Inventing Partners in Computer-Mediated Communication: How CMC Sustains Self-fulfilling Prophecies and Relational Attributions

Research on computer-mediated communication (CMC) vacillates between arguments that the medium of text is too barren to experience partners’ personalities, to claims that we “fill in the blanks” when encountering others online. This metaphor of filling in the blanks can be substantiated scientifically by examining data from several studies that demonstrate when and how CMC users form idealized false impressions, and what false attributions they bestow when they anticipate or interact with online partners. These instances take place when users are provided insufficient descriptions of chat partners, or with avatars that are knowingly random with respect to their operators. Going beyond mere impressions, CMC users create their own versions of their partners’ attractiveness and sociability. They do so outside their own awareness, creating demonstrable self-fulfilling prophecies in ways that traditional research eschews in the CMC context. Research examining behavioral disconfirmation online, the behaviors that actuate it, and the erroneous relational attributions CMC users apply to partners, depict how these self-fulfilling prophecies are realized.