CHAPTER 10
SOCIAL INFORMATION PROCESSING THEORY
Outline
I. Introduction.
A. Rapid changes in communication technology over the past several decades have
frustrated communication scholars seeking to understand what all of this means for
interpersonal relationships.
B. Walther initially developed SIP to understand how online communication shapes the
II. Online versus face-to-face: A sip instead of a gulp.
A. Walther labeled his theory social information processing (SIP) because he believes
relationships grow only to the extent that parties first gain information about each
other and use that information to form impressions.
B. It’s a chain of events that occurs regardless of the medium we’re using to
communicate: we get information, we form an impression, and then the relationship
grows.
C. SIP focuses on the how the first link of the chain looks a bit different when
communicating online.
H. Two features of online communication provide a rationale for SIP theory.
2. Extended time: Though the exchange of social information is slower online
versus face-to-face, over time the relationships formed are not weaker or
more fragile.
III. Verbal cues of affinity replace nonverbal cues.
B. Nonverbal cues become less powerful when they don’t conflict with the verbal
message or when we’re conveying facts.
C. Walter claims we can replace nonverbal cues with verbal messages that convey the
same meaning.
IV. Experimental support for a counter-intuitive idea
A. Walther isn’t content to rely on anecdotes for support of his theory.
B. Walther and his colleagues ran studies to test how online communicators pursue
their social goals and if affinity can be expressed through a digital medium.
1. In their study, the participants discussed a moral dilemma with a stranger
via either online or face-to-face. The stranger was in actuality a research
2. The method of communication made no difference in the emotional tone
perceived by the participants.
4. In face-to-face interactions, participants relied on facial expression, eye
contact, tone of voice, body position, and other nonverbal cues to
communicate affiliation.
C. Compared to visually-oriented channels, building warmth over texting might take
longer.
V. Extended time: The crucial variable in online communication.
A. According to Walther, online communicators need a lot of time to build close
connections.
B. Rather than drinking a glass by taking big gulps, smaller sips will take more time.
C. Over an extended period, the issue is not the amount of social information that can
be conveyed online; rather, it’s the rate at which that information mounts up.
F. Anticipated future interaction and chronemic cues may also contribute to intimacy
on the Internet.
1. People will trade more relational messages if they think they may meet
2. Walther believes that chronemic cues, or nonverbal indicators of how
people perceive, use, or respond to issues of time, are never filtered out
completely when communicating online.
VI. Hyperpersonal perspective: Closer online than in person.
A. Walther uses the term hyperpersonal to label online relationships that are more
intimate than if partners were physically together.
B. He classifies four types of media effects that occur precisely because
communicators aren’t face–to-face and have limited nonverbal cues.
1. Sender: Selective self-presentation
a. Through selective self-presentation, people who meet online have an
2. Receiver: Overattribution of similarity
a. Attribution is a perceptual process where we observe people’s actions
3. Channel: Communicating on your own time
a. Many forms of online communication are asynchronous channels of
4. Feedback: Self-fulfilling prophecy
a. A self-fulfilling prophecy is the tendency for a person’s expectation of
others to evoke a response from them that confirms what was
anticipated.
b. Self-fulfilling prophecy is triggered when the hyperpositive image is
intentionally or inadvertently fed back to the other person.
c. Beyond online dating, Walther suggests hyperpersonal
VII. The warranting value of information: What to trust?
A. Hyperpersonal effects aren’t likely to occur when people don’t trust each other.
B. Walther and his colleagues have examined how people evaluate the credibility of
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illuminating someone’s offline characteristics,” examined what information is
believed when posted online.
E. Information is believed if it has warranting value. Does their online profile match
their offline characteristics?
1. Like email messages, whose content is under the sole control of the sender,
2. Since the profile owner can’t as easily manipulate what’s posted by friends,
we’re more likely to accept such high warrant information as true.
F. Walther’s experiments confirm that people trust high warrant information.
VIII. Critique: A good objective theory in need of update.
A. Because technology changes so rapidly, it’s difficult to craft and defend enduring
theories of online communication.
D. In contrast, the qualitative research of Sherry Turkle, Professor of the Social Studies
of Science and Technology at MIT, suggests that the connectivity provided by mobile
phones has unanticipated consequences that Walther hasn’t addressed in the two
decades since he crafted his theory.
E. She’s convinced this continuous distraction [by mobile technology] deflects us from
that which makes us truly human—conversation, intimacy, and empathy.
1. Turkle claims that for those brought up with Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat,
2. In their increasing flight from conversation, people who log on to social
3. Turkle believes the ability to feel what others feel is developed through face-
to-face conversations, not through social media.
Key Names and Terms
Joe Walther
Communication professor at University of California at Santa Barbara, who argues that
given the opportunity for sufficient exchange of social messages and subsequent
Impression formation
The composite mental image one person forms of another; often associated with
affinity.
Cues filtered out
Interpretation of CMC that regards the lack of nonverbal cues as a fatal flaw for using
the medium for relationship development.
Flaming
Hostile online language that creates a toxic climate for relationship development and
growth.
Chronemics
The study of people’s systemic handling of time in their interaction with others.
Hyperpersonal perspective
The claim that online relationships are often more intimate than those developed when
partners are physically together.
Selective self-presentation
Attribution
A perceptual process whereby we observe what people do and then try to figure out
what they’re really like.
Asynchronous channel
A nonsimultaneous medium of communication that each individual can use when he or
she desires.
Self-fulfilling prophecy
Principal Changes
The material in this chapter has been heavily reorganized for clarity and precision.
Throughout the chapter, the term “CMC” [computer mediated communication] has been
replaced by “online” for clearer presentation to students and in keeping with the less-frequent
use of this term in contemporary scholarly research. In addition, a new critique section
introduces the scholarship of Sherry Turkle, who has challenged the assumption that online
communication is beneficial for relationships.
Kick-off Questions & Interaction Starters
• Are online or computer-based relationships “real relationships”? Why or why not—what
makes something “real”?
• Are online dating services the personal ads of the 21st century?
• Is this theory outdated (already) since most online communications are multimedia
(involving words and photos) in the era of mobility and social media?
Suggestions for Discussion
Using deductive logic to explain SIP to cynics
If you have followed the chapters in sequence, this may be the first theory with which
students openly disagree. That has certainly been my experience. They may be confused by
some of the earlier chapters but they aren’t vocal about dismissing the claims those theories
present. But SIP is different. Some students are reluctant to accept even the premises of SIP.
For these students, relationships must be fostered and maintained in-person; anything less is
an inferior form of relating. Rather than butt heads for the duration of our discussion, I try to
the deficient elements, then aren’t the two forms comparable? Often, students point to the
authenticity of face-to–face communication (“it’s more ‘real’) but this position has its own flaws.
Ask students how much image management they do in-person including how you dress,
attention to bodily cues, and other ways of feigning interest in another person. In other words,
perhaps both online and in-person communication are exercises in image management and
neither is wholly without some elements of insincerity. A second claim students often make is
Now, assuming you’ve successfully gotten students to understand that the channel
deficits (specifically the lack of nonverbal cues and the additional time needed) can be
addressed, you can move to the next step: what about the added features of online
communicating? In other words, you have addressed what is lacking, but perhaps there are
things gained by relating online. Given that you’ve made the channels relatively comparable,
when the gains are added on top of that, a necessary conclusion (and one argued by the
hyperpersonal perspective) is that online may (in some cases) not only equal but exceed face-
to-face relating.
theory. But not liking it and not seeing the validity of its conclusion are not the same. I will
make every effort to help them see the theorist’s position, even if they don’t agree with it.
Only a theory of “new media” relationships?
When it first appeared, SIP was an exciting new approach to the “new media,” a way of
accounting for online communication, particularly as it stacks up against face–to-face
encounters. But, as mentioned in the chatper, could the central ideas developed in this theory
apply just as well to old-fashioned letters, even those sent through the U.S. Postal Service? Is
this simply a theory of single-modal, written communication? In past generations, people did
become engaged to people they’d never met through written correspondence. Their
relationship developed gradually, letter by letter, until they were sufficiently attached to one
Failing to speak: On the hesitation of students to defend SIP
It’s likely that some students in your class have developed an online relationship, either
via e-mail, chat rooms, Facebook, Snapchat or as part of a virtual community. As such, they
are likely to warmly embrace SIP’s perspective about online relationship development and be
vocal advocates that relationship development is not only possible but probable. From my
experience, however, these students are sometimes rather sheepish about their experiences
and will be hesitant to go up against vocal opposition. Their reluctance to be an advocate has
The virtual girlfriend
Your students may be familiar with Asia’s “Virtual girlfriend.” After joining (and paying a
subscription fee), a “girlfriend” appears as an animated message on the subscriber’s mobile
phone video screen. Disclosure comes at a price—literally, as the anime only responds when
she has been bought flowers or gifts by paying more money. The “relationship” develops as
money is exchanged for more information about one’s “girlfriend,” sweet talk, and introduction
to her “friends.” You might want to engage students in a comparison of the differences
“girlfriend” and her subsequent death, the sports website Deadspin revealed that the girlfriend
never existed. You might discuss with your students how someone could be so completely
fooled as to believe a person existed. How could Te’o read so much into the mediated
messages he received such that he fooled himself and everyone else that she was real? To
what extent does Walther’s theory, in its enthusiasm for online communication, reckon with
the possibility that the same characteristics that foster hyperpersonal communication might
also facilitate outright deception?
Distance education
Even if you teach in a traditional, four-walled classroom, you might want to discuss on-
line education and developing relationships with professors and other students when the only
contact you have is through e-mails, message boards, and chat rooms. Does that environment
help or hinder the learning process? A host of communication scholars, led by the work of
James McCroskey, suggests that nonverbal immediacy is a critical component of teaching
effectiveness. How might effectiveness be moderated by a mediated relationship? If your
students have participated in on-line only or technology assisted classes, how have the various
Asking the motivating question
Walther’s theory hasn’t addressed a fundamental question: why do people choose to
develop on-line relationships? Encourage students to probe some possible motivations. How
might these varied motivations affect the quality and quantity of one’s relationships, both
online and off? If your campus is primarily residential (as mine is), your students may have a
harder time connecting with this theory. In that type of setting, high value is placed on
Sample Application Log
Laine
I’ve definitely seen Walther’s hyperpersonal “selective self-presentation” at work in my
relationship with my boyfriend. In the beginning stages of our relationship, our self-disclosure
was most often via instant messaging for the very reason that Walther claimed—“people who
meet online have an opportunity to make and sustain an overwhelmingly positive impression.”
IM allowed us to carefully process and edit what we were going to say before we committed to
saying it by pushing “send.” I would often type on the instant message screen, read it through,
delete it and start over if there was something that I said in a way that might leak information
that I wasn’t yet ready to disclose.
Exercises and Activities
Comparing online and face-to-face relationships
Ask your students to compare a relationship that they have developed online (or
maintained if they don’t have any exclusively on-line relationships) to a face-to-face
relationship. How would they characterize the relationship, their impression of the other
person, and what they believe they have portrayed about themselves? Walther suggests that a
Feature film illustrations
Earlier versions of this chapter used the classic 1998 romantic comedy You’ve Got
Mail, starring Megan Ryan and Tom Hanks, as an extended example. In the movie, Ryan and
Hanks’ characters slowly fall in love over the course of anonymous e-mail exchanges. Although
the online communication is dated by today’s standards, the movie provides a glimpse at
online communication as it was occurring when Walther initially developed SIP. This may help
students appreciate the theory within its historical context while providing opportunities to
contrast with the technology available today.
Another film that may connect with students is Napoleon Dynamite. Kip’s relationship
with La Fawnduh is an illustration of SIP as he describes their relationship: “Things are getting
pretty serious. We chat online pretty much 2 hours every day, so you could say things are
getting pretty serious.” When Kip eventually does meet La Fawnduh, they do have a very
strong relationship, leading to marriage.
to the Na‘vi humanoids; he alters himself in both appearance and in attitudes in order to be
more likable. Is this very different from mediated identity online that Walther’s theory
Further Resources
Classic books on communication and technology
For discussion of information technology and the computer’s effect on communication, see
these classic pieces:
Relationship development
Kevin B. Wright, “On-line Relational Maintenance Strategies and Perceptions of Partners
Within Exclusively Internet-Based and Primarily Internet-Based Relationships,”
Communication Studies, Vol. 55, 2004, pp. 239- 254.
Jeffrey S. McQuillen, “The Influence of Technology on the Initiation of Interpersonal
Emotions online
Daejoong Kim, Mark G. Frank, and Sung Tae Kim, “Emotional Display Behavior in Different
Forms of Computer Mediated Communication,” Computers in Human Behavior, Vol. 30,
2014, pp. 222-229.
Carmina Rodríguez-Hidalgo, Ed S. H. Tan, and Peeter W. J. Verlegh, “Expressing Emotions in
Blogs: The Role of Textual Paralinguistic Cues in Online Venting and Social Sharing
Other teaching aids for SIP
Daria S. Heinemann, “Using You’ve Got Mail to Teach Social Information Processing Theory and
Hyperpersonal Perspective in Online Interactions,” Communication Teacher, Vol. 25,
2011, pp. 183-188.
Applied uses of SIP
David C. DeAndrea, Stephanie Tom Tong, Yuhua Jake Liang, Timothy R. Levine, and Joseph B.
Walther, “When Do People Misrepresent Themselves to Others? The Effects of Social
Desirability, Ground Truth, and Accountability on Deceptive Self-Presentations,” Journal
of Communication, Vol. 62, 2012, pp. 400–417.
Nonverbal cues online
Joseph B. Walther, Tracy Loh, and Laura Granka, “Let Me Count the Ways: The Interchange of
Verbal and Nonverbal Cues in Computer-Mediated and Face-to–Face Affinity,” Journal of
Language & Social Psychology, Vol. 24, 2005, pp. 36–66.
Classroom uses and distance education
J. B. Arbaugh, “How Instructor Immediacy Behaviors Affect Student Satisfaction and Learning
in Web-based Courses,” Business Communication Quarterly, Vol. 64, 2001, pp. 42-54.