Exploring Personality And Interpersonal Implications In Instant Messaging Beginning With Zero Acquaintance

The rapid development of computer and web technologies has been profoundly influencing nearly all aspects of our social life. Many web applications also provide us with new communication media and opportunity, by which we can build new relationship with others. As the most popular web-application in our nation, IM has extended interpersonal relationship and meanwhile provide new room for personality expression and perception. In the framework of "personality traits-personality expression in dyadic interaction with personality perception and actor’s personality traits" and "particular interactive behaviors-partner’s personality traits and particular interactive behaviors-interpersonal and task consequences", the personality and interpersonal implications of word use in IM will be explored from the perspectives of personality expression and perception.By research posts and notice, we recruited two hundred and ninety-eight university students and randomly allocated them into one hundred and forty-nine pairs. Firstly, subjects should finish the self-reported personality and interpersonal traits on the Chinese version of BFI-44 and IAS-R scales. At the same time, every subject was required to invite a good friend to rate his or her personality and interpersonal traits according to the above-mentioned scale. Secondly, each pair subject should participate in an interactive session through IM, after which every participant should perceive his or her partner on the Chinese version of BFI-44 and IAS-R scales and fill in interpersonal relationship satisfaction scale.The data analysis included three parts:personality perception, word use and personality expression, and the effects of interpersonal traits’similarity or complementarity on relationship satisfaction. From personality perception perspective, the analysis intended to explore the accuracy of personality perception and the correlations with word use. Some factors including personality traits, characteristics of perceivers and targets, and the relationship between perceiver and target had been taken into consideration. From personality expression perspective, the analysis was designed to investigate the correlations between self-reported personality traits, interactive partners’personality perception and word use. Finally, we also tended to explore interpersonal complementarity and its impact on relationship satisfaction.The results indicated that:(1) Regarding personality perception: ① on the whole, self-reported traits were consistent with partner’s and friend’s ratings, among which friend’s rating had the highest correlation with self-reported scores and the average agreement was 0.41. The correlations between self-perception and interactive partner’s ratings were lower, just about 0.22. The lowest correlation was between friend’s rating and interactive partner’s ratings, just about 0.13. ②Factors that affected perception accuracy included that different traits being perceived had different accuracy (agency, extraversion, openness are the highest, while conscientiousness, neuroticism are lower and agreeableness, communion were the lowest). In addition, some more responsible participants tended to make more accurate judgment and someone with typical features would be recognized accurately. And the relationship between perceivers and targets was also an important influencing factor.(2) Regarding personality expression: ①it appeared some certain correlation among self-reported personality and word use. For instance, self-rating neuroticism was significantly correlated with some negative words, including worry, suspicion, revenge, sadness. ②Correlations were higher between self-reported personality and his or her word use than between interactive partners’ ratings and word use.(3) The relationship between interpersonal complementarity and satisfaction:① The ANOVA for 2×2 between-group design was conducted, among which the independent variables were P1 love and P2 love, while the dependent variable was interpersonal satisfaction. Results showed the more similar those two sides were on the dimension of communion the higher satisfaction they would experience in the relationship or interaction. ②For dominance, we conducted the same analysis and found when the two sides in contrary position, both of them would be more satisfied. The findings together proved that when the two interactive dyads were similar on the communion but opposite on the agency, complementarity in total, they would be more satisfied with each other or the interaction.Finally, the limitations of the present research were discussed, including the selection of the subjects and forming interactive dyads, the familiarity problem of friends, the limitations of the measurement tools. Further research could commit on several directions, including testing the meanings of word use with experimental design, inviting others not involving in the interaction to rating personality, contrasting computer-mediatedcommunication with face-to-face communication.