Aubrey, a 24-year-old woman from the Philippines, posted her experience with a boyfriend she first met online. She openly admits her dysfunction with dating. Her need to always be in a relationship affects her judgment, as evidenced by her blog post. Upon entering a chat room, Aubrey met Calvin. The two got to know each other online over a two-week period before the decided to meet. While their online interaction was brief, she felt she knew who Calvin was. Despite a few undesirable qualities, Calvin was a “nice guy” who was trying to turn his life around. After a bout with drug addition, Calvin was trying to get his life together. He too was lonely and looking for a relationship. In her post, Aubrey does not go into much detail about her expectations. In fact, it’s implied that she really didn’t have any, she came across as despite to find a new “boy” after her breakup a few days prior. After meeting Calvin, she quickly learned that his issues were far from resolved and his verbally abusive nature quickly revealed itself. However, Aubrey wanted to help Calvin and tolerated the abuse thinking that she could have a positive impact. Needless to say, the relationship didn’t last long. After a month and a half, Calvin broke up with her and threatened to kill her if she came near him again!
The developmental process of Aubrey’s outrageous story can be explained by Ramirez and Wang’s study on modality switching (the move from an online relationship to an offline relationship). The Expectancy Violation Theory (EVT) explains that when a relationship has little time to develop there are fewer expectations as a result of heightened uncertainty. Calvin’s violation of Aubrey’s opinion of him as a “good guy” trying to turn his life around had a less severe impact on the development of the offline relationship because the accumulated valence of past behavior was sort of neutralized. Aubrey knew that Calvin had issues, as did she with her need to be in a relationship, therefore, the valence, in Aubrey’s mind, was flighty and one that was not deeply invested in. Hence, the modality switch after interacting for only a short period online provided social information that was unexpected. This supports Ramirez and Wang’s first hypothesis.
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4 comments:
Melissa,
Great post. As with you, I decided to write about a story of someone else, which was also quite outrageous. You did a nice job at grasping the readers attention in the beginning with the well told narrative. Moreover, you connected the story with the Expectancy Violation Theory and did a great job analyzing Aubrey's seemingly lack of deep thought and emotion toward the relationship through the short period of communication online with Ramirez and Wang's third hypothesis. Again, great post.
Nice Job! I really enjoyed reading your post, and think that you did an excellent job overall. You nicely incorporated the ideas presented in Ramirez and Wang's paper. Specifically, I liked how you talked about the Expectancy Violation Theory. I also thought that you did an excellent job connecting analyzing Aubrey's state of mind, and comparing where the valences laid throughout the relationship. Finally, I was impressed with your ability to connect the article to the first hypothesis of Ramirez and Wang. Excellent job!
This is an interesting story.. and also quite scary. I think you related the story with the theory very well and didn't focus too much on just the story aspect. I spoke about the Hyperpersonal Theory with sites like eharmony.com and match.com, but I like how you actually found a real relationship that moved offline and how you related it to the theory. Good job!
Great job connecting your example to expectancy violation theory, you kept it interesting and relevent while still remaining analytical and intellectual. I enjoyed it a lot, though the story is a bit scary.
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