While browsing through an online forum, I noticed a thread titled, "I'm a coward." Intrigued, I clicked on it and followed the 8-page thread discussion.
The original poster called himself "Neil Black," although he later states that this is only an alias. In his post, he talks about this girl in his residence hall that he likes, but can't work up the nerve to ask out. He considers himself a coward for his social ineptness. Other forum posters gave advice, building up his confidence and eventually convincing him to take action.
Based on his sci-fi avatar and his complaints about his own social ability, I considered him a geek. He refers to residence halls and classes throughout the discussion, implying that he's a college student. He also mentions that he's in Kentucky.
My impressions, classfied into Big 5 personality traits:
Neuroticism: I get the impression that Neil is extremely neurotic. He appears to be very anxious about meeting with her, and he is noticably upset about his own inability to act.
Extraversion: Neil is almost certainly an introvert. He seems to spend a lot of time in his dorm room, playing video games and surfing the web.
Agreeableness: It seems like Neil is slightly on the disagreeable side. There were some attempts to poke humor into the thread to which Neil responded sourly (not always though).
Conscientiousness: Neil is definitely the cautious type. He seems to have the tendency to overthink things. Others on the forum pointed out that he had spent too much time thinking of how things could go wrong -- instead, he should just go for it.
Openness: Neil is a pretty open person. He has no qualms about discussing his inner feelings, or being receptive to those of others. He also enjoys various forms of entertainment.
Since I was only performing situational observation, my impressions were based entirely on verbal cues, without any active probing. Despite this, I was still able to obtain significant personal information (including ASL) and form a strong impression of Neil. My experience is probably heavily skewed because this is an unusual circumstance for Neil and might not accurately reflect how he normally behaves at all.
My experience closely matches the hyperpersonal model. I developed intense (but not broad) impressions, which may have been due in part to his selective self-representation. He is only putting forth the information required for you to understand his situation, and declined to upload a photo of himself. This thread is also more than a week old, so Neil had ample time to reveal details to help readers get to know him better (as per the developmental aspect of the hyperpersonal model.)
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2 comments:
I think it is interesting that Neil is so open about his feelings on-line which lead to your impressions of him being high for openness. I wonder if he is as open in real life as he is on-line and if that has a large impact on his ability to ask out the girl in his residence hall. If he is quiet and conserved in person and open about his feelings on-line, this definitely represents a selective self-presentation like you mentioned. So what if the girl on his residence hall read his posts? This brings up an interesting dynamic between CMC to FtF communication because she would be bridging the characteristics of a “blog-like” semi-anonymous psychological space with real-life synchronous un-anonymous interaction. It could work out very pleasantly and she decides to get to know him better in person and go out with him or she could get “creeped out” and turn him away all together.
Will,
I never knew that there is a forum out there to help someone such as Neil build up the courage to ask out a girl. I find it interesting that Neil scored so low on the Big Five Personality Traits. Although he seems very introverted and neurotic in the way he spends his time off-line, it seems as if on-line he is extraverted and calm enough to plainly share his feelings with others. The fundamental attribution error may play a role in your and others' judgment of Neil's character. Even though he is only very neurotic, nervous and disagreeable due to this specific situation involving the girl he has a crush on, others may assume that his behavior reflects his personality at all times. Additionally, this may cause others to over-attribute the few cues the have about Neil—leading to an exaggerated, more intense impression such as you suggested with the hyperpersonal model.
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