I decided to enter a chat room as a young man (28) with an established career as a lawyer in Las Angeles. I entered a singles chat room and posted a photo from the web as my display picture. Immediately I noticed that women who were in their late thirty’s to early forty’s were the first to talk to me and they were quite forward if I might add. Women of my age seemed much more genuine and seemed to make reasonable conversation. The older women seemed very talkative and as if they were continually trying to impress me with stories, they never really let me say much back to them in order to create a better conversation; they seemed more interested in talking about themselves.
When comparing the women who were in their mid to late twenties to the older women they seemed much more interested in what I had to say and responded with more genuine comments. I got the impression that they were not in a rush to find somebody to date or “be with” where the older women seemed desperate and as if I was their last chance. I felt that I may have been acting a bit biased so I tried changing my occupation from a lawyer to a school teacher.
After making the change I found that I did not receive the same kind of attention from females who were my age. They would chat with me but did not seem interested like they did when I was a lawyer. When chatting with older women I found that less women talked to me but the ones that did showed the same kind of urgency as the women who chatted with me when I was a lawyer. The conclusion I came to is that I began acting exactly how these women saw me. I was expressing an attitude that was attributed with the prestige of being a lawyer. This is an example of sets, props and lighting. The more I played the part of being a lawyer, the more I felt that I had to act the part. So perhaps it was my fault and caused the women to talk to me that way that I persuaded them to.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
Gallagher,
Your post just made me think of the song “Gold Digger.” I find it hilarious about how simply changing your occupation dropped the number of instant messages you received. You should have done something with a job title of “no occupation.” I wonder how that would have flown…
I find it interesting that women in their mid to late twenties allowed you to talk more. It sounded like you kept your communication level the same between both groups of women, so there must be a reason why… I think your reasoning about how the women over 40 acted very desperate could be a plausible explanation for their actions. You said that they could have thought of you as their “last chance.” Do you think the Media Richness Theory plays a role in how they acted? As in do you think your identity was seen as “equivocal” and they were somehow trying to prove themselves to this “lawyer” in the chat room?
Hey Gallagher,
I found your results from your experiment to be very interesting. I would have expected the younger women to talk about themselves more than the older women. The one thing that really intrigued me was how much the communication changed when you switched occupations. Being someone who is very suspicious of people’s true identities when speaking to them online, I am surprised so many people not only believed that you were a lawyer, but also gave you more attention when speaking to you as one. I definitely believe that behavioral confirmation on your part may have made you more appealing to chat with; however, the women definitely over-attributed traits to you based solely on you occupation. They would much rather talk to a person they percieve as more outgoing and rich.
Gallagher,
I really enjoyed reading your post. I like how you took the opportunity to investigate stereotypes of different occupations, and I found your results very interesting. Not only did you find yourself acting more "the part" based on the interest women were showing you when you portrayed a lawyer, but you were able to learn more about the different age groups and their motivations for speaking with you.
Your findings correlate to the general trends that are being found in todays younger generation, that people feel less pressed to find "the one" in their twenties than the previous generation did at that age.
What other concepts and ideas from class could you explain your encounters with?
Post a Comment