As summer was fast approaching last April, I was in desperate need of a summer activity. Having just gotten over a tough case of mononucleosis, I was in no state to apply to competitive internships and successfully complete the demanding applications. At the suggestion of my father, I contacted a friend of his who ran a small public relations firm a few minutes from my house. Although not my dream job, it was definitely something to do.
To contact the head of this company, I emailed him in a formal, professional manner asking politely if I could be a part of his workplace for a few weeks to learn more about public relations. To my surprise, his response was informal and full of excitement, using phrases like “Hi!” and “Can’t wait to hear back from you soon!”. Immediately I felt a liking towards him because of his friendly email. He made me excited to join his company and meet him in person. When we did finally meet in May, he was friendly, but did not speak in exclamations like in his email. He checked up on my progress every now and then, but also kept his distance most of the time.
My experience leaving virtuality and entering the real world fits with the Hyperpersonal Model proposed by Walther (1997). I had an inflated view of my boss before I met him because of my exaggerated perception of the few cues I received. Since I had only received a few enthusiastic emails before actually meeting him, I assumed that was consistent with his real life personality. This effect is called the over-attribution process, which is one of the five aspects of the Hyperpersonal Model. Another factor, selective self-presentation, was shown because my boss decided to present himself in a very specific enthusiastic way. Behavioral confirmation, another aspect of the Hyperpersonal Model occurred when I responded to my boss’ email with the same enthusiasm, causing him to reciprocate that attitude again, creating a cycle of excitement.
Ramirez & Wang write in their paper “When On-line meets Off-line: An Expectancy Violation Theory Perspective on Modality Switching” that expectations of a person can be violated by switching from a CMC setting to a FtF setting and cause a more negative view of the person. This typically occurs in relationships that spent a large amount of time in CMC. Having communicated with my boss for a month, we did not spend a significant amount of time in CMC, but my perception of him was still slightly more negative in FtF than in CMC.
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2 comments:
Caryn,
I am surprised that your boss' initial response included exclamation points and informal phrasing. In my experience, contacting someone for an internship requires several e-mails, phone calls, and then working my way up the office hierarchy to speak to someone knowledgable about internship programs. Having received an encouraging response, it makes sense that you focused on the given cues and over-attributed them to his personality. Your cycle of e-mails created an intensification loop and consequently your impression of him became exaggerated. Selective self presentation also gave your boss greater interactional control so that his friendly nature was emphasized but his anti-social tendencies were concealed. Although he may not have misrepresented himself intentionally, he definitely benefitted from the lack of verbal and nonverbal cues through CMC. This experience also aligns with expectancy violation theory as your shift in modality with your boss yielded a negative impression. I think you covered all the theories that applied to this social interaction. Overall,great post!
I had a similar experience recently when I was searching for a job for the summer. The company I liked from the career fair emailed me to set up an interview, the HR rep was semi-informal and really friendly in the emails. It made me comfortable... however in person her interview was the most daunting of the day. I wonder if our excitement about receiving the email at all had something to do with our expectations and over-attributions?
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