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.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Yim -
You definitely elaborated a thorough analysis of your experience in terms of the Big Five. The only thing I would suggest is adding more detail to your impression formation description in terms of the hyperpersonal theory. It seemed to me that you left your target with minimal cues (no picture) and you had somewhat of an advantage in terms of putting a face to your target. Maybe not providing a picture could fall under selective self presentation (or just being safe on the internet)Based on the minimal cues you were given, you were still able to gather an intense impression of your target after several minutes of conversation. Overall, your interaction was similar to mine (I went to a chatroom on Myspace). After reading your blog I couldn't help but think about how I also spoke to someone who claimed to be a twenty year old male. Weird coincidence or is 20 just the standard age to reveal in chat rooms while not being creepy?
- Sherrie Chavez
Post a Comment