SOCIAL INFORMATION PROCESSING THEORY

Joseph Walther

in

Griffin’s A first Look at Communication theory

CLICKER QUESTION

• One of Griffin’s critique points for SIP is as follows:

The drive to affiliate may differ between those who typically seek out others online vs. f2f (Griffin 7th ed.. P. 148);

This critique is especially important for:

A. Doing Research on Online Relationships;

B. Deciding how to select subjects to compare online and f2f relationships;

C. Both

HOW DOES CMC DIFFER FROM FACE-to-FACE 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-to-FACE 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-to-FACE 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-to-FACE 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. Verbal cues. When motivated to form impressions

and develop relationships, communicators use any cue system’s available;

2. 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-to-Face 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-receiver-channel-feedback do not have a unifying driving force;