The psychological space on the internet that I chose to join was an online chat room. The chat room is a synchronous space, which means the people communicating in the chat room were talking in real time. The chat room is also very anonymous, in other words I do not really know who I am talking to at any given moment, so everything said must be studied with a bit of skepticism. The person in the chat that I observed described himself to be a 15 year old white basketball player. Throughout the chat he seemed to be quite an extrovert. He talked a lot about his physical characteristics and he even talked about girls and what he is looking for in the opposite sex. He made many surprising and lewd comments, which led me to believe he is open, and not afraid to say what is on his mind. The person did not seem to be particularly warm; instead he portrayed himself to be very arrogant and self-centered. Furthermore, he only wanted to chat with people in the room that sent him pictures of themselves. He did this so he could make sure that the people he chatted with were attractive and worthwhile to flirt with. The observed target did not display any cues that lead me to believe that he was neurotic nor conscientiousness. He continuously spelled words wrong, and used unfamiliar abbreviations and acronyms.
My impression of the person I observed in the chat was most in line with the hyper-personal theory. I viewed the subject to be a very stereotypical high school basketball player. Although he did not give a wide range of cues, the cues he did reveal were exaggerated in my mind because I focused more intently on them. The lack of cues actually caused me to focus on the cues that were given, therefore allowing for a stereotypical or exaggerated impression to be formed. For example, at one point in the conversation he said he wanted to chat with any blondes in the room. This statement made me think that he only liked blondes, and would not be interested in girls with any other hair color. However this is not necessarily the case. He could have simply been in the “mood” to talk to a blonde that day. He also talked a lot about his physical characteristics which caused me to think that he was obsessed with outward appearances only. This could simply be an affect of the selective self presentation theory. He might be much more than a “good-looking basketball player”, but that is all he chose to reveal in the specific conversation in this chat room. Maybe he was not comfortable revealing anything else, or maybe he indeed is just self- absorbed.
I felt it was very easy to form an impression of the observed target. He didn’t hold anything back, and revealed cues that made it very easy to stereotype him. The hyper-personal theory explains my observations of this person very well and also gave me insight into why I made the impression I did.
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2 comments:
Hi Ariel,
I also joined a chat room for the assignment :) It's true, a chat room is extremely anonymous (unless you chose something revealing for your username) and everyone's practically communicating in real time.
Your target in the chat room is an interesting character. I'd have to agree with how you described him using the Big 5 traits, that he is open but not warm, and was doing some extremely selective self-presentation. The hyper-personal theory would apply here, since you "know" him very well based on the limited cues that he gave, which would probably lead other chatters to have similar views of him.
Do you think your impression also matches the CFO theory? Since with the cues he gives, the guy also gives off a rather negative impression to others (at least in my opinion).
I agree with you that the experience you had fit with the hyper-personal model. Based on a few cues, you made intense impressions. What I found most interesting about your conversation was how he only wanted to chat with “attractive” people who sent him pictures of themselves. As you pointed out, chat rooms are anonymous and allow people free range to express themselves. The fact that the guy requested pictures reduces the level of anonymity. Did he send pictures of himself to people or did he only receive pictures? How much of himself did he reveal? In addition, CMC allows one to focus on the traits he/she wants to express and allows for the re-allocation of cognitive resources. In CMC we don’t have to think about the nonverbal (such as physical appearance) and can focus more on the traits we want to present – which is why I found it so interesting that he focused on appearance. Was he so confident in his own appearance that he felt he could only talk to people whom he thought were “equal” in attractiveness? Or does being online give him a confidence he doesn’t have FTF? If he is so focused on physical appearance, it seems that FTF would be the more optimal way of meeting the type of people he’s interested in.
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