Research, part 1

The primary reason I came to Amsterdam is the one about which I have blogged the least: Research. Some ideas came quickly, while others—some especially stimulating ones—have just started coming into view. There is a long way to go. I am not accustomed to sharing research ideas publicly until they go through a couple of reviewers, a couple of times. Just the same, here’s a sneak preview.

Jochen and Patti

I had originally proposed to come study with Professors Jochen Peter and Patti Valkenburg because of our shared interest in, and divergent approaches to the study of self-disclose online. I’ve previously looked at this primarily in terms of how people adapt to new media in order to present themselves to other people, and how people form impressions of one another based on these self-presentations. The Internet changed how these things transpire, compared to face-to-face processes. Jochen and Patti have had somewhat different concerns. They’ve examined the factors that lead some people to disclose to others online—adolescents, primarily—and how, with feedback, this process helps individuals with their psychological adjustment, again, in ways that differ from face-to-face processes. It’s no surprise that our approaches and focal points differed somewhat: They are, at heart, media effects researchers (formerly, how do people use media and what do media messages then do to people), and I am an interpersonal interaction researcher (formerly, how do people use nonverbal and verbal cues to affect relationships through interaction).

We had each discovered that online communication elevates levels of self-disclosure people exhibit online, and that online self-disclosure appears to have stronger impacts than offline disclosure (for their work, on adolescent development; for mine, on intimacy and liking). I’ve argued that people exploit the plan-able and editable capacities of online communication in order to enhance their messages. Alex Schouten (now at Tilburg University) with Patti and Jochen argued (and demonstrated) that the relevance of perceived control over messaging is a critical factor, in a somewhat similar way. I tend to study different contexts and conditions that alter behavior; they tend to study characteristics and perceptions, and although we both cross over a lot.  Lately I’ve grown concerned there might be other explanations for online/offline differences in disclosure, and that the data we have so far don’t fit perfectly with our current thinking. But I was not sure why or how to go about investigating things. That was one of the points of coming here: to get input from a different perspective on a problem we all look at in different ways.

Dian reviews study materials

Maria and Joe review pretest results

The work on self-disclosure is progressing exactly the way it should: One experiment has started in Amsterdam, led by Dian de Vries. Another is close to commencing by Maria Koutamanis and Helen Vossen. One more study has started in East Lansing. These experiments are bringing together constructs and variables such as feedback, anticipated future interaction, dispositions, and perceptions many of which have appeared in the Amsterdam research and MSU research, plus some new ones related to self-perception, in novel combinations. One or two more studies are on the drawing board. They will test some rival explanations for the puzzles we are confronting, as scientific research is supposed to do, in incremental steps. These issues are taking care of themselves a step at a time.

Another question I have been wanting to pursue was to ask why Jochen and Patti do things the way they do. Our methods frequently differ, and our conceptualizations of research problems sometimes do, too. I have long admired how they and their associates take theories apart (mine included) and put them together in smarter, more intriguing, and original ways, and I had learned a lot from them from afar. But not as much as I could.

We have had some fascinating starting discussions about these issues. I’ll tell you more about them in another post soon. Today I am visiting Marjolijn Antheunis and Alex Schouten at the University of Tilburg. These two scholars always have interesting ideas and perspectives, and teach me things, too. I normally only get to spend small pieces of time with them at conferences or we share ideas in long emails. But a dinner conversation about a vague new idea related to impression formation has already become a brilliant hypothesis in their hands. This is fun. Way fun.