Comm 245 Blue: Trouble in Wiki Paradise -- Assignment 2

Comm 245 Blue: Trouble in Wiki Paradise -- Assignment 2

Hilarious post, Alex. I liked how you laid out your impressions along the big 5. You were a little light on the hyperpersonal explanation. I thought your first commenter put it quite nicely in his constructive criticism. And Jenna's comment, a little focused on the furries! But good question...

Trouble in Wiki Paradise -- Assignment 2

Supposedly we have less information available to judge friends met online than friends met in person. Both hyperpersonal theory and the cues filtered out theories predict this. Apparently the social scientists behind these three theories never spent time in #Wikipedia.

After connecting to irc.freenode.net and joining the wikipedia channel I spent a few minutes lurking to get the general flow of conversation. What I found was disturbing.

So the guy I observed online, let's call him WikiDude, was apparently in the middle of a long rant on the subject of human sexuality. Specifically, his.

Apparently WikiDude is seventeen. He lives with his parents. He's bisexual. And a furry.

Now personally I've always been of the opinion that a guy should at least wait until his 18th birthday before dressing up like a Pokemon and having sex with other guys. But hey, WikiDude and I just met so I wasn't about to pass judgment.

The conversation then proceeded toward his other hobbies and perseverations. Apparently WikiDude is into editing Wikipedia. No surprise. He's also into vinyl albums, baseball statistics, bottled water, his terrarium, and assorted Spanish cheeses. Fascinating. But as much as I love a good Manchego, really I was just as glad we weren't chatting in person.

Big Five analysis:

Conscientiousness -- High. He is a Wikipedia editor after all.
Agreeableness -- Suspend judgment pending further investigation.
Neuroticism -- Suspend judgment pending further investigation. Probably a good amount though.
Openness to Experience -- High. As a Wikipedia editor with a wide variety of interests it would be impossible to lack a certain innate level of intellectual curiosity.
Extroversion -- High. Online at least. It seems just as likely that he could have been a complete introvert had we met in person though.

All in all, my experiences seemed to lend most support to the hyperpersonal model. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure there were cues filtered out. But my impression of him didn't feel impoverished, shallow, or underdeveloped. Rather, thanks to selective self-presentation it was disgustingly palpable. And as the thypothesis would suggest, I wouldn't be surprised if the first impressions of my "CMC partner" were exaggerated or overly intense.

Some final advice: stay out of the Wikipedia IRC channel. Don't get me wrong, Wikipedia is the best. But like laws and sausage, it's a lot better when you don't know how it's made.

Assignment 2

I decided to choose a moderately-populated chat room at random for this assignment.

I didn't have to wait long to be engaged in conversation. After someone made a general call for "a/s/l" I was messaged privately by "rlgator7," a 27-year-old male currently living in Arizona. He's taking classes at a local college and working at a music store part-time. He enjoys reading science fiction and fantasy, and likes techno/trance music.

I spoke to him for twenty minutes to a half an hour before he signed off, saying he had to go to work. It was easy to analyze my impressions of his personality according to the Big Five personality traits. In terms of conscientiousness, he mostly lead the discussion and paid attention to the details of my answers, often asking for clarification, and periodically questioning as to whether he was being too "personal," forward, etc. This overlaps with agreeableness; he was very forthcoming in providing information about himself and used a lot (though not to an excessive degree) of emoticons, which always gives the impression of a more open and friendly personality. We mostly discussed music, and he was respectful of my markedly different tastes. In regards to neuroticism, he seemed fairly calm for the duration of the conversation, though a bit hyper-aware of potentially offending me. Though our main topic of conversation wasn't a "traditionally" controversial topics like politics or religion, we both had very strong opinions as to what constituted a decent band. Despite that, the atmosphere remained very comfortable. He was incredibly open in regards to his own life, willingly supplied information (often without my asking), and didn't expect me to necessarily reciprocate. He was very obviously extroverted, even admitting to this himself ("I only go into these things when I'm bored and have time to kill. They're so vague," were his exact words). He said he preferred face-to-face communication and really didn't spend a lot of time in chat rooms or on instant messenger programs.

My experience resonated perfectly with the Hyperpersonal Theory and the over-attribution process, as I formed a rather definitive impression of this individual almost immediately, despite being given a small amount of completely generic social cues. I felt as if my mental picture was fairly accurate. A lot of selective self-presentation took place on my part, because I am perpetually uncomfortable with giving out finer details online, but (as far as I could tell) he seemed to have no such issues, and he seemed to have no underlying motives in conversing with me other than to "kill time."

Assignment #2: The "Curious 1"

After trying to log-in into many chat rooms, I finally found a psychological space that did not require any information except a nickname. I ended up staying in an anonymous and synchronous chat room for “lonely college students” and personally sent a message to a male from Canada nicknamed “Curious 1.”

Taking an impression formation shortcut, I immediately relied on his nickname and the name of the chat room as cues that influenced my first impression of him. Curious 1 appeared to be exactly as his nickname and the chat room title said he was, curious and eager. We instantly tried to categorize each other by asking for features that are fundamental to an initial impression (s/a/l). He appeared to be satisfied with the basic information and began to use emoticons such as a smile =), which added warmth to the nonverbal online conversation and continued to enhance the socioemotional content of all his messages. Although CMC interaction proved to be not as “warm,” slow, and interrupted than it would be face-to-face (ftf), I was able to form an impression within 75 minutes.

I engaged in queries about his interests, and college-life with the understanding of the concept of reciprocal self-disclosure. Analyzing him based on the Big Five Personality Traits, I made the following observations. Based on his self-presentation, I would rate him high on the extraversion scale. He was very talkative and proceeded to tell me multiple stories about his social life such as how he would always be the last one to leave every party. In terms of agreeableness, he seemed considerate and friendly. I would also rate him high on openness due to his curiosity about me. Based on his ability to lead a comfortable discussion with such enthusiasm, I would rate him low on neuroticism. Although I was able to rate him on those traits, it was difficult assessing his conscientiousness.

When compared to ftf interactions, the initial impression formed through a CMC seems to be lower on breadth but much higher on intensity, which confirms the Hyperpersonal Model. I had to rely on the limited cues he chose to present to me (selective self-presentation) and over-attributed them to form an impression. For example, when he began asking personal questions such as how I look like I immediately assumed that he was eager. Perhaps because I assumed and continued to speak to him as if he was very eager, he found himself acting more forward than usual, which only confirmed my expectations (behavioral confirmation). Also, unlike ftf interactions in which one is provided other cues such as facial expression and hand motion, I found myself concentrating on just the conversation (re-allocation of cognitive resources). The Hyperpersonal Model may not be true in all cases but it justly explains my experience with the Curious 1.

Assignment # 2

For our second assigned blog post, I decided to focus my efforts on Scrabulous.com, which is a gaming site where individuals have the opportunity to create accounts to challenge other account holders to the classic game of Scrabble for free.

Initially, I was surprised to discover that it took about 15 minutes before someone agreed to play a game with me. After several minutes of me attempting to request someone to play with, finally a user by the name of "Alpha Male" sent me a personal invitation to play with him. After fumbling around to get situated with the site, which I had never previously had firsthand experience with, I manged to figure out how to begin to play. I went first, and had about 30 seconds to create my word. Then, I noticed something interesting. "Alpha Male" stated "I can see that you're new at this so I will give you more time to get comfortable without the penalty of losing points". I was shocked at his nice gesture and thanked him for his kindness. While I was generating my words I noticed that he was sending me messages in the private chat column of the game. He told me that he was 24 years old, from the Lower East Side of Manhattan, and his name was Steven.

During my forty-five minute long game/conversation with “Alpha Male", I attempted to begin to analyze my impressions of his personality based on the Big Five personality traits we discussed in this course. With respect to his level of conscientiousness, he was very eager to lend me more time to get situated with playing the game, and explained the rules of the game to me every chance he could. He often asked if I needed any help or any more time if he noticed I was taking a long time to make a more. With respect to his agreeableness, he was very upfront about letting me know about his life. He told me personal information about his hobbies, how he started playing scrabble online, and what he liked about meeting new people. He was very extroverted, considering that he picked me out of the group and began to initiate conversation with me before i even thought to do so. He said that he was pretty much an open person and he liked to help people so that is why he tended to frequent gaming sites, and looked to play with newcomers.

My experience was along the lines of Hypersonal Theory and the self-disclosure aspect. He presented information about himself early on to both make me feel more comfortable, but I think he also wanted to make me tell him something about myself as well. I think that is why he presented himself as such a caring, helpful person.

Assignment 2

(I apologize in advance for the length, I've tried to cut it down as much as possible!)

For our second assignment I decided to enter a psychological space not fully classified in Wallace. I joined Yahoo!'s board game service in order to play a casual game of Go (an Asian board game) with some one. The service includes synchronous chat functions so that players may converse in the common room, or in the game room, privately between players. In this way it can be seen as an interesting variant on synchronous chat.

Having enjoyed Go in real life I felt it would be interesting to interact and play with someone else interested in the same game. With the assignment in mind I entered the Beginner Room, and joined a small game with go9127_player (go9 from now on). As I entered I said, “hello” and clicked to start the game. I received no response but go9 started playing. Having not played in a while, I played poorly, but I was hoping to capitalize on that and use it as an ice breaker to ask for recommendations. As soon as I resigned though, go9 started playing the second game. Deciding to continue, I answered his play. Near the end of the game I played a surprisingly good move which finally prompted go9 to speak, “good try/but/too late”. I know I've lost, but for the sake of conversation I followed with, “it's really done?/I guess so, heh”. I was excited that go9 warmed up, and tried to further facilitate conversation by using non judgmental speech. I resigned, but before I could ask what go9 suggests I should work on, go9 adds, “even baby can see it.”

At this point my impression had been that go9 was simply a little shy with communicating with a stranger over the Internet, possibly due to being younger, definitely not late teens or an adult. However, with this one comment, my impression completely flipped. All of a sudden go9 became a conceited and blunt person. The personal attack struck out, making me revise my age beliefs upwards. With a bit of time to calm down I begin to think it may have more to do with language, perhaps go9 was blunt simply because of unfamiliarity with English. I respond, “may want to chose your words more carefully though next time.” to which go9 says, “u r nothing wrong, but bad lucky.” With this last comment my impression starts to ease back a bit. However, when I tried to start a third game, go9 declared, “two games/enough to say who is winnwe/i should say winner/bye”. Again my strong negative impression resurged. This person, regardless of lack of faculty with english, was bored of my beginner play, it seemed to me, and with haughty unconcern, simply left.

Not wanting to end on a bad note, I tried to find another game. Joining one, I again said Hello to the other person. However, not only did I receive no response, the opponent was not starting the game. I waited for 4 minutes before leaving. The next 2 attempted games had the same course of events, save for my patience running out exponentially faster. I quit the last game in under 15 seconds of no response. These cases were interesting in that I had received absolutely no interaction from my targets, yet this very lack of interaction prompted my extremely negative initial impressions that these people where inconsiderate, rude, and aggravating. Looking back I considered that they may be dealing with emergency situations, however the technology of the online space allowed one to easily remove oneself from “waiting for a game” status: use one click to close the window. In real life, it's a simple matter to see if someone is preoccupied and doesn't respond to a salutation, or inquiries, however with synchronous chat it is impossible to know whether the person is rudely ignoring you or legitimately ignoring you.

My reactions and impressions seem to fall mostly in a few aspects of the Hyperpersonal model, while also dipping into Reduced Social Context Cues. My reactions were usually very strong, and my initial impressions, even when changed all seemed “sure”. Go9 had to be younger because go9 was shy. This then changed to go9 had to be a conceited teen because he's acting like a haughty, immature, jerk. Despite the conflicting information, every stage of the impression formation was thought to be sure, until new information appeared. This represents the over attribution process and the re-allocation of cognitive resources ideas of Hyperpersonal. I was inflating the intensity of any impression (both good and bad) and was strongly focusing on the text and presentation using my imagination to fill in the person who could say what was being said. With the no-games following, over attribution itself went to the extreme as I judged people even when not receiving a response. I considered it rude to falsely declare yourself as waiting for a game and not play, leading me to develop negative impressions. This leads into how my experience fits with Reduced Social Context Cues. People were focused on the task of playing and communication was curt or outright lacking. While go9 started at neutral in my mind, each successive player was thought of as more negative. In essence I began to assume people had poor qualities unless proven otherwise.

While I eventually went on to encounter a friendly player (it took a fair amount of time and switching rooms), and developed additional thoughts on the subject, seeing how I'm already over the limit I'll end here. If it's okay, I may add the story and thoughts in a comment.

Self Selective Coolness

I have always been a fan of instant messaging, especially with the ability to have a semi-synchronous conversation, with the leeway of taking the time to think about what you want to say. However, I am not a very big fan of anonymity, and thus only talk to people I know. This homework assignment made me very uncomfortable at first, because I really did not want to be in a situation of having to talk to a stranger. However, after finally finding someone who was willing to have a real conversation, rather than do what most other chatters are looking for at 1 am…I really enjoyed myself. I talked to Joey, a seventeen year old from North Carolina. As we talked, our conversation turned into a discussion of the differences of the South and the North.
Joey was very open during the conversation, telling me as much as possible about his town in the deep South. At first I did not find him to be very agreeable. He kept pressuring me to go into an MSN chat (we started off in a private chat from a chatroom) and then kept trying to convince me to send a picture. At first I thought he was neurotic with all his demands, and I feared he would refuse to continue the conversation if I did not send pictures or change chat settings. Eventually he forgot about sharing pictures as we compared our hometowns, and my opinion about him changed. No longer was he persistent and demanding. Instead, he and I both exchanged lots of interesting questions to find out what these two parts of the United States thought of each other. He answered my questions very openly and became very extroverted. He teased me for not knowing about things called ‘double wides’ (some type of trailor…I still don’t get it..) and went out of his way to try to send me to links that would show me one. He was very conscientious of the questions I asked, answering in as much detail as possible.
I think the Hyperpersonal Model best describes my impression formation. Since we had a talk that basically made us talk about our stereotypes, it caused us both to selectively self present information about ourselves. If we met in real life, perhaps we would have a lot in common and get along great. But through the nature of our conversation, we only talked about the ways we were different due to our backgrounds. We selected what information we wanted about our hometowns in order to give an idea of our personalities. For example, he said that he shops at Walmart all the time and I said I have only been there three times in my whole life. He assumed that all Northerners need to have designer clothes and own nice things. In reality, there just does not happen to be a Walmart close to me, but perhaps I would shop there if one was built. I told him I liked Target, but he claimed that was much fancier to Walmart. By selecting the information we wanted to share in order to create a descriptive stereotype, I think it caused us to over attribute parts of our personality too. Joey started talking about things that most people associate with the South, such as how much he loves Nascar (he wants to be a professional racer). His comments about himself and his town caused me to over generalize what his daily life is like, and what living in the South is like. He purposely talked about attributes of his town that he knew would be different, such as how people live in trailers and how the tallest building in his downtown is only eight stories high. Perhaps I accidentally exaggerated and over generalized what people from Manhattan are like in order to represent what the North was like. Although we may have formed stereotyped opinions of one another, it was still great getting to know someone with a very different background than myself.

2nd blog

For this assignment I chose an anonymous chat room, a synchronous psychological space.

After several attempts made at starting a conversation, I was finally able to chat with “Starry Child87”, a 20 years old girl from northern Alabama. She’s a sophomore at Alabama State University majoring in chemistry. She enjoys playing softball and is a big fan of modern art.

During my half-hour long conversation with “Starry Child87”, I attempted to analyze her personality according to the Big Five Personality Traits. As far as conscientiousness, “Starry Child87” seemed to be very attentive throughout our discussion and responded to my questions fairly quickly and with a complete answer. She also seemed to notice right away if sometime she said offended me and often took the lead in asking further questions. “Starry Child87” scored high in agreeableness as well. She helped create a peaceful environment in which to converse by avoiding personal and controversial topics. She also strongly agreed with me on a couple of points. As far as neuroticism, “Starry Child87” seemed to behave very calmly throughout the entire conversation. It must be said though that the issues we discussed were not provocative enough to push her boundaries and to thus detect any potential distress. Another trait I observed was openness. “Starry Child87” appeared to be open and willing to sharing information regarding her favorite bands and her artists, and even disclosed more private in formations such as the name of the town she lives in. Finally, as far as extraversion, “Starry Child87” ranked quite high. She was willing to share information about her family, made a few jokes about being from the south and also asked if we could talk again at a later time. Although at first she seemed skeptical to tell me which school she attended, finding out I was a junior at Cornell University (self-disclosure), led her to open up and share that she attends Alabama State University.

The “Hyperpersonal Theory” best describes my experience. The theory states that we tend to “…form more stereotyped impressions based on limited social and interpersonal cues available...” (Hancock, Dunham, 328). Because of the “over-attribution process”, after just 30 minutes of conversation I felt like I knew “Starry Child87” quite well and led me to overestimate her traits and placed her into a set category, following a stereotype. The “breadth” of my knowledge regarding her personality was quite limited and not very detailed but I still felt like I had an accurate opinion of her (high in “intensity”). Also, because “Starry Child87” and I were communicating via chat and not face to face, much “selective self-presentation” was taking place on my part, and I’m sure on hers as well. Finally, once she found out I attend Cornell, she immediately made a few comments about how “smart” and ”bright” I must be. This “behavioral confirmation” lead me to feel “smarter” and “brighter” than I did before she made the comment. In conclusion, because of this computer mediated communication, it was much harder to rank neuroticism, extraversion and agreeableness, as these are all traits that can much easily be detected in face to face conversations.

Assignment Two

I felt a little awkward going online to seek out a "target" to do this assignment on. I did not know what kind of chat room would be the best to go to, so I ended up using the AOL chat room and wound up talking to this 23-year-old guy named Jon, from West Point, NY. He was very open and talked to me and told me pretty much anything about himself freely. I did not have to offer facts about myself so much and yet he would still share things about himself to me. He told me things such as where he lives, to what his parents’ occupations are, to what he aspires to be, even down to his nicknames. I was caught off-guard as to why he, or anyone, would talk so openly to an online-stranger.

During the conversation I felt like the social information was lacking because the conversations were text based CMCs and not face-to-face where one could see how Jon was actually acting and how he presented himself through his body language, pitch in his voice, how he handled himself, etc. My impression I took away from him was more based along the lines of Social Information Processing (SIP): assuming that through time, by the looks of the information gathered just in one sitting, I could know this person well through CMCs. I seriously think that if I had asked him for his address he would have given me it no ifs, ands, or buts. I find this notion very interesting and almost absurd. Why do people feel so compelled to open up to someone and so trusting toward people they do not know and could potentially be a stalker or someone dangerous?

It is hard to make such judgments from such a sort period of time. If this were an assignment that were to be run longer, or had other aspects involved with it, than it would allow one to make better assumptions and potentially have concrete evidence as to whether these conversations really play out to be SIP, or Hyperpersonal. However, my target would not fall under Cues Filtered Out predictions since the impressions were not neutral, negative or really undeveloped (aside from the social cues lacking which goes with the SIP assumption).

So, will we ever really know Jon? According the SIP this could be the case after a certain amount of time through CMCs. But I think I will stick to the old fashioned way: face-to-face.

Assignment 2: Chatrooms

For this assignment, I decided to use the synchronous communication capabilities of a chat room. I entered into a general chat and had a lot of trouble getting a conversation going. After unsuccessfully trying to have a continuous conversation with people in the general chat room, I decided to try a private chat in a music chat room. This ended up working out and I talked to a guy called Punk Rocker for about fifteen minutes.
My impressions of some of Punk Rocker’s traits were better than I thought they would be. I would guess that he is quite open to experience in the fact that he was putting himself out there in a chat room. As far as conscientiousness is concerned, I cannot really form an impression of that from the conversation we had. On the extraversion scale I would rate him highly. He didn’t seem to have trouble talking to me even though he did not know me and he also kept the conversation going. I would rate him highly on agreeableness. He was very friendly and likeable throughout out chat, never being rude at any point. His responses always showed that he cared about what was said, adding phrases such as “that is so interesting”. From our conversation I would put him very low on the neuroticism scale. He showed not signs of being anxious, angry, or shy. His text did not point to signs of neuroticism, as he was always positive in attitude and emotionally stable, although I wouldn’t be able to say for sure that is that he is like in the “real world” since I gave him no reason to get upset.
Looking back at the impressions I got of Punk Rocker from my short encounter, I would say some traits I found very difficult to rate in the chat, however, the ones that I could rate were at the extremes of the spectrums instead of the more median impressions one might expect to get from such a short encounter. This supports the over-attribution aspect of the Hyperpersonal Model. The breadth of traits I could rate was not very high, but the intensity was. I only felt really sure about Punk Rocker’s extraversion, agreeableness, and partly neuroticism, and he was rated very high or low in these traits. At the same time, Punk Rocker could have been using selective self-presentation, only presenting to me in the chat room traits that he wants to me to see. On top of that, I already had a preconceived notion of what he would be like from his screenname, so I adapted most of the things he said to the personality I believe a punk rocker might like using behavioral confirmation. His kindness proved to appear even more profound as one may expect punk rockers to be more nonchalant than he was. Overall, it was a very interesting encounter and with all my cognitive resources re-allocated to focus on his text, I feel like I got to know a lot about this Punk Rocker in the fifteen minutes I spoke to him.

2nd Blog: Internet Relay Chat

For this assignment, I decided to have my first irc chat. Using a girly nickname, I entered a chat for teens. Within minutes I was bombarded by private messages, but I chose the first one that responded to me.

It was a basic "getting to know you" kind of chat. We exchanged our physical traits and interests. He told me he was a twenty year old male and also showed me a picture of himself. The overall flow of the conversation was very flirty, and the impression that I got was that he was a nice, friendly guy looking to meet and impress girls.

The Big 5

neuroticism - He wasn't very neurotic at all. The most anxious he got was with his concern about my looks. He really wanted to know what I looked like to the point that it dominated the conversation even though I attempted to stray away from it several times. He was really anxious to know if I truly was "cute" or not

extraversion - He asked me a lot of questions about my personal life and seemed to enjoy learning about me. However, I felt as though he was trying to pry into my personal life a lot more than I wanted. He asked me about my looks, if I had a myspace, and my AIM screenname. This person has definately tried to chat up a girl before. Furthermore, due to the short amount of time between when I signed on and when he messaged me, I believe that he was just waiting to get the jump on the next person who signed on.

openness - He showed me a picture of himself. Additionally, although he told me a bit about his personal life when I asked, it seems most of his responses were tailored to agree with mine, so that it would appear to me that we were clicking well.

agreebleness - He would ask me what I liked, and then he would say he liked it too. He kept telling me I was "awesome" and that "he really liked me". He never said anything negative to me and we got along rather well.

conscientiousness - He is extremely fixated on appearance. He pressed his picture on me and continually asked me for mine. Even after I said that I didn't have one, he asked me to go take one of myself. Additionally, his nickname described a physical trait of his, providing further evidence of his obsession with looks.

I felt really bad signing off on this person because he was so nice and he said he really like me and wanted to talk to me longer. I will admit, I liked him too. As evidenced by my feelings, it is clear that I formed an impression of him that follows the hyperpersonal theory. He was very careful to only show me a side that agreed with me and I definately thought of him extremely positively based on the 25 minutes that I talked to him.

I swear I let her win.

I like the idea of using Facebook as an online space for impression formation, since (unlike most online spaces) impression formation is its reason for existence. But until recently, there wasn't a good way to meet random Facebook denizens in such a way that you could form an impression of them at all--the general practice is to use Facebook as a search tool for people you've already met in real life. Now that Facebook has decided to let amateur and professional software developers add their own applications, it's full of new ways to encounter new people. I logged into the Games app and told it I wanted to play checkers, and within ten seconds I was chatting with my new friend CC from Oklahoma.

(Before I start, CC, if you're reading this, please don't feel used. It was a great game, and we both know I didn't let you win. But now I have to describe the impression you left. Steel yourself.)

I started off by explaining to CC that she was going to lose, because I was a professional checkers player. She replied with an "lol," but when I told her that I had spent several summers at "checkers camp" she asked "wait are you serious?" I thought answering with "yeah, you can't even wear plaid shirts, they have to be checkered" would clear that up, but it didn't, and eventually I had to tell her that I was indeed lying through my teeth. (Fingers? Keyboard?)

I try not to jump to conclusions about people, but so far my impression of CC was that she was the sort of person who thought it possible for professional checkers players to graduate from checkers camp because they remembered not to wear plaid. Not fantastic news for my impression of her. To spell it out, CC, I didn't think you were very smart. Actually, I thought you were a little gullible, which led me to assume that you weren't very smart, and that's couching it in nice language. When I thought about it later, this pointed straight at the Hyperpersonal Theory and its over-attribution process. Of course, at the time, if you'd asked me if I was over-attributing, I think I would have claimed that my impression was completely logical.

But within about twenty moves, CC was legitimately destroying me at checkers. She had two kings already to my one, and my four remaining pieces were huddled in a pathetic diamond in the corner while her six non-kings were scattered across the board like a pack of hyenas moving in for the kill. Does that sound melodramatic? Well, it was a big emotional blow--my idiot opponent was embarrassing me in a pretty major way. At that point I tried to open a new window in Internet Explorer and the whole program crashed, so I sent her a message: "Sorry, my computer crashed. You were totally winning though. Guess the bravado fell though." Soon she responded with "You set yourself up for it. It's ironic, really." That was an interesting and well-phrased reply, in my opinion--not an answer I would have expected from Checkers Camp CC, who believed every ridiculous word I typed, but pretty typical coming from Checkers Champ CC, who was probably the best checkers player on all of Facebook. I had had to change my opinion pretty drastically over the course of maybe twenty minutes, because that opinion was based on a high-intensity interpretation of the the only attribute of CC that I had seen.

And by the way, Blue-rade, before you post your comment about how my current opinion of CC's checkers ability may be over-attributed as well just because she bested me once, you should know that I'm pretty good at checkers myself. I'm a professional.

Back in the MUD

I had never heard of a Multi-user Domain until reading Wallace.  A quick google search query "fun free MUD" landed me hundreds of spaces.  Star Wars: Dark Forces caught my eye as I used to be a huge fan when I was in elementary school.  When asked for a name, I wasn't feeling too creative, so I just borrowed Lance Bass's, because he was on MTV at the time.  I was prompted for a race and a side of the force to choose, and I tried to be true to myself by choosing a human on the light side of the force.  

It took me a good amount of time to get used to the space, and even longer to find anyone to interact with.  I was immediately reminded of how fortunate I am to have grown up in the age of 3d online environments.  Eventually, after a long series of I was able to land myself in the Cantina.  Here I was immediately met with:

tomtom33:  Lance_Bass is gay!!!!

tomtom33:  Lance_Bass is gay!!!!

tomtom33:  F*** U fagoot

lando_calzone:  shut up tomtom

So you can see how instantly I had found examples of warm and cold characteristics online.  I can't say much more on tomtom33, although I imagine I'd find him disagreeable and introverted, because he left the room after his three brief messages.  I guess you can call me guilty of the hyperpersonal model for coming to such assumptions with so few messages, but I'm willing to bet that my first impression is pretty accurate.  

I decided to MORF my defendant, lando, already assuming he was a nice guy.  he didn't understand "MORF?" but responded to my A/S/L with 12/m/earth.  I told him I'd never used a MUD before and asked if he frequented them.  He said he spends a lot of time in muds, but not this particular one, that he was trying it for the first time, and found it pretty worthless.  

We talked for about 20 minutes.  He never really spoke unless I prompted him, but always answered politely.   He wouldn't tell me anything about himself (not even if he liked calzones).  This lead me to believe he was an introvert. He was colder than I anticipated, keeping his responses very limited.  He showed no neurotic tendencies.  He was fairly conscientious.  He was always polite, never used profanity, and defended me earlier.  It was hard to judge him on agreeableness, because he usually just responded with vague fillers like, "yea.. i guess". 

My impressions were definitely more in line with the CFO model.  Lando didn't tell me very much, and as such I didn't really have many impressions of him.  I gathered that he was shy, and thats about it.  SIDE played a role too, because I have a mental picture in my mind that Lando is a nerdy little kid.  I made this assumption just on his gender, age, and the fact he was playing around in a MUD.  I didn't make to many hyperpersonal impressions through out my experience.

Assignment #2: Chatroom

Looking for a chat, I searched for “student chat room” using Google, and came across student.com. After entering the Student Center Chat, I almost immediately received a private chat message from user “testingtesting1234.” They began the conversation by saying “hello,” and I went on to ask this individual where they were located. Their response was, “y does it matter u first.”

This not-so-open response prompted me to begin the information exchange, and after explaining that I was a female college student in the United States, they began to open up. He confirmed that he was a male college student majoring in political science in the US. His initial hesitation to begin any real kind of conversation led me to think that he was nervous, but as time went on, he had no problem speaking about his life at school and his personal, academic and professional goals.

Considering the fact that he initiated the chat with no initial willingness to begin an in-depth conversation, I don’t think he was very open. He was conscientious, in that he did not push any boundaries, and was mindful of what he said. He did state his own opinions, however, even if they were not in line with mine. He wasn't very extroverted, as he made sure to talk about himself as well as as me questions. He also was not very neurotic.

This chat coincides with the hyperpersonal model. Initially, I did not think that this individual wanted to talk about anything, which led me to think that he was cold and had nothing substantial to say, that he did not seem friendly. But he eventually opened up, and made some very interesting arguments about college student life and politics.

NFL Fantasy Draft Chat Room

I have participated in fantasy sports drafts several times before, but never with complete strangers in a “Public League”. The league I joined is one of thousands of free leagues conducted on Yahoo.com. Although the league was free to join, the commissioner prospective participants “apply” for a team to attract users who would take the league seriously even though it is free. In my brief “application” I stated my name, what state I am from, my favorite team, and my experiences doing fantasy leagues in the past.

In the draft chat room, users are identified by a self-selected team name and click a button to make a pick when it is his or her turn. Nobody is required to use the chat feature, but I found myself in conversation with about 5 of the league members throughout the draft.

The one user who I found myself intrigued with most based on first impressions was identified by his team name “Jettts”. After, I selected Patriot’s quarterback Tom Brady in the 3rd round of the draft, the user “Jettts” wrote, “Overrated”. The Jet fan never wrote “good pick” like other users did, but was much more prone to making a rude comment such as. “Overrated”. In short, he did not have an agreeable personality and tended to express disapproval of others rather than approval.

Jettt’s was very open about sharing personal information such as how he grew up in Florida and his story about how he became a Jets fan. Since the commissioner already knew some personal information from the “application”, users were probably more prone to reveal the personal information that was already revealed to the commissioner. Most shared information was football-related but still fairly personal.

As for extraversion, “Jettts” was quick to voice his opinions of the league participants and NFL players/teams. This related to a fairly high-degree of neuroticism since Jettts wanted to get his opinion noticed in the quickly flowing synchronous chat. As for conscientiousness, part of fantasy football is trash-talking and mind games, which relates to how people chose to display their comments.

I do have an undeveloped impression of “Jettts”, but it is not entirely explained by Cues Filtered Out perspective. There is a lot missing with the lack of facial expression or tone of voice in a chat room, but there are other cues online about a person’s personality. For example, a person who took the full 2 minutes for each of their picks was labeled indecisive but a person who took a mere 10 seconds was labeled decisive. Situations like this were more cause me to form more intense impressions of people than CFO perspective would suggest.

My first impressions of “Jettts” most closely fits the Hyperpersonal model. The breadth of the conversation was contained to the subject matter of the chat room, but the opinions and comments “Jettts” made were immediately and often with exclamation marks which made the intensity of the comments resonate and allow me to form impressions of him. Selective self-perception was involved because the information available to form his identity online was the information he decided to reveal. I also believe Jettts felt a need for behavioral confirmation. He knew I thought of him as a die-hard Jets fan so he felt the need to make pro-Jet and negative comments about the Jet’s rivals.

Assignment #2

The psychological space I decided to enter for assignment #2 was a chat room. I choose this method of communication because I’m so familiar with asynchronous, non-anonymous dimensions of online space such as Facebook. I was anxious to see what type of impression I would get of another individual through a more synchronous and anonymous dimension. Therefore, I entered one of the first free rooms I discovered. At first the room seemed chaotic and sleezy with users nicknamed “hornydawg69” asking for “hot babes” to chat with him. However, after observing the room for several minutes, one individual with the username “William28” asked if anyone in the room was looking to actually talk. Therefore, I decided to enter a private conversation with “William”.

“William” is a shy 28-year-old male from Southern California. He explained to me how he works as a freelance artist and never went to college. We spent over an hour sharing information about ourselves—everything from where we lived to what side of the bed we slept on. “William” constantly gave off a very “warm” impression of himself. Additionally, I made the following observations about “William” while analyzing him on the Big Five Personality Traits:

Extraversion: At first I would have rated “William” low on the extraversion scale because he seemed shy and a little skeptical to open up and share information with me. However, as soon as I put myself out on a limb and shared something quite personal with him, his level of extraversion skyrocketed. I believe this is because I revealed information about myself that put him more at ease to share information with me (self-disclosure). At first I thought he might have felt particularly extraverted once he realized the extreme degree of anonymity that existed between us during our chat. However, this hypothesis was quickly disproved when we exchanged emails at the conclusion of our talk. About two minutes after saying good-bye to “William” my inbox was flooded with pictures of himself attached and a desire to chat more
Openness: I believe that “William” was a very open person. I was quite honest and blunt when communicating with him and he never once judged me harshly or seemed narrow-minded.
Neuroticism: “William” never displayed any neuroticism. He spoke to me in a mature, calm manner for the entire duration of the conversation and never showed any signs of moodiness or anxiety.
Conscientiousness: I found “William” to be very conscientiousness because he was organized and thorough. He always explained himself well when talking and listened attentively when I was sharing information.
Agreeableness: “William” rated very high on the agreeableness scale as well. When I explained a personal problem to him, he showed appropriate sympathy and then went on to give some affectionate advice. Additionally, he complimented me (explaining to me that I was such an amazing girl) almost beyond what was necessary when provided the opportunity.

I believe my impression of “William” was more in line with the Hypersonal Model than any other model. Although in reality I only talked with “William” for a little over an hour, I felt as if I already had a very intense impression of him and had accurately judged his character. It’s very likely that the reason I found “William” to score so well on all the Big Five Personality Traits is because he was actively engaging in selective self-presentation to expose only the positive sides of his personality and he successfully kept his neuroticism and disagreeableness hidden from our online chat. Additionally, due to over attribution, I had a much more confident, yet stereotypical impression of “William”. Lastly, I found myself confirming my impression of “William’s” personality by complimenting him on his “kindness, agreeableness, etc…” This behavioral confirmation could have further shaped “William’s” behavior to confirm my exaggerated beliefs of him.

Perez = My Hero

I’d try to describe one of my favorite websites with something appropriately witty if the slogan didn’t already say it all: “Welcome to PerezHilton.com - Hollywood's Most-Hated Web Site!” For those of you unfamiliar with Mario Lavandeira, formally known as Perez Hilton, he is the all-star blogger who has single-handedly constructed a celebrity-taunting empire. Bringing shame to few but laughter to many, Perez blogs daily about fashion faux pas, plastic surgeries gone awry, embarrassing statements, mortifying photographs, and pretty much any other celebrity misstep about which he has something amusing to say. Self-proclaimed “Queen of Mean,” Perez takes pride in his outlandish sarcasm, eccentric anecdotes and amusing tid bits.

Perez certainly does not take himself too seriously. As made evident by his both self-deprecating humor and exuberant arrogance, Perez is simply about making sure his audience has a good laugh. Most recently, he has posted ridiculous pictures of himself dressed in traditional Elvis attire. Describing an incriminating photograph of our favorite pop phenomenon Britney Spears with his own Perez flavor of affection, he noted “We love this mess!” His celebrity look-alike pictures are uncanny and his humor is generally off the wall. For these reasons and many more, I’d suggest everyone giving Perez a chance.

As typical of the blog form, this psychological space is persistent and asynchronous. Because Perez does not work in ‘real time,’ he is able to artfully construct each comment, projecting the online persona he wishes to assume. The Hyperpersonal perspective is most applicable in this situation as we, the audience, have only limited material with which to develop an idea of this man’s personality. Based on his sarcastic comments and edgy judgments, we may stereotype his personality in a variety of ways: sarcastic, obnoxious, judgmental, or generally light-hearted and entertaining.

As a regular reader will come to notice, Big-5 Traits such as Extroversion and Openness become dominant personality markers while Agreeableness/Conscientiousness may matter less to this tough critic. Behavioral confirmation, our acknowledgment of the persona he has created (and expectation that he will maintain it!), ensures that Perez keeps up the commenting we have grown to love. Because he’s earned his fame by doing what he does best, it is only by continuing in the same manner that he will uphold his reputation. The Hyperpersonal model best explains the reality that is Perez Hilton due to the fact that the intensity of our impressions of Perez is much greater than it would be given a CFO perspective.

With that, I bid the Blue Blog adieu. What to do with yourself now that I’ve finished my post? Check out Perez, duh!

First Impression (Assignment #2)

I chose to investigate Facebook’s messaging as my psychological place. Similar to e-mail, messages on Facebook are private (for the recipient’s eyes only) and can be sent to someone even if they have not been identified as your friend on Facebook. Yet, what separates Facebook messaging from e-mail is the option to view the sender’s profile (if access has not been restricted) or at least their profile picture (if they have one uploaded). I selected Facebook messaging because it appears to be the most popular way to get to know someone on Facebook; therefore, it is perfect for my query on “first impressions” online.

I must admit that I do not use Facebook very often for a variety of reasons, so my Inbox for messages has reached 115 unread messages. As I filtered through some of my messages, I came across three individuals who I do not know. Before I get into my initial impressions of these individuals, let me tell you more about my Facebook profile; it is very basic. My profile picture is of my sister and me, in our bathing suits, smiling gleefully at the camera with the scenery from the cruise’s deck behind us. As a heterosexual, I have indicted such on my profile by entering that I am interested in “Men” and I am a “Female.” Although, I have a boyfriend I have chosen to keep that information off of my profile. The rest of my profile is simple: a little bit of personal info, networked with Cornell University and Boston, hometown, and no fancy application cluttering up the page.

The first message I came across was from Billy Bob*, there was no subject and the message read: “hey whats up cutie how are you doing??” Instantly, I believed that this man is trying to hit on my through Facebook, since he was of the opposite sex and his message was short and lacking clarification. Also, the use of the word “cutie” made it seem that he had a warm personality, but in this case his “warm personality” was taken as being flirtatious. Additionally, one might infer that he is less serious or has a warmer personality because of his use of all lower-case letters, instead of the formality of proper punctuation; whereas, I am less enamored by his syntax and feel that it shows sloppiness and if he is trying to hit on me it seems sleazy. I try to find out more information about the mystery man, anything that will confirm or nullify my initial impression, by clicking on his picture but I had a limited view of his profile. All I can see is a small picture of him holding a baby; could that be his own child? He has UNC Charlotte Alum and Charlotte, NC listed as his networks. Since he is an alum, I can assume that he is older than me. I take a moment to think if I know of anyone from UNC, or if he could possibly be a mutual friend. After the little bit of research that I could muster on this man, I categorized him as a sleazy online guy who tries to “get to know girls better” online. So, I deleted his message.

Joe Bob’s message was directly after Billy Bob’s. He did not have a subject either but his message read: “Hey, how are you doing?” He had proper capitalization and punctuation; yet, my impression of him was just as vague as his message. His personality seemed warm enough, simply because he contacted a stranger just to talk. But I am unsure about anything else about him. His profile is completely blocked and his profile picture is a question mark. Either this guy is highly sketchy or he does not want to be too public with his Facebook information, which I could admire. Also, it could be a way of selective self-presentation; perhaps Joe Bob knows that he is not attractive so he hides his picture and blocks his profile so that we can communicate without those visual cues, which will work to his advantage if he has a good personality. I am unsure as to whether he is looking for a “good time” or interested in making a friend. Since I wish to know more about him, I sent him a response message inquiring more about him.

The last message, I would like to analyze is a message I received from a prospective Cornell Student whose message was titled “Cornell.” He wrote: “Wassup…I’m trying to decide between Cornell and UVa and my question is what is the African American population on campus like?” His conversational writing gave me the impression of a warm personality. The fact that he had a stated question and purpose for his message made me assume that he was a more respectable person; not sleazy or sketchy. He had open access to his profile, so I was able to learn more about him; such as his high school and the fact that he ran cross country for his track team. I felt that he was the over-achiever type (since he is a prospective Cornell student), he has initiative (he contacted me about the school), and he is most likely a partier or will be if he comes to Cornell and runs track. I responded to his e-mail, hoping that my input would be helpful.

Overall, my impressions fell in line with the Hyperpersonal theory, especially the over-attribution aspect. According to Spears and Lea, the “visual anonymity and physical isolation” online causes people to rely on the few social cues available. Based on these cues, people will create a more “stereotyped and exaggerated representation of their partner.” With the last message, I inferred a lot of information about his personality based on the way that he wrote and predicted his social life based solely on the fact that he does track. Due to the lack of information from the first man I produced a more intense and exaggerated negative impression of him, then if I had met him in person, perhaps. Since I had very little information, I had to base my understanding of him on his picture, location, age, and the way he wrote. With Joe Bob, I believe my impression still falls under the Hypersonal thoery. The only difference is that I had not decided which exaggerated view to take (the negative or the positive impression). Based on the high-anonymity of his message I assume on one extreme that he is sketchy and or ugly and to the other extreme he is a non-conforming intellectual.


*names have been changed

World of Warcraft

I am a loquacious, outgoing, 21 year old woman who loves interacting with people, both old friends and new. Little did I realize that I would be playing World of Warcraft for a class on a Sunday night. I do not have as much as an online journal because I feel that it takes away the time I can spend with my loved ones in person, and I haven't touched a video game since I was seven. Pushing my limits by travelling into the unknown world of gaming, however, is a great idea for someone like me to fully grasp the theories behind internet psychology.

Once my dinosaur of a computer finished downloading a 10-day free trial of the infamous WOW, I was prompted to create an avatar of my choosing. Hoping to get the most out of this experience, I choose an attractive female human with black hair, and began my quest as a Level 1 Warrior in the world of Velen. My free trial limited my ability to communicate with others, but I was able to observe several individuals through the game's chat function. I was a lowly Level 1 Warrior with no friends, so being my loquacious self I decide to go make some. Citine, my character's name, encountered a Level 6 wizard, to which she greeted with a hearty "Hello!" (complete with sound effects). The wizard stared at me for a little while and backed away quickly, leaving me cold and lonely and painfully aware of the Social Information Processing Theory. I had been in the 'world' for 20 minutes, and had not built my rapport with any of the other gamers there. My impression of the others was cold and lacking, as they were of mine, but I figured if I continued to play the game longer while increasing my skill as a warrior, other players would eventually warm up to me and hold a conversation. An upper level player spoke derisively in the chat about all the 'n00bs' that recently arrived in the world, and claimed that his 'pet could kick all of our n00b asses'.

Citine progressed through the game, increasing her level by cleansing Elwynn Forest of its Vermin, and slowly found people whom she could talk to. A Level 3 Warrior named Shaddo helped me learn how to fight, as well as where I could acquire weapons (strangely enough, I found the 'women' on the game more helpful than the men), and soon other players began to converse with me. The SIP theory held true after two hours of playing the game, after which I had built some rapport within the game and became a Level 3 Warrior myself. The people there were fairly helpful as I admitted I was new and wanted to get better at the game.

The most interesting thing about WOW was the degree to which it was interactive. I found it more absorbing than television because of the vast number of things you could do in the game: everything from storing items in your backpack to keeping track of how friendly an overlord of the world perceives you to be (this interesting function was displayed as a percentage). It became a virtual reality that I easily spent two hours in, and I marvelled at the players who boasted Level 38 or 54 skill because I wondered, 'How long do they spend playing this game to get that far?'

Citine made a stop at an inn to get some rest, and upon exiting the inn, met some interesting characters. The Hyperpersonal Model slapped me in the face as I came upon a group of mostly male players yelling, "NAKED DANCE PARTY!" All male brashness was brought down to the lowest common denominator as male players challenged each other to fistfights and invited female players to join the 'Naked Dance Party'. The decorum that one would expect in a face-to-face social setting was completely lost. In general, I have noticed that most people who are fond of RPGs are introverted, leaving them little opportunity for real social interaction and even less opportunity for dating. The hypersexual persona that the male players took on was a matter of selective self-presentation, since they may rarely, if ever, get to display a more romantic/amorous side to others in real life. A dwarf named Grimrapper asked Citine to take her clothes off and wear a bikini to the dance party, after which I promptly quit the game.

Playing World of Warcraft has been an interesting experience, to say the least, in which I saw the SIP and Hyperpersonal Model in action. I would, however, caution people to enter at their own risk.

Assignment #2 Impression Formation

I apologize to anyone that this might offend, but I figured I should let everyone know what a tragic experience I encountered in the psychological space I chose.

For this assignment I chose to observe, as well as, interact in an online chat room. Since chat rooms are of sort of a foreign language to me, I wasn't quite sure where to start so I did what any other person would do. I search "chat room" on Google.com and entered the first one it came up with. The chat service was run by Optichat.com, and I selected the room titled "20 Somethings" in hope of chatting with individuals relative to my age.

For the first 15 minutes or so, I simply observed the memebers of the room chatting away with one another. I found it rather hard to follow all the of the messages quickly scrolling up the screen, but eventually I got used to it. It was soon after that, that I encountered a rather shocking experience. One of the members of the room "whispered" to me (spoke to me privately). This indivdual went by the name of N*****KILLER. I immediately found this to be both appalling, as well as, extremely ignorant and wanted nothing to do with this person, but I was intrigued to see why a person would use choose such a name like this when communicating with strangers. I asked this individual why he chose such a name and where he/she got off thinking that it was acceptable. The individuals reasonings consisted of how it was "funny and cool," and he/she also explained that they believed that "slavery was cool and should be brought back." Throughout our conversation I explained to this individual many times that the only people that think like this nowadays are uneducated and ignorant, and also that it definitely wasn't funny by any standard. After hearing some of the individual's answers an impression was easy to form. I imagined the person to be a younger male, possibly from the south, and to be quite uneducated. I also analyzed this person on the basis of the Big 5 Traits.

Neuroticism- I found this individual to be quite neurotic, considering the fact that they see an entire race of people as threatening, so much so that they have to use derogatory slang in their screen name. I was almost sure that this person is very self-concious and actually a coward in "reality" due to the fact that they have to express themself like this in an online environment.

Openness- It was quite blatant that this individual is extremely "closed" due to the fact that their statements are out of pure ignorance.

Extraversion- I found this person to be introversive. I can't see thoughts like this allowing an individual to have a large group of friends in todays world, as well as, the face that he/she chose to sit home on the computer and talk to me about this appalling topic rather than be outside with friends somewhere.

Agreeableness- I found this individual to score rather low on the ageeableness scale. His/her views are completely opposite of those of social norms, and the individual even tried to tell me that I was wrong and "not cool" for not appreciating his/her screen name.

Conscientiousness- It almost seemed apparent to me that this individual completely lacked a conscience. He/she obviously didn't think to carefully (or at all) before they acted and had a total disregard for others around them.

Once I formed my impression, I looked into the individual's profile (which they were dumb enough to make while using a name like this) and found out that this person was 16 year old Jon, from Virginia. So, I wasn't to far off from my initial judgement (that is if the profile is true). But I feel that my impression of "Jon" was formed more along the line of the Hyperpersonal model. I believe this because the Hyperpersonal model says impressions will be more extreme either in a positive or negative way, and right of the bat my impresson of Jon was extremely negative. I definitely used the "overattribution process" to form my exagerrated impresson of Jon because I picked up that he was a younger kid from the way he typed and some of the language and grammar he used. Also, I'm almost positive Jon used the "behavioral confirmation" because he knew what I thought of him, so he continued to act in a way that just allowed my impression of him as a racist to grow stronger. I believe that only part of the Hyperpersonal model that wasn't present was the "developmental aspect," and this was so because time wasn't exactly an issue because it didn't take me long at all to form my impression of Jon.

For my first time in a chat room I encountered a quite unfortunate experience and although I'm sure there are more people out there like Jon, I just wish there was something that could be done about it. Once again, I apologize to anyone that this might have offended.
~Will

Assignment 2 - Myspace Chat Rooms?

For the second assignment, I had a hard time finding a psychological space on the Internet in which I would feel comfortable interacting with a target. After searching Google for psychological spaces I took a break and checked my Myspace account. I had never noticed the link to Chat Rooms and thought I would give it a shot. Next thing I new, I was browsing all kinds of chat rooms --- Pop Culture, Music, Reality TV, New Jersey, New York --- until I finally settled for a “Twenty-something” chat room. I assumed this chat would consist of people my age that I could relate to. Little did I know, the chat room would have many “thirty-something” and “something-teens” in it. After thirty minutes of observation, I was almost ready to leave the chat, disgusted at some of the appalling things these people were saying. Then, I was surprised to read, “Ashley: nice pic, sherr”. I honestly wanted to ‘x’ out of the chat room and ignore the comment but thought this could be a good chance to get an impression of Ashley. So I entertained the comment and started a conversation with “Ashley”, who turned out to be a 20-year old male from London.

The format of Myspace chat was interesting. Chat rooms take on a typical form, allowing users to type in and read comments. However, one feature that struck my eye was the user list. Everyone in the chat room had their user names and default profile pictures listed on the left of the chat room box. As you clicked on a user’s picture, a new tab would pop up with the user’s profile. Also, in the chat room, you could click on any user making comments and automatically get linked to his/her profile. It took a while to get used to the fast-paced text lines moving up the screen, but once Ashley initiated conversation with me, I ignored everyone else in the chat room.

My impression of Ashley was a shy, lonely boy (probably around 17-19 years old) who looked for attention in these Myspace chat rooms as a result of a low self-esteem. His profile had many pictures of his family (mother, sister, niece, nephew) but only one of himself with his nephew that barely showed his face. He described himself as “5’8, blonde hair, blue eyes” --- very general, but generally positive traits. Seeing as to how he only disclosed this information about himself and quickly changed the subject, I assumed that he wasn’t particularly a confident guy. He seemed to be very interested in my personal life, but I was good at changing the subject and disclosing as little information as possible. As I was judging Ashley on such limited cues, I realized that the Hypersonal theory was put into play because my impression of him was more intense than it would have been if we were FtF. Also, I realized that I, myself, fell victim to the behavioral confirmation and selective self-presentation characteristics because I gave limited information based on what I wanted Ashley to think of me and answered his questions in a way that I thought he wanted me to answer them (based on what I thought his impression of me was). In conclusion, I thought this was a challenging assignment, but I’m glad that I finally got the courage to put myself out there and interact with someone in a psychological internet space.

Political forums

When posed with the challenge to find an online place where I could attempt to analyze the interactions in terms of what we have learned so far, I almost immediately decided to find a political forum. Normally, I see political discussion as a quick step to frustration and anger, and I mostly try to avoid this. My search for political forums led me to itsallpolitics.com where I spent most of my time on the United States message board.

Before I even began reading through the threads, I thought that some of the "big five" traits (like agreeableness and openness) would be easy to predict. For example, I figured there would be a low level of agreeableness as a whole forum (not members as individual posters) due to the controversial nature of most threads, and I thought that openness to newcomers would also be low (based on the assumption that forums are online communities of people with similar interests, as well as the assumption that this type of space has allowed them to get to know each other to some degree). My assumptions alone show that I operate similarly to the Hyperpersonal model because, from what little cues I had, I reasoned that the forum would behave a certain way.

For the purposes of this exercise, I've decided to evaluate the forum as a whole, but also do some analysis of individual posts, and with my above assumptions in mind, these were my findings in terms of the big five:

Agreeableness: This particular forum had threads which presented individual posts as less agreeable than other threads. For example, there was more agreeableness displayed in a thread about Media influences on children than there was about global warming. However, it varied among posters (some used emoticons to decrease the severity of a comment, while others sometimes resorted to insults).

Openness: In the instance that a new poster contributes to a thread (and signifies that they are indeed new to the board), most posters respond to the poster with welcoming messages (i.e. "Look forward to reading your posts!" or "Welcome to the board!"). As the new poster's arguments are established, however, openness is either high (if the poster says something another poster agrees with) or low (if the poster says something another poster disagrees with, or if the new poster's grammar is of low-quality). Attacks on grammar were frequent if another poster disagreed with the grammatically inept poster ("You can't even spell, why should I listen to you?").

Extraversion: For the most part, the degree of extraversion was moderate to high. This makes sense because most of the members of this space have sought it out as a way to discuss their political views on controversial subjects. However, while the opinions themselves may be extraverted, the delivery may be more introverted ("Well, I don't really know, but maybe..." instead of "This happens because...").

Neuroticism: Most posters display a low level of neuroticism. Again, this goes along with the idea of seeking out this sort of aggressive conversation. The posters know that the likelihood of saying something everybody agrees with is slim, so they are mostly prepared to argue or back up their claims. As with extraversion, the delivery of the message may suggest a level of neuroticism, but most do not display a very large amount.

And lastly, conscientiousness: This plays a large part into how posters present their messages. As I mentioned with extraversion, users who are less inclined to start a fight will type their post more passively ("well, it seems that..." as opposed to "the only reason this happens is because..."). Also, to make sure that their message is less often misconstrued, many posters use the emoticons offered to them (rolling eyes to showcase irony, smiley faces to showcase humor or happiness, etc.), so it does appear that there is a high degree of conscientiousness in most posts.

Ultimately, I'd say that my above assumptions were mostly correct (thus confirming my use of the Hyperpersonal model) when applied to the forum as a whole, but they could also vary quite widely when looking at each poster individually (which makes analyzing an online space much more complex).

Inside a Bridge Community

In my daily activities on the Internet, I generally frequent asynchronous spaces; the little synchronous communication I participate in is limited to interactions with those I already know. Therefore, in order to participate in a synchronous environment without relative unease I had to rely on a skill not called upon in over four years: Contract Bridge.

I was slightly apprehensive about how I would be received at the Bridge table, especially since success in the game relies not only on your own skill but the skill of your partner. Since I had long forgotten things like bidding conventions, which are integral to setting the tone of the game, I was relieved to see that rooms at Yahoo! Games stratified according to ability. I entered a room for beginners.

Upon sitting at my first table, West and I were immediately greeted by East: “Hello, ladies!”. It seemed my avatar was more important than I thought. Other than this initial greeting, the only conversation at the table was end-of-hand acronyms congratulating the success of the winner. After East and West had left the table, I chatted with South for a few minutes before he/she excused him/herself from the table.

The cues I received from South were greatly reduced due to both the nature of the exchange (over a game of cards) and the medium (CMC). Instead of a male or female avatar, South was displayed only as a dog wearing a hat. However, upon South’s departure I was disappointed to see my partner go; I perceived my partner to be an (intensely) open, agreeable, extroverted, and conscientious bridge player. But how did I arrive at this impression, especially considering the limited breadth of our conversation?

My extrapolation from our conversation to South’s personality could be explained by the hyperpersonal model. Since most of our exchanges were for encouragement or congratulatory in nature, I exaggerated this positive input when constructing a schema of his/her personality. Other aspects of my impression of South corroborate the hyperpersonal model: his/her use of congratulatory acronyms (through possible selective self-presentation) led me to believe that he/she was a regular in the room and a better-than-average Bridge player.

Since I was able to create such a strong impression from our brief encounter, I wonder how South interpreted my apologies and amateur game play. It’s something I’ll have to keep in mind from now on.

Good Conversation...

To analyze a psychological space, I decided it would be interesting to join a singles chat. So I found a chat room in order to meet someone so that I could form an impression of them. It took me a little while to get over the fact that plenty of people in the chatroom were making crude comments and were simply there to talk to anyone that would listen. After about five minutes, a user by the name of "firefighter" asked if anyone was interested in a serious relationship. I obliged and entered into a private chat with this user.

At this point, I began to get a little nervous, regardless of the fact that he has no idea who I am or where I am from. Under the guise "Someonespecial", I could say anything I wanted. Even in the first few moments of our conversation, I was making impressions of this person. His ASL was that he was 20, male and from Georgia. I told him that I was 25 and from New York City, an immediate lie, but something I am able to do in an online space where he cannot see me. By doing this, I created an impression in his mind of who I wanted him to see. This Selective Self Presentation was done so that I did not have to portray my own self. I could be anyone that I wanted to be. Maybe he was doing the same thing, but I will never know. Anyway, as we continued our conversation, I continued to form generalized impressions of this guy in my head. He had no idea what Cornell was, he goes to a small, random university in the middle of nowhere in Georgia, he is going to school to become a diesel mechanic and he likes to rodeo. Immediately I start thinking that this guy is dumb. In terms of the hyperpersonal model, the over attribution process that I am applying to "firefighter" is that he gave me certain clues which I am over attributing to create a specific impression. For all I know, he could be extremely smart but very simplistic in the life he leads. I have no idea what his life is like, yet I classify him as stupid because of his descriptions of his Southern lifestyle.

I was also able to form impressions of "firefighter" in terms of the Big 5. He was very introverted until I actually mentioned that he was being shy. Then he seemed to open up more, saying that he was in fact not shy at all, he just did not know what boundaries to cross in this online chat we were having. He did not seem neurotic at all. He was very down to earth and did not seem anxious at all. Our conversation went very smoothly. Once we got past the idea of what boundaries to cross, "firefighter" was very open. We discussed each other's likes and dislikes (of which mine were all lies), career goals, and many other interesting life facts. He was very agreeable as well. He seemed like a caring person whom was very honest with me in all of my questions. "Firefighter" seemed conscientious as well because he was very sweet and not too aggressive in our conversation.

Overall, my conversation with "firefighter" was interesting. He seemed like a sweet Southern boy that actually wanted to get to know me. I actually felt kind of bad when I gave him a wrong email address, as he said "Bye! I'll write you later!" Who really knows if this guy was telling the truth, or if he in fact was a twenty year old guy? I mean, I was not telling the truth, so for all I know, he was not either. This is definitely a definite example of why the hyperpersonal model is so interesting in online environments. I was able to say anything I wanted to "firefighter" and he believed me. Everything we said to each other was completely intensified as we only talked for about a half-hour. I definitely exaggerated facts in order to get certain responses from him. These were facts that would not have been noticed in face to face conversation.

All in all, I believe that my conversation was a success. "Firefighter" seemed to believe everything I said, and I formed a very exaggerated, more than likely intensified impression of him.

Chatroom success

chat room visit

I went into a chat room with the name of Rachel. As I entered everyone welcomed me and I said hello. The conversation went slowly at first, but eventually began to pick up. The age ranged from a thirteen year old boy from Toronto, Canada to an eighteen year old boy from right outside of Las Angeles in California. There was also a thirteen year old girl, and so when they asked me my “ASL”, I told them I was 18, just so they wouldn’t be too creeped out. The youngest boy in the chat room was the leader of the conversation. He would send us youtube links to songs and share his love for music with us. At one point I received a message from someone named “guest 4991”. This kid was from California and was talking very openly about his past sexual experiences and other inappropriate things. I asked him why he felt like he needed to share this with me, and he responded by saying, “I don’t know, it was conversation”. He was bragging about all the partying he does and then says “but I feel like that wouldn’t be something are you are into”. Just from our ten minute conversation, he felt confident enough to make assumptions about me, my personality and how I spend my time.
This kid was probably using the hyperpersonal theory to fill in the blanks about what I was like. I was not giving him very much information about myself and was being uptight about the things he was saying and would often ask him why he just told me that piece of information. Really the only things he knew about me was that I was white, 18 years old and lived on the east coast. If I was to talk with this kid another time, the SIP theory would come into play because I would get to know him much better over time. Since we only talked for about fifteen to twenty minutes, the impressions I got of the boy was that he was a punk who liked looking cool and was obsessed with sex. All in all, pretty lame. But, as I write that, I am making judgements and using the hyperpersonal theory to put two and two together to try and form a whole. I don’t know his whole story, or any of it, really, and so who am I to judge and pretend that I know him? If I was talking to this kid face to face, more information would be exchanged and due to body language and style, I would be able to form a more complete and holistic picture of who this “guest 4991” really is.