Chapter 10 - Social Information Processing Theory

Social Information Processing Theory

It claims that people can build interpersonal relationships despite the limitations imposed by mediated channels

• created during a time (1990s) when people were doubtful that computer tools could facilitate truly warm interpersonal relationships

• Walther claimed that under the right conditions, people can conduct satisfying interpersonal and group communication online.

Who Made It?

Joseph Walther

Walther's social information processing (S I P) theory claims that relationships:

• Grow only to the extent that parties first gain information about each other.

• Use that information to form interpersonal impressions.

  • Interpersonal impressions: Knowing how another person responds to you as a unique individual.

• in SIP, the first link of the chain looks a bit different when communicating through mediated channels (like emails, texts or letters)

Social Information > Interpersonal impression formation > Relationship Development

Before SIP, how did communication theories interpret online messaging?

Many communication theorists shared a “cues filtered out” interpretation of online messages

• Cues filtered out: Interpretation of online communication that regards lack of nonverbal cues as a fatal flaw for relationship development.

• Lack of cues could lead to flaming.

• Flaming: Hostile online language that creates a toxic climate for relationship development and growth.

According to S I P, What are 2 features of online communication that give us hope for long-distance friendship closeness?

• Verbal cues, which can effectively compensate for missing nonverbal cues when exchanging social information.

• Online communicators who need extended time to produce the same amount of impression formation and relationship development as face-to-face communicators.

Verbal Cues of Affinity Replace Nonverbal Cues

• People give nonverbal cues more weight when interpreting inconsistent messages when verbal and nonverbal content don’t match

• Nonverbal cues become less powerful when they don’t conflict with the verbal message or when we're conveying facts.

and so

Walther believes nonverbal cues can be replaced with verbal messages that convey the same meaning.

• Human beings find clever ways to make up for the lack of nonverbal information.

Experimental Support for this (Counterintuitive) Idea/Theory

From experiements to test the theory, it was found that:

• The method of communication makes no difference in the emotional tone perceived by naive participants.

• Any discrepancy in warmth was due to the intention of each accomplice.

• These findings suggest that we might be able to convey just as much warmth through a series of text messages as we could through a face-to-face conversation.

(What is) The Crucial Variable in Online Communication

Extended Time!

• Translating nonverbal cues into verbal information takes effort.

• Text messages take about four times longer to say than when speaking in person.

• Anticipated future interaction

• Chronemics

Anticipated future interaction

A way of extending psychological time; the likelihood of future interaction motivates online communicators to develop a relationship.

Chronemics

The study of people's systematic handling of time in interaction with others.

Hyperpersonal Model

Hyperpersonal perspective: The claim that online relationships are often more intimate than those developed when partners are physically together.

• The hyperpersonal perspective uses the familiar categories of:

  • Sender.

  • Receiver.

  • Channel.

  • Feedback.

The Sender

People who meet online can create a positive impression through selective self-presentation.

• Selective self-presentation: An online positive portrayal without fear of contradiction, which enables people to create an overwhelmingly favorable impression.

The Receiver

Attribution is the perceptual process whereby we observe what people do and then try to figure out what they're really like. (trying to read someone)

• Our basic interpretive bias is to assume that the specific action we see reflects the personality of the person who did it.

There is not a lot of extra information on social media

• When it comes to reading a text message or tweet, our only basis for judgment is the verbal behavior of the person who sent the message.

• Someone viewing an online dating profile will tend to overattribute the information on the profile and create an idealized image of the owner.

The Channel

Many forms of interpersonal communication require that parties synchronize their schedules in order to talk with each other.

• Much of the communication online, especially text-based messages, happens asynchronously.

The Feedback

People who communicate online can feel closer because of the self-fulfilling prophecy created by positive feedback loops.

• Self-fulfilling prophecy is a tendency for a person's expectation of others to evoke a response from them that confirms what was originally anticipated

The Warranting Value of Information: What to Trust?

Social media sites display two types of information—that controlled by the profile owner and that beyond the owner's direct control.

• According to Walther, this is a difference that truly makes a difference in how social media users process information.

• Warranting value: The degree to which a person is perceived to have manipulated, controlled, or shaped information about themselves.

Based on Walther's study, interpersonal information on social media comes from both the self and other site users

Information online can be low warrant or high warrant.

Low warrant

Information is content that is under the sole control of the sender, posted by a profile owner, and easily manipulated.

• This is less trustworthy

• Less value as it involves more curation

High warrant

Information is third-person and not easily manipulated.

• This is seen as more trustworthy

Critique: Does It Work outside the Lab?

S I P meets all the criteria for good objective theory.

• Walther built S I P and the hyperpersonal model around enduring elements of the communication process, such as time, information processing, senders, receivers, and feedback.

• Bree McEwan (DePaul University) questions whether SIP's predictions extend to today’s real-world relationships because of modality weaving.

  • Modality weaving: Integrating or layering a variety of communication channels into relational communication.