ComputerMediated vs FacetoFace Communication: Disclosure

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Computer-Mediated vs Face-to-Face Communication
Disclosure
Lizzie Parsons
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Disclosure CMC

• Verbal disclosure is the act of giving personal
  information during an interaction.
• The amount of verbal disclosure is a useful
  indicator of affective success in an interaction.
• There has been a certain amount of controversy in
  the literature about the effect of CMC on
  interpersonal affect.
• The Media Richness school maintain that
  interpersonal affect suffers in CMC (Hiltz,
  Johnson, Turoff, 1986 Phillips Santoro,
  1989 Rice Love, 1987 Siegel, Dubrovsky,
  Kiesler, McGuire, 1986)
• The Hyperpersonal theory of CMC (Walther, 1996)
  states proposes that CMC can result in greater
  interpersonal affect than FtF communication.
• These theories have only considered the outcome
  measures of experiments. It may be that the root
  of the controversy lies in the lack of
  understanding of the respective differences in
  the processes of communication.

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Method

• 90 participants in groups of 2.
• 3 conditions FtF, CMC, CMC with webcam.
• All pairs of participants are strangers to each
  other
• Between groups design
• Participants perform the Desert Survival Problem.
• Participants complete the Jourard (1975) 40 item
  self-disclosure questionnaire, and Walther (1989)
  satisfaction questionnaire.
• Language coded using Stiles (1978) Verbal
  Response Modes.

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Hypotheses

• H1 FtF causes greater interpersonal disclosure
  than CMC
• H2 Satisfaction higher in FtF than CMC
• H3 Satisfaction predicts disclosure
• H4 scaling of VRMs produces dimensions that
  correlate with DVs.