentation
What is another factor that promotes online self-disclosure & makes virtual relationships hyperpersonal?
- anonymity
- Bargh et al point out that the anonymity in VR is similar to the ‘strangers on a train effect’ in face to face relationships
- When you are aware people don’t know your identity you feel less accountable for your behaviour - thus disclose more
What is a gate?
-Mckenna & Bargh say a gate is any obstacle to forming a relationship
How is face to face relationships gated? examples
- involves many features that can interfere with the early development of a relationship
- e.g. physical unattractiveness, facial disfigurement, stammer, social anxiety, shyness
What are the benefits of absence of gates in virtual relationships?
- self disclosure can develop to point where they become more frequent & deeper
- individual is freed to be their ‘true selves’
- attention directed away from the superficial
What are the drawbacks of gates in virtual relationships?
- people can create untrue identities and deceive people e.g. change their gender, sexuality age etc
What is a limitation of the reduced cues theory?
- non-verbal cues do exist online they are just different
- Walther & Tidwell point out that online interaction use other cues
- e.g. timing of messages, acronyms, emoticons & emojis can be used as effective substitutes for facial expressions & tone of voice
- technological advancements means people can use face time & voice notes
- limited explanation as it doesn’t consider how VR can be as personal as face to face ones
> theory lacks temporal validity,
What is a limitation of the hyperpersonal model?
- challenged by the findings of meta-analysis
- e.g. Ruppel et al carried out a meta-analysis of 25 studies that compared self-disclosures in face to face & VR
- Found that studies showed no significant differences between face to face & VR in terms of self-disclosure
- contradicts hyper personal model that greater intimacy of VR should lead to more & deeper self-disclosures than in face to face relationships
What is a counterpoint to the limitation of the hyperpersonal model?
- some evidence that Ftf and VR differ in the type of self-disclosures used
- Whitty & Joinson summarise evidence showing how self-presentation is manipulated in VR
- e.g. questions asked in online discussions tend be hyperhonest
self-presentation online can also be hyper dishonest e.g. people invent attractive personal qualities for their online dating profiles - different to Ftf convos which feature ‘small talk’
- shows there are differences between Ftf and VR
What is a strength of the absence of gating in VR’s?
- shy, lonely, socially anxious people find VR especially valuable
- Mckenna & Bargh looked at online communication by these people
- found that they were able to express their true selves more online than face to face
-71% of these relationships formed online survived at least 2 years compared to relationships formed face to face(49%) - suggest shy people benefit online presumably due to absence of gating
What is a limitation of the hyper personal model & the absence of gates?
- these theories fail to take into account that all relationships are multimodal
- Walther argues we conduct them both online and offline
- what we choose to disclose in virtual relationships is influenced by our offline interactions, and vice versa. - e.g. if we know someone in the offline world (or think we might meet them at some future point), we may think twice about disclosing intimate information about ourselves online
- cannot ignore these theories because they explain some features of virtual relationships > But it is wrong to focus on just one mode (virtual) rather than both (virtual and real-world) because they influence each other
