How well do you know your best friend? You may think you know your best friend because—hey—it’s YOUR best friend! If you’re anything like me then most of your judgments and perceptions of your best friend are formulated based on personal interactions and experiences. I have known my best friend since second grade, so I know her like a favorite book… or do I? I know my friend’s personality based on personal encounters, but how does her Facebook profile present her and how do others use it to perceive her personality?
While investigating my best friend I incorporated the Brunswikian Lens Model, an approach in which individuals make inferences about the characteristics of others. This model suggests that individuals produce behaviors and generate artifacts that reflect their personalities, thus allowing others to judge them and make inferences of their personality. In this model, Brunswikian’s “lens” refers to the environment cues incorporated and used by the observers to make inferences about characteristics. There are four main mechanisms used to link individuals to their environment.
The first of the four mechanisms is self-directed identity claims. These are symbolic statements made by occupants for their own benefit, intended to reinforce their self-views. In the case of my best friend, her profile says “Married” and mentions the name of a girl. This is clearly not the truth, seeing how my best friend is a straight female (and if she is married to a woman, she’s got A LOT of explaining to do!). This identity claim reflects her humorous personality. It is an inside joke between her and this female friend and is solely for her own benefit.
The second mechanism is other-directed identity claims. These claims are symbols that have shared meanings to make statements to others. They are descriptions of how the individual would like to be regarded by others. In the case of my best friend, her other-directed identity claims are reinforced by her“about me” and “interests” portion of her profile. My friend is very sarcastic and has a huge fascination with celebrity stardom. Some of her interests include “Perez Hilton,” “gossip,” and “HOTT fashion.” In her “about me” section she includes her goal of someday staring in a Pepsi commercial and writes, “I’m a star—if you know me, consider yourself blessed and lucky.” Though these claims may not necessarily be 100% valid, they allow others to form judgments about her and perceive her personality.
Furthermore, the third mechanism is interior behavioral residue. These are physical traces of activities conducted within the environment. Though interior behavioral residue generally refers to past behaviors, they may reflect anticipated future behaviors that may occur in the immediate environment. An example of this is my friend's "newsfeed," which shows all of her friend acceptances, group invites, and even wall posts. My friend’s wall posts and comments are great evidence of interior residue. She is known for posting absurd comments on the walls of her friends’. Her comments are a reflection of her interactions with others within the Facebook community.
The fourth mechanism that links an individual to an environment is exterior behavioral residue. This type of residue is conceptualized as the remains of behaviors performed by the individual entirely outside of the immediate environment. As figured, an example of this would be my friend’s pictures and photo albums. All of her pictures show her interactions outside of the Facebook community. There are plenty of pictures from her wild nights spent and clubs, her summer vacation in Italy and France, and even pictures of her with old friends and family. They depict her socializing with others and partaking in fun activities that align with her personality.
Keeping my friend’s Facebook profile in mind, it is important to remember the fact that observers do not rely on all possible cues in making their judgments about others, thus establishing the link between an environmental cue and an observers’ utilization of that cue as cue utilization. Other factors that could be used when interpreting my friend’s personality based on her profile is the Five Factor Model (neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and contentiousness). Though all of her claims presented in her profile may hint at her openness and extraversion, they certainly do not entail all aspects of her personality. An outsider may look at my friend’s profile and immediately deduce that she is a pretentious, popularity-driven air-head. Though this might be SLIGHTLY true, they are not able to see her kind and warm heart and loving personality traits.
By using the Brunswikian Model to tear judge my best friend’s personality, it is safe to make a simple conclusion: your Facebook profile may not accurately reflect your true personality. Perhaps I should warn my best friend about the inaccuracies of her “profile personality”… or I could just sit back and laugh at her sarcastic and foolish ways.
-Joshua Navarro
My Comments:
http://comm245purple.blogspot.com/2007/10/72-old-friend-from-high-school.html
http://comm245purple.blogspot.com/2007/10/looking-through-lens-limited.html
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2 comments:
Excellent job Josh! I really enjoyed this post, and I think that you did a very nice job! You really covered all of the main features of the Brunswikian Lens Model, and even managed to include some other theories and information that we have learned in class.
It's interesting how in something like a facebook profile, which is an online space where we basically have control over every aspect of the profile, we choose to present ourselves in ways that may be misleading to others. It seems likely that the way the profile is set up all depends on who you are creating it for. I think that if you intended for those who don't know you to look at your profile, that you would be more careful with what you present, and try to present a more accurate and straight forward image of who you are. If you are setting up a profile for those that already know you, however, you will be more likely to put things in your profile that could be used to form an impression of you that doesn't necessarily reflect the true you. The reason for this is that your friends know you are sarcastic, or funny, and they will recognize that in aspects of your profile, which will in turn make it more entertaining for them.
Hey Josh,
Nice to finally meet you today (remember lol)
I thought your post was very informative and educational, not to mention enjoyable to read. The way that you organized your ideas -with the Brunswikian definition, each mechanism and Five Factor Model in their own paragraphs- makes your post clear and concise.
You provided good definitions for each term, so that any person can understand the theory. Also, the examples used to prove your points are very effective.
Your friend sounds like a riot lol. I would agree with your conclusion that using the Lens Model shows that a Facebook profile does not provide an accurate indication of one's personality.
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