Online Impression Information

The online space I chose was the game World of Warcraft. I have been playing for over a year and I recently joined a raiding guild. A guild is a loose organization of players who get together a few days each week to complete raids, which are dungeons that require upwards of ten people. These larger groups tend to be more committed and tight knit than the groups of people who play less frequently. I decided to observe a guild member named Urbetta (pronounced ur-betta) because he was in my raid group on Sunday night. Before that I had logged less than an hour in group with him so I do not know him very well. During raids we use both voice chat and normal text chat through the internet.

After killing a boss with Urbetta in my group (an hour or two of playing) I was able to develop a first impression of his personality. I know his gender because of the voice chat we use but i don't know anything else about his appearance. In fact I think I identify him with his character's in-game appearance as opposed to a real person's appearance as funny as that sounds. The fact that in the game people are represented by a character of a fantasy race with its own scripted non verbal cues makes it somewhat difficult to visualize the person behind the character. Urbetta exhibited openness to a degree as he was always joking around with everyone and making fun of people, but much like everyone else I have met through the game, he revealed next to nothing about his personal life. I have noticed that in-game people can joke around like they are best friends despite hardly knowing each other in the context of the real world. The talk among my guild members is atypical of a group that knows so little about each other. Most of the time the things said are highly inappropriate to be said about a stranger but the funny thing is that no one really cares. Urbetta exhibits both agreeableness and conscientiousness. Because he’s always fooling around Urbetta sometimes gets yelled at by the group leaders for talking too much. This happened a few times when the group was fighting a boss that required a lot of concentration and coordination among the team members. Urbetta never objects and always complies with the request because he’s mindful of the other people in the guild. He seems to know when to focus and once we've started the tough parts he is dead silent. On the same note, despite his jokester personality he happens to be an excellent player and he rarely makes mistakes.

I think my observations mirror the hyperpersonal hypothesis. My impression of Urbetta lacks breadth because his personality can be summed up by two major traits: his joking demeanor, and his being a very skilled and reliable player. Because I know only two things about him their importance is highly exaggerated. I am being forced to make a judgement about a person despite the fact that I really know nothing about them. While my observations match the hyperpersonal hypothesis I believe such impressions are highly inaccurate representations of the person’s real character traits.