virtual relationships

• virtual relationships

  non-physical interactions between people communicating over social media
• reduce cues theory

  • virtual relationships lack non-verbal cues to our emotional state
  • leads to deindividuation - reduces self identity
  • encourages disinhibition and blunt communication which causes reluctance to self disclosure
  • virtual relationships less effective than face-to-face ones
• hyper-personal model

  • idea that virtual relationships can be more personal and involve greater self-disclosure than face-to-face ones
  • 2 key features: 1)sender of the message has greater control over what to disclose, can manipulate their self image to present themselves in an idealised way 2) receiver of messages gains positive impression of the sender, they may give feedback that reinforces the senders selective self presentation
• role of anonymity in virtual relationships

  • explains high levels of self disclosure and Internet relationships compared to face-to-face ones
  • we are more likely to disclose to people we don’t know and will probably never meet
  • they don’t have access to our social circle so confidentiality isn’t a problem
• limitation of reduce cues theory

  • non-verbal cues are not absent from virtual relationships, they are just different
  • emojis are effective substitutes for facial expressions, timing and style of messages also act as cues
  • theory does not recognise that people can express their emotional state in a virtual relationship
• limitation of the hyper-personal model

  • lack of supporting evidence
  • studies shown that breadth and depth of self disclosure was greater in face-to-face relationships
  • other studies showed no significant difference between face-to-face and virtual relationships
  • contradicts the hyper personal models claim that greater intimacy in virtual relationship should lead to more self-disclosure
• absence of gating virtual relationships

  • gate = any obstacle to forming a relationship - face-to-face relationships are gated as they involve features that can interfere with the early development of the relationship e.g appearance
  • does an absence of gates in virtual relationships e.g attractiveness speech defects, shyness, social background
  • with the absence of gates, people can be themselves more and self-disclosure can become more frequent and deeper
• strength of absence of gating

  • supporting evidence
  • Students were surveyed about their shyness, facebook usage and quality of friendships - for students who scored high for shyness, facebook usage was associated with higher perceptions of friendship quality
  • suggests that shy people, through social media, can overcome the gates they face when trying to form relationships in real life
• limitation of absence of gating

  • supporting study relies on self report data
  • participants may have given socially desirable answers which would reduce the internal validity of the study as it wouldn’t truly reflect their virtual relationships
  • weak supporting evidence