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Is shyness context specific? Relation between shyness and online self-disclosure with and without a live webcam in young adults

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Abstract

The Internet provides a new tool to investigate old questions in experimental social psychology regarding Person × Context interaction. We examined the interaction of self-reported shyness and context on computer-mediated communication measures. Sixty female undergraduates unfamiliar were paired in dyads and engaged in a 10 min free chat conversation on the Internet with and without a live webcam. Free chat conversations were archived, transcripts were objectively coded for communication variables, and a linear mixed model used for data analysis of dyadic interaction was performed on each communication measure. As predicted, increases in self-reported shyness were significantly related to decreases in the number of prompted self-disclosures (after controlling for the number of opportunities to self-disclose) only in the webcam condition. Self-reported shyness was not related to the number of prompted self-disclosures in the no webcam condition, suggesting that shyness was context dependent. The present study appears to be the first to objectively code measures of Internet behaviour in relation to the study of personality in general and shyness in particular. Theoretical and clinical implications for understanding the contextual nature of shyness are discussed.

Introduction

With the advent of the Internet as a method of communication, personality and experimental social psychology researchers have begun to use this technology as a tool to investigate psychological processes and social behaviour (Bargh and McKeena, 2004, Bargh et al., 2002, McKenna and Bargh, 1998, McKenna and Bargh, 2000, McKenna et al., 2002). The use of computer and Internet technologies is particularly relevant to the study of shyness because it allows for experimental manipulation of the social context in novel ways. Traditionally, social context has been limited to face-to-face settings. With the use of Internet technologies as a psychological laboratory (Skitka & Sargis, 2006), more detailed manipulations can be made to control visual and auditory cue exchanges. For example, we can decompose social interaction to its most basic component (i.e., the exchange of information) and incorporate as many or as few of the other components (i.e., visual and auditory cues) as needed.

One definition of shyness is that it is an anxious preoccupation of the self in response to real or imagined social interaction and is associated with heightened self-consciousness during self-presentation and evaluation situations (Melchoir & Cheek, 1990). The heightened self-consciousness in social situations or anticipation of such situations may disrupt goal direct behaviour (i.e., positive self-presentation and regard; Carver & Scheier, 1986). Behaviourally, this heightened self-consciousness may inhibit self-disclosure and verbal communication in people who are shy (Meleshko & Alden, 1993). As computer-mediated communication is primarily text-based, most people do not see or hear one another when communicating via this medium. Accordingly, the verbal and non-verbal cues that are particularly salient to shy individuals in face-to-face interactions are not present (Jones, Cheek, & Briggs, 1986). The anonymity created by lack of cues such as hearing or seeing one another has been hypothesized as allowing shy individuals to be more comfortable participating in online social interaction and disclosing more online than in face-to-face interactions (Roberts, Smith, & Pollock, 2000).

Although a number of recent studies have examined relations between shyness (and related constructs such as introversion) and Internet use (Amichai-Hamburger et al., 2002, Chak and Leung, 2004, Hamburger and Ben-Artzi, 2000, Scealy et al., 2002, Stritzke et al., 2004, Ward and Tracey, 2004), these recent studies used only subjective measures (self-report and anecdotal accounts) to index Internet behaviour. To our knowledge, there are no studies that have used objective behavioural measures of Internet communication in relation to personality in general and shyness in particular. Accordingly, we used computer and Internet technologies as a tool to understand whether the interaction of shyness and context influenced objective measures of computer-mediated social communicative behaviour.

Sixty female undergraduates unfamiliar who were paired in dyads engaged in a 10 min free chat conversation on the Internet with or without a live webcam. All free chat conversations were archived, and the transcripts were objectively coded for communication variables (e.g., total number of words, mean word count per turn, questions, and self-disclosure). Of particular interest was the computer-mediated measure of self-disclosure prompted by the dyad partner and the spontaneous self-disclosures because of the research linking shyness to difficulties with self-disclosure (e.g., Meleshko & Alden, 1993).

We predicted a significant interaction between shyness and context (i.e., webcam, no webcam) on computer-mediated self-disclosure. We hypothesized, given that the exchange of visual cues broadcasted over the webcam would be perceived as an evaluation situation, increases in self-reported shyness would be related to decreases in both the number of self-disclosures when prompted by their dyad partner during free chat (after controlling for the number of opportunities to self-disclose) and the number of spontaneous self-disclosures only in the webcam condition. We also predicted, given that the visual cues from the webcam would not be present during the no webcam condition, self-reported shyness would not be related to the number of prompted self-disclosures or the number of spontaneous self-disclosures in the no webcam condition.

Section snippets

Participants

Sixty women who ranged in age from 17 to 23 years (M = 19.23 years, SD = 1.44 years) were recruited from undergraduate classes at McMaster University. Because a limited number of male participants volunteered (n = 14) for the study, their data were not included in the analyses. All participants received undergraduate course credit for their participation.

Apparatus

Each participant used one isolated testing room. The rooms were equipped each with an Internet accessible PC and a Creative NX Pro webcam. The

Results

Given that each member of the dyad provided data that were not independent (i.e., they influence each other), we performed a linear mixed model. This method of analysis is routinely used for dyadic studies to account for non-independence and is reported elsewhere (Cook and Kenny, 2005, Kenny, 2004, Little and Card, 2005). For each variable, a linear mixed model was performed with dyads as the subject and member as the repeated variable. Webcam condition was entered as a factor, and actor’s

Discussion

Is shyness context specific? We found that particular contexts (i.e., presence or absence of visual cues from a webcam) influenced certain types of social computer-mediated communicative behaviour (e.g., personal self-disclosure), but not other aspects of online communication (e.g., the amount of conversation) in relation to self-reported shyness. As self-reported shyness increased, prompted self-disclosure decreased only when a live webcam was present. The relation between self-reported

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by a grant from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC: 410-02-1663) of Canada awarded to Louis A. Schmidt. We thank Lindsay Bennett, Nancy Ma, Ashley Miles, and Miran Ternamian for their help with data collection and coding of the transcripts.

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