I came across Isaac’s blog by accident. I googled “Aiesec Morocco” as I am interested in doing an internship in Morocco through my international, student-run organization called AIESEC. Isaac had done an internship in Morocco through Aiesec a couple years ago, so right off the bat, I already had a certain impression about. I know that people in this group are very internationally oriented as well as open and eager to experience other cultures. This type of impression formation is described in the SIDE model, when deindividuated online participants associate with a group, it allows others of the group to form intense attributions of similarity and positive feelings. Other first impressions include that Isaac was a good student as he attended GWU, and from his picture I found out his relative age, gender, and race. This also gave me a way to visualize him in his stories, making him seem more real.
Isaac’s first blog entries show his enthusiasm about the opportunity to travel and to help children of impoverished communities around the world. This made him seem caring and conscientious of world issues. When I finally got to Isaac’s entry upon arriving in Morocco, I was very surprised by the tone. He tells a frustrated tale of canceled flights and aggravating changes in plans. Although the situation was clearly causing the angry tones of the blog entry, I couldn’t help but feel that he seemed a bit dramatic, harsh, and cold. Still, I was intrigued by this change in character and wanted to read more.
The next entry written apologizes for venting and goes on to describe the amazing people he had already encountered and some fabulous first impressions about Morocco. This brought me to conclude that the frustrated Isaac of the previous blog was not a typical characteristic, and that my initial impression was more correct, however perhaps a little less extreme. As I read on, I found out that he is pretty good at speaking French from his descriptions of interactions and that he seemed aware of his touristy naiveté from his experiences almost getting mugged.
To summarize my impressions of Isaac, he seemed very open, and conscientious, as I initially figured. He seemed agreeable and extraverted, but not to extremes. I really cannot determine his neuroticism to any exact degree just like the experiment by Hancock and Dunham we studied determined that this trait is more difficult to figure out. Looking back at my impressions of Isaac, I notice how much stronger they were in the beginning. After reading his blog which took place over the span of eight weeks, I definitely notice that his personality seemed to average out in my mind over the course of the entries. I saw his ups and downs, his flaws and strengths. This is consistent with the hyperpersonal theory in that my online impressions began with intense judgments, regardless of the fact that I had fewer social cues to deduct them from, until my impressions mellowed out as I heard more about Isaac’s experiences.
2 comments:
I realize that a lot of people are more in line with the hyperpersonal model. I believe it is because blogs, or any other type of psychological space provide specific information that we instinctively process and organize to make sense out of it. Thus we end up formulating a premature impression at the beginning because that is the way our brains function in order to determine what is going on in the environment at THAT MOMENT. But not all information is there, and thus as mentioned in class, we fill in the gaps through our filters of experience. And thus I feel the internet is a great way for us to utilize as a source of information and learn from others, but one should also remember that every piece of information is not there. Especially since people manipulate the information they display selectively, consciously or unconsciously. Thus I can relate with you in finding it difficult to formulate a clear picture of what this person is like with such little and ambiguous information.
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