Intercultural Relationship, Prejudice and Ethnocentrism in a Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC): A Time-Series Experiment

This paper investigated the effects of relationship types (intracultural versus intercultural conditions) on relational development in computer-mediated communications (CMC) and face-to-face settings by controlling for the effect of prejudice and ethnocentrism. A total of 140 participants were involved in the experiment, and they were randomly assigned to the face-to-face, synchronous and asynchronous computer-mediated channels. Within each group, they were assigned to intracultural versus intercultural conditions and were required to interact in pairs with their zero-history partners. All participants underwent four experimental sessions.. The results exhibited a significant main effect of relationship types on relational progression in face-to-face and asynchronous CMC groups. No significant main effect of relationship types was observed in the synchronous CMC group. The results showed no significant effects of prejudice and ethnocentrism on relational development in all groups. The findings of the study provide partial support for the “equalization” view of CMC.