SOCIAL INFORMATION
PROCESSING THEORY
Joseph Walther
in
Griffin’s A first Look at
Communication theory
HOW DOES CMC DIFFER FROM FACE-toFACE COMMUNICATION?
• SOCIAL PRESENCE THEORY:
– Text-based messages deprive CMC users of the
sense other warm bodies are involved in the
interaction;
– Communication becomes more impersonal and
task oriented;
HOW DOES CMC DIFFER FROM FACE-toFACE COMMUNICATION?
• Media Richness Theory:
– Classifies each communication medium
according to the complexity of the messages it
can handle;
– E.g., face-to-face communication provides a
rich mix of verbal and nonverbal cue systems;
– By contrast, CMC is limited in the nuanced
information that it can carry, presumably,
making it harder for social relations;
HOW DOES CMC DIFFER FROM FACE-toFACE COMMUNICATION?
• Reduced Social Context Cues:
– Lack of social context cues in CMC makes it
difficult for users to judge their relative status,
norms for interaction are not clear;
– People tend to become more self-absorbed and
less inhibited;
– The result is increased flaming--hostile
language;
HOW DOES CMC DIFFER FROM FACE-toFACE COMMUNICATION?
• All of these theories share a cues filtered
out view of CMC;
• They see the absence of nonverbal cues as a
flaw which limits its usefulness;
• SIP THEORY disagrees and claims that
users can adapt to the restricted medium and
develop close relationships;
SOCIAL INFORMATION
PROCESSING (SIP) THEORY
• Walther’s theory rests on the idea that
relationships grow as people develop impressions
of one another--who they are--social information;
• SIP theory is consistent with social penetration
theory and uncertainty reduction theory;
• If the interacting parties like the image of the other
that they have formed, they draw closer;
• Unlike cues filtered out theorists, SIP does not
hold that the loss is injurious to a well-defined
impression of the other;
SOCIAL INFORMATION
PROCESSING (SIP) THEORY
•
Two features of CMC according to SIP:
1.
2.
Verbal cues. When motivated to form impressions
and develop relationships, communicators use any
cue system’s available;
Extended time. The communication of social
information through CMC is much slower than it is
face-to-face, so impressions are formed at a reduced
rate; given enough time, CMC relationships can be
just as strong as f-to-f; they end up with the same
quantity and quality of interpersonal knowledge;
SIP vs. GULP
.
RESEARCH: SOCIAL INFORMATION PROCESSING
(SIP) THEORY
• A study by Walther et al. tested the idea that CMC
vs. face-to-face could produce the same sort of
impressions;
• Dyads interacted f-to-f or via CMC to discuss
moral dilemmas; one member of each dyad was an
accomplice who was to act friendly or
unfriendly;
• Raters categorized behaviors that communicated
affect;
• Naïve Ss rated the degree of affection expressed
by their dyad partner;
RESEARCH: SOCIAL INFORMATION
PROCESSING (SIP) THEORY
• RESULTS: The mode of communication
made no difference in the emotional tone
perceived by naïve participants;
• What verbal behaviors did confederates use
in CMC to show that they were friendly?
– Self disclosure
– Praise
– Explicit statements of affection
Nonverbal vs. Verbal in Face-toFace vs. CMC
• When face-to-face, participants tended to express
warmth (friendliness) nonverbally—facial
expression, eye contact, tone of voice, body
position, and other nonverbal cues to show how
they felt about their partner;
• With CMC, the content of what they wrote carried
the messages of friendliness and unfriendliness;
EXTENDED TIME
• The length of time that CMC users have to send
their messages is the key to whether or not they
can achieve the same level of intimacy as with
face-to-face communication;
• It takes at least four times longer to send a
message through CMC than through face-to-face
(e.g., 10 minutes of f2f = 40 minutes of CMC);
EXTENDED TIME
• Two additional factors affecting interpersonal
impressions online:
– Anticipation of future interaction motivates greater
relational development;
– Chronemics refers to the perception and use of time in
interaction with others;
– Time is the one nonverbal cue that is not filtered out in
CMC (E.g., the time of day an email was sent; the time
of response; the meaning of time depends on the
relationship ;
WHY IS IT THAT SOMETIMES CMC
SURPASSES F2F IN QUALITY OF
RELATIONAL COMMUNICATION?
• Hypersonal: Walther uses the term
hyperpersonal to label CMC relationships
that are more intimate than romances or
friendships would be if partners were
physically together;
• How senders select, receivers magnify,
channels promote, and feedback increases
selected behaviors in CMC;
SENDERS SELECT
• Through selective self-presentation, people
who meet online have an opportunity to
make and sustain an overwhelmingly
positive impression;
• In the movie YOU’V GOT MAIL, Joe and
Kathleen are virtual friends but would have
detested one another in f2f life;
RECEIVER
• OVERATTRIBUTION OF SIMILARITY:
• Our tendency is to observe people and to infer
from their behavior what type of person they are;
• With CMC, we leap from the little bit of
information we have to judgments about who they
are;
• We create an idealized image of the sender;
OVERATTRIBUTION OF
SIMILARITY
•In the absence of cues that focus on the
individual, we assume that our CMC
partner is like us or like the group—group
solidarity;
•Hence, we create an excessively positive,
idealized image of the other online (social
identity-deindividuation—SIDE);
•With an excessively positive image of the
other, plus anticipation of future
interaction, we form a hyperpersonal
relationship with our virtual partner;
CHANNEL: Communicating on
Your Own Time
• Some applications of online communication are
asynchronous: parties do not have to attend at the
same time;
• In asynchronous communication, we can feel that
the message will be read at a time when the other
is receptive to messages;
• In asynchronous communication, we can plan,
contemplate and edit more mindfully than in
spontaneous talk;
FEEDBACK: SELF-FULFILLING
PROPHECY
• Self-fulfilling prophecy is the tendency for a
person’s expectation of the other to evoke a
response from them that confirms what he/she
anticipated;
• Self-fulfilling prophecy is triggered the
hyperpositive image is fed back to the other,
creating the CMC equivalent of the looking glass
self;
• The person perceived to be wonderful, starts
acting that way;
CRITIQUE
• While SIP predicts CMC relationships forming slower than
f2f relationships, yet Walther’s studies show that
sometimes they develop at the same pace or even faster
than f2f;
• The drive to affiliate may differ between those who
typically seek out others online vs. f2f;
• The hypersonal perspective has been less explicit in
predicting negative relational outcomes in CMC;
• Walther recognizes that his principles of sender-receiverchannel-feedback do not have a unifying driving force;