Erin L. Spottswood

Awkward encounters of an "other" kind: collective self-presentation and face threat on facebook

While we tend to think of self-presentation as a process executed by the self, reputation management on social network sites, like Facebook, is increasingly viewed as a collective endeavor. The information users share about one another can have significant impacts on impression formation, and at times this other-generated content may be face threatening, or challenging to ones desired self-presentation. However, we know little about the nature of these other-generated face threats and the ways that people perceive them. Using an online survey of 150 Facebook users, we report on what these users consider to be other-generated face threats and how they feel after experiencing them. Results suggest that many face threats result from other Facebook users neglecting or misunderstanding a targets audience and/or self-presentation goals, as well as a targets fear of creating an unwanted association with another Facebook user. Experience of these threats is affected by both individual and situational factors. We also report on a new unique measure capturing Facebook skills.

Exploring romantic relationships on social networking sites using the self-expansion model

Several hypotheses were derived from the self-expansion model (Aron & Aron, 1986) concerning romantic relationships and social networking sites (SNSs). A sample of 276 participants responded to questions about their relationship history and SNS uses and a subset of those (N=149) responded to additional questions about a current romantic partner. Results suggest that past self-expansion leaves a residue shown by more interests. This finding was moderated by overall Facebook use. Particular Facebook behaviors such as tagging ones partner in status updates, appearing together in photographs, and listing similar interests on profiles are indicative of self-expansion processes typically found in romantic relationships.

Reactions to other-generated face threats on Facebook and their relational consequences

Impression management refers to an individuals deliberate efforts to cultivate a particular image. Sometimes impression management occurs in reaction to a face threat-an incident or behavior that could create an impression inconsistent with ones desired self-image. On social network sites (SNSs) such as Facebook, where content can be shared widely and is often persistent, studies have repeatedly shown that people are vulnerable to face threats resulting from other-generated content. While there has been much documentation of face threats occurring in the context of SNSs and how people react to them, we know very little about the relational consequences of carrying out a particular reaction. This paper reports on a survey (N?=?150) of adult Facebook users examining how certain reactive strategies and the severity of the face threat affect perceived changes in closeness between the victim and offender. Examines how people react to face threats on Facebook.Examines how reactions to face threats affects relationships.Survey of 150 adult Facebook users.

The positivity bias and prosocial deception on facebook

Can the positivity bias, observed across various Social Network Sites (SNSs), predict the use of prosocial lies in a SNS such as Facebook? The positivity bias may be a product of politeness norms (i.e., positive face concern) that have influenced communication phenomena before these sites existed. In addition, positive face concern may also be affected by unconscious cues or primes that promote prosocial behavior on Facebook. We conducted an online experiment using current Facebook users to examine how positive face concern and surveillance primes affect prosocial lying in public and private Facebook contexts. Although positive face concern and publicness predicted the use of prosocial lying, positive face concern was not affected by the publicness and surveillance primes did not affect positive face concern or the use of prosocial lies in our study. This hints towards the nuance of positive face concern and the potential limitations of surveillance primes on prosocial lying behavior. Participants post prosocial lies on Facebook if the truth would threaten anothers positive face.Participants post prosocial lies on Facebook when posting publicly on the site.Surveillance primes did not predict the likelihood that users would post prosocial lies on Facebook.