Jessica Read, Brigham Young University
Communications
As the world of online social networking has changed to accommodate public interest, online dating sites have become increasingly popular. With this new trend in social media there has been an increased awareness as to how one might present him or herself in the most favorable way possible through computer mediated stimuli. To find out if nonverbal cues played a significant role in online impression formation, we had males and females randomly assigned to one of two variables, where they viewed stimuli of a member of the opposite gender. The stimuli that was presented was either a photograph accompanied by a written autobiography about a member of the opposite gender, or a video of the person reading their own autobiography, which allowed for the presence of nonverbal cues. Participants rated the subjects in the assigned stimuli on a number of different scales ranging from trustworthiness to sexual attractiveness based on their first impressions. Results showed no significant differences between the presence of nonverbal cues in the video stimuli or the photographic stimuli, reasoning for the indifference participants had towards the nonverbal cues is discussed. However, there were significant gender differences among the first impressions formed, other findings are presented.