Module 12 Social Information Processing Theory PDF

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Chapter 10: Social Information Processing Theory of Joseph Walther ● Explains why and how people form relationships online ● Computer-mediated communication (CMC): refers to text-based messages which filter out nonverbal cues ○ Data processing, news dissemination, and long-distance business conferencing ● 3 differences b/w CMC and face-to-face comm. ○ Social presence theory: suggests that CMC deprives users of the sense that another actual person is involved in the interaction ○ Media richness theory: purports that CMC bandwidth is too narrow to convey rich relational messages ■ Face-to-face allows for verbal and nonverbal cues to show high nuanced emotions and even double meanings ○ Lack of social context cues: CMC users have no clue as to their relative status, and norms for interaction aren’t clear so people tend to become more selfabsorbed and less inhibited ■ Result in flaming -- hostile language that zings its target and creates a toxic climate for relational growth on the Internet ● Cues filtered out: interpretation of CMC that regards to lack of nonverbal cues as a fatal flaw for using the medium for relationship development ● Given the opportunity for a sufficient exchange of social messages and subsequent relational growth, as goes face-to-face comm, so goes CMC ● Social info → impression formation → relationship development ● Impression formation: the composite mental image one person forms of another ● 2 features of CMC that provide a rationale for SIP theory: ○ Verbal Cues ■ CMC users can create fully formed impressions of others based solely on the linguistic content of online messages ○ Extended time ■ The exchange of social info through text-only CMC is much slower than it is face-to-face, so communicators form impressions at a reduced rate ● Multimodal: using multiple media to maintain a relationship ● Anticipated future interaction: a way of extending psychological time; the likelihood of future interaction motivates CMC users to develop a relationship ● Chronemics: the study of people’s systematic handling of time in their interaction with others; how people perceive, use, and respond to issues of time in their interaction with others ● Hyperpersonal perspective: the claim that CMC relationships are often more intimate than those developed when partners are physically together ○ Sender: selective self-presentation ■ an online positive portrayal w/o fear of contradiction which enables people to create an overwhelmingly favorable impression ○ Receiver: overattribution of similarity ■ Attribution: a perceptual process whereby we observe what people do and then try to figure out what they’re really like

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Channel: communicating on your own time ■ Asynchronous channel: a nonsimultaneous medium of communication that each individual can use when he or she desires ○ Feedback: self-fulfilling prophecy ■ The tendency for a person's expectation of others to evoke a response from them that confirms what was originally anticipated Senders self-select what they reveal; receivers create an idealized image of their partner; channel lets users express themselves the way they want and when they want Warranting value: reason to believe that info is accurate, typically because the target of the info cannot manipulate it ○ Low warrant info → sender has control of the content and info posted and can manipulate it with ease ○ High warrant info → profile owner can’t easily manipulate what’s posted by friends

Lecture Social Info Processing (SIP) ● SIP: Interpersonal comm and relationship development in cyberspace ○ Development online relationship ○ Rests on the interplay among tech, relationships, and self-presentations ● Electronically/computer-mediated comm (EMC) ○ Digital applications for direct human-to-human communication (EX: email, texting, online forums, social networking sites) ○ Comm b/w 2 or more individuals via separate digital devices through networked telecommunication systems Compare EMC with Face-to-Face (FfF) ● Time ○ FtF convos are synchronous ■ Synchronous messages: sent and received instantly and simultaneously ■ No time delay ○ ECM convos are asynchronous ■ Asynchronous: a message that is not read, heard, or seen at the same time ■ Time delay ○ It takes longer to type out a typewritten message than to verbally say it ● Anonymity ○ You may not know precisely who you are communicating with an online forum ● Nonverbal Cues ○ EMC → no nonverbal cues; words and graphics become more important to carry out meanings ■ Even in video chat, some nonverbal cues are absent (e.g. personal space, touch, and surrounding context) ● How would lack of nonverbal cues impact relational communication ○ Issue: whether and how the social meaning of interactions is affected by the lack

of nonverbal cues when communicators substitute text-based electronic messages to FtF encounters ● Competing perspectives ○ Cues-filtered-out perspective ■ An absence of nonverbal vocal and physical cues denies users important info about partners’ characteristics, emotions, and attitudes, resulting in less sociable, relational, and understandable, and/or effective comm ○ SIP ■ Argues that communicators deploy communication cue systems that they have at their disposal when motivated to form impressions and develop relationships Cues-Filtered-Out Perspective ● EMC < FTF ○ Impersonal EMC ○ “Cues filtered out” perspective ■ Social presence theory ■ Media richness theory ■ Lack of social context cues perspective ● Social presence theory: the degree of salience of the other person in the interaction; the degree to which a person is “real” ○ Comm media differ in their degree of social presence ○ The missing of “nonverbal” cues in text-based CMC decreases social presence ● Media richness theory ○ “Richness” is evaluated in medium’s capacity for immediate feedback, number of cues and channels used, and the extent to which a message is personalized ■ Richest media → FtF comm which prompt individuals to comm faster ■ Leanest media → telephones, memos, and letters ○ ● Lack of social context cues ○ Social context cues: nonverbal cues which define actors’ identities and relative status (e.g. physical appearance) ○ Salience of social context cues influence the content and quality od comm behaviors ■ Strong → controlled ■ Weak → produce self-centered and unregulated ○ Flaming: the hostile and insulting interaction b/w Internet users SIP ● Adaptations: EMC = FTF ○ Just as effective ○ SIP → CMC users adapt to the medium in order to express social messages ○ Verbal cues substitute for nonverbal cues ○ Time-related factors that influence intimacy on the Internet

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Extended time Chronemic cues: cues related to how people perceive, use, or respond to time; nonverbal cues ● Use of chronemic cues can influence intimacy Hyper-personal Perspective ● EMC > FTF ○ Factors contributing to hyperpersonal comm ■ Sender ■ Receiver ■ Channel ■ Feedback ● Sender: selective presentation ○ Senders have the ability to present themselves in highly strategic and positive ways ○ Affinity seeking → senders provide info online that prompts affinity in others ● Receiver: over-attribution of similarity ○ Attributions: those evaluations and judgments we make based on the actions/behaviors of others ○ We perceive others and come up with some conclusions based upon what we perceive ○ Over-attribution of similarity → greater intimacy in online relationships ● Channel asynchronicity ○ Allows online participant to reflect upon, edit, and review their comments before sending the message ○ Allow for optimal and desirable comm ■ High quality messages → pos relational outcomes ● Feedback: self-fulfilling prophecy ○ Feedback: words or behaviors that are communicated to us in an interaction ○ Feedback as behavioral confirmation: the reciprocal influence that partners exert ■ Self-fulfilling prophecy: a tendency for an individual’s expectation of a target person to evoke a response from that person which reaffirms the original prediction Evaluation of Theory ● Walther’s own assessment ● Social penetration theory and uncertainty reduction theory influenced the development of SIP...