Virtual:

• Self disclosure:

  Reduced cues:

  Kiesler et al virtual relationships are less effective than FtF ones because they lack many of the cues we normally depend on in FtF interactions

  • include nonverbal cues such as our physical appearance
  • Reduces a person's sense of individual identity in virtual relationships (de-individuation), which in turn leads to disinhibition
  • Many people then feel freer to communicate in blunt and even aggressive ways

  People are unlikely to want to express their real thoughts to someone who is so impersonal
• Hyperpersonal model:

  Walther argues that virtual relationships can be more personal and involve greater self-disclosure than FtF ones

  • as it develop quickly as self-disclosure happens earlier, and once established they are more intense
• Hyperpersonal model:

  1. The sender of a message has greater control over what to disclose they send than they would in an FtF This is selective self-presentation. Manipulates their self-image to present themselves in an idealised way. To achieve this, self-disclosures can be both hyperhonest and/or hyperdishonest
  2. The receiver gains a positive impression of the sender they may give feedback that reinforces the sender's selective self-presentation
• Hyperpersonal model:


  Another factor that promotes online self-disclosure and makes virtual relationships hyperpersonal is anonymity

  Bargh et al point out that the outcome of this is like the strangers on a train effect in FtF relationships

  When you're aware that other people do not know your identity, you feel less accountable for your behaviour

  So you may well disclose more about yourself to a stranger than to even your most intimate partner.
• Effect of absent gating in virtual:

  In this context, according to Bargh et al a gate is any obstacle to forming a relationship

  FtF interaction is gated, in that it involves many features that can interfere with the early development of a relationship

  Examples of gates include physical unattractiveness
• Effect of absent gating:

  Benefits and drawbacks:

  • Gates are absent
  • Develops to the point where self-disclosure becomes more frequent and deeper. Relationship can 'get off the ground' in a way that is less likely to happen face-to-face

  Absence of gating works by refocusing attention on self-disclosure and away from superficial and distracting features. In a virtual relationship more interested in what you tell me than in what you look and sound like
• Effect of absent gating:

  A benefit of gates being absent is that the individual is freed to be more like their 'true selves' (more so than in FtF interactions)

  -

  • There is scope for people to create untrue identities and deceive people in ways that they could never manage FtF
  • A person can change their age
  • Perhaps the ultimate expression of this ungated existence is Second Life, where anyone can create any kind of avatar to represent themselves in a virtual reality