Instant Messaging With A Stranger

For my psychological space I used my AOL account to enter a chat room named "Just for fun," which I used to tell a stranger to instant message me. Within minutes of posting my screen name, two strangers, both male, instant messaged me. As a side note, my AOL account is clearly female. I chose an instant message psychological space because I wanted to have a synchronous conversation with a stranger. I chose the specific target "tbtoastpimp2" to hold a conversation with. However, I spoke with the other stranger as well, and found it interesting that when both strangers asked for my age/sex/location and I said that I was 20 (I didn't think that anyone would want to talk to a 16 year old), they both replied that they were 20 as well. What are the odds?

In terms of the "Big 5" personality traits, I reached the conclusion that "tbtoastpimp2" was extraverted about certain topics. He was willing to elaborate on his occupation and school. It is hard to tell if he is conscientious because he said that he was "working and gonna go back to school," and later said, "I love my job." However, this does not say much about how hard working he actually is. He seemed to be agreeable because he responded appropriately to my comments. We generally had the same opinions, and had the same common interests. In terms of neuroticism, he seemed to have a laid back personality. When I asked him if he went on the chat rooms often, he replied "no, just really bored, and its nasty outside right now, so im watching tv and on here." However, I understand that this is a limited analysis of his personality because we did not disagree on anything in the conversation, so I did not see a moody or anxious side of him (if he has one). It was hard to tell if "tbtoastpimp2" was open to experience. We discussed a variety of topics including school, his occupation (bar-tending), greek life, friends, and more, but these topics were all familiar to him. Although I can speculate about "tbtostoimp2's" personality, I understand that my conclusions are limited, especially considering that he was a complete stranger, and that we only talked for twenty-five minutes.

An example of the limitations of CMC is that when "tbtoastpimp2" initiated the conversation, he said "hola." This can be interpreted as "holla" (slang for hello) or as "hola" (Spanish for hello). I chose to interpret it as "holla," and based on the syntax of the rest of the conversation, I was correct in my assertion. Based on the overall conversation, my impression of "tbtoastpimp2" was more in line with the Hyperpersonal Model by Walther in 1996. As discussed above, although I could speculate about "tbtoastpimp2's" personality, my conclusions were limited, and therefore my breadth was limited. I was only able to judge him on a small amount of characteristics based on a twenty-five minute conversation. Also, during the conversation I realized I was judging the stranger on everything he wrote, which led to exaggerated and intense impressions of him. This also fits in with the Fundamental Attribution Error. For example, when I ended the conversation, his goodbye consisted of "ok babe, ill ttyl, muahz," which left an intense, and slightly negative, impression on me. His send-off was a dispositional attribution; his way of saying goodbye wasn't what I would consider normal, and therefore, by the end of the conversation I didn't think that he was normal (even though we got along throughout the conversation). I thought it was strange that after only twenty-five minutes, he felt that we were close enough to communicate like close friends. This also proved to me that intense impressions go both ways.