EFFECT OF COMMUNICATION MEDIUM ON INTERPERSONAL INTERACT

许多当代社会生活都发生在“网络空间”中。人们越来越多地通过电子邮件开展业务、交朋友和恋爱。人们越来越一致地认为，计算机正在改变人们相互交流的方式，但计算机中介的社交互动与面对面的互动真的有多大不同？人们交流的媒介对广泛的语言、副语言和非语言线索的可用性、意义和频率产生了深远的影响，这些线索包括语言、姿势、凝视、面部表情、手势和触摸。这些线索与人际关系变量有很好的联系，如支配地位、从属关系、信任、欺骗和情感反应。因此，我们有充分的理由期待交流媒介会影响人与人之间的看法和行为。然而，到目前为止，关于传播媒介对社会互动的影响的猜测远远多于数据。这项研究的目的是进行一系列对照研究，考察各种人际过程是如何受到交流媒介的影响的。这些研究的基本设计将需要在媒体上复制日常生活中频繁发生并在心理学文献中有既定发现的自然主义互动(“熟悉”)。这项研究的一个优势是，我们将沿着Daft和Lengel(1986)所说的中等“丰富度”的连续统抽样三个点，即可用的沟通渠道的数量和类型。因此，我们会将基线(面对面)条件下的数据与两种不太丰富的条件--电话和计算机--进行对比。在所有三种情况下，参与者都将提供自己和伴侣的行为评级；此外，对话将由独立观察员和计算机化的内容编码程序进行编码。分析将集中在传播媒介如何影响人际互动的三个基本方面：社会行为及其感知、因果归因和人际吸引。这项研究的发现将帮助我们理解日益无处不在的交流方式的心理影响。同时也提供了一种新的方法来解决关于印象形成过程的长期理论问题。

Much of contemporary social life occurs in "cyberspace." People increasingly conduct business, make friends, and fall in love over e-mail. There is a growing consensus that computers are changing the way people communicate with each other, but to what extent is computer- mediated social interaction really different from face-to-face interaction? The medium through which people communicate has profound effects on the availability, meaning, and frequency of a wide range of linguistic, paralinguistic, and nonverbal cues, including proxemics, posture, gaze, facial expression, gesture, and touch. These cues have well-documented links to interpersonal variables, such as dominance, affiliation, trust, deception, and affective responses. Thus, there are good reasons to expect that the medium of communication will influence interpersonal perceptions and behaviors. To date, however, there has been far more speculation than data about the effects of communication medium on social interaction. The purpose of the proposed research is to conduct a series of controlled studies examining how various interpersonal processes are affected by the medium of communication. The basic design of these studies will entail the replication across media of a naturalistic interaction ("getting acquainted") that occurs frequently in everyday life and has an established body of findings in the psychological literature. A strength of the research is that we will sample three points along the continuum of what Daft and Lengel (1986) refer to as medium "richness," that is, the number and type of communication channels available. Thus, we will contrast data from a baseline (face-to-face) condition with two less rich conditions, phone and computer-mediated. In all three conditions, participants will provide ratings of their own and their partner's behavior; in addition, the conversations will be coded by independent observers and by a computerized content coding program. Analyses will focus on how communication medium affects three basic aspects of interpersonal interaction: social behavior and its perception, causal attribution, and interpersonal attraction. The findings emerging from this research will help us to understand the psychological effects of an increasingly ubiquitous mode of communication. while also providing a new way to address longstanding theoretical questions about the impression formation process.