1

Social Information Processing

Theory (CMC)
Joseph B. Walther
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

Social information processing (SIP) theory (Walther, 1992) explains the development
of interpersonal impressions and relational communication via computer‐mediated
communication (CMC). The theory initially emerged in the early 1990s, when online
communication interfaces featured only textual messages (in contrast to many more
multimodal platforms such as videoconferencing and social network sites on which
photographs accompany verbal messages). Consequently, one of the theory’s primary
foci has to do with the effects of a relative paucity of nonverbal cues in text‐based
CMC, compared to face‐to‐face communication. SIP theory broke ranks with pre-
vailing models of that time. The majority of these models proposed that the lack of
nonverbal cues in CMC dampened interpersonal impressions and affect. SIP theory,
in contrast, suggested that communicators adapt to the channel capacity of commu-
nication media. From this perspective, SIP postulated that when people are ­motivated
to engage in social relationships, they can do so using CMC as effectively as they
can in face‐to‐face settings, but that ample time (in terms of message exchanges) is
required to do so.
The theory has been tested empirically both at the macro‐ and microlevel, and,
despite some inconsistencies, has achieved a good deal of support. The application of
SIP theory to more contemporary multimodal interpersonal relationships, in which
people do not communicate exclusively online or offline, and the contexts in which
CMC is used, present challenges for the future of the theory.

Background

The emergence of CMC in businesses, government, and proprietary networks gave rise
to several theories and a host of empirical studies assessing the differences between
online communication and traditional face‐to‐face interaction. These approaches
focused primarily on the written nature of CMC messages, and, to a lesser extent, on its
temporal qualities (i.e., in asynchronous CMC, messages may be created and received
at considerably different times). Messages sent via CMC appeared only as text. Face‐to‐
face communication, in contrast, can convey verbal messages as well, accompanied by

The International Encyclopedia of Interpersonal Communication, First Edition.

Edited by Charles R. Berger and Michael E. Roloff.
© 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2016 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
DOI:10.1002/9781118540190.wbeic0192
2

messages signaled by a variety of nonverbal cue systems (including vocalics, kinesics,

proxemics, haptics, and physical appearance, as well as the subcodes within each of
these categories). Prevailing arguments in the field of nonverbal communication
held that certain social messages and processes require nonverbal cues or a variety of
codes for their effective communication, including self-presentation and impression
management, signaling interpersonal regard, expressing emotion and status, and
­adding meaning to verbal utterances (Burgoon et al., 2002). Researchers adopted these
positions in their predictions about the effects of communicating by text alone, in
CMC, compared to face‐to‐face interaction.
Various theoretical positions characterized collectively as taking a cues‐filtered‐out
approach to telecommunication systems and CMC (Culnan & Markus, 1987) explained
how the absence of nonverbal cues in CMC causes a deficit in the conveyance of
­important and consequential social information. For instance, social presence theory
(Short, Williams, & Christie, 1976) argued that reductions in the cue systems that a
medium conveys correspondingly reduce socioemotional warmth and the salience of
conversational partners to individual interactants. Other theories suggest that the
absence of nonverbal cues deindividuate communicators, at the same time arguing that
they became self‐focused rather than other‐focused, when communicating online.
These approaches, as a group, predicted that CMC would foster relatively anonymous
interaction, with less positive interpersonal affect and lower coordination than face‐to‐
face communication should do.
A number of empirical studies supported these positions in the 1980s and 1990s,
predominantly through experiments. Typically, strangers interacted by CMC or face‐
to‐face interaction for relatively brief periods. In many cases some content analysis of
the verbal conversations revealed fewer messages overall in CMC than face‐to‐face
­settings, and, among the messages that were generated, patterns consistent with the
pre‐SIP predictions frequently emerged.

A functional orientation to communication

SIP theory rejects a tacit assumption of the predominant CMC theories and a number
of positions in nonverbal communication research as well. It recognizes that nonverbal
messages may play a great role in the communication of social information in face‐to‐
face settings. It differs, however, in that it does not hold that nonverbal messages have
exclusive province over the communication of social information. The background to
this different perspective lies in what has been called a functional approach to non-
verbal communication.
The functional approach to nonverbal communication (Burgoon, Buller, & Woodall,
1989) rejects notions of “body language” and other frameworks suggesting that certain
nonverbal behaviors have a one‐to‐one correspondence with particular social mean-
ings. Rather, it assumes that the communication of a given message may be transacted
through a variety of different combinations of nonverbal cues, and that most messages
are transacted through the combination of nonverbal and verbal cues operating in
concert. The main argument is that there is some substitutability among cues such that
 3

effects can be communicated using some cues at the neglect of others. That is, a specific
function of communication is not inextricably tied to a particular structure of
­communication. A few studies have indicated empirically that, when constrained from
adjusting one’s distance or eye gaze, individuals exhibit predictable changes in the
linguistic forms and content they present in response to a conversational partner’s
changes in interpersonal distance; or interactants adopt different levels of language
immediacy as a simple result of using different telecommunication media. These early
studies suggested that language and nonverbal cues via different media may be
functionally interchangeable.

Interchangeability of cues

Social information theory extends the functional approach of communication into

electronic media. It states as a basic assumption that individuals use whatever cue
­systems they have at their disposal in order to foster and detect impressions, and to
manage levels of relational definition and development. In that respect, it rejects the
positions held in prior theories suggesting that the absence of nonverbal cues in CMC
is a deficit in expressive capability leading inevitably to a comparative reduction in the
quality of social interaction.
Research by Walther, Loh, and Granka (2002) demonstrated this position most
explicitly. A series of dyads conversed either face‐to‐face or in different rooms using
a CMC chat program. Researchers asked one partner, a confederate, to feign liking or
disliking after a minute of interaction. Confederates were free to use any behavior
they chose in order to convey these alternative affects. After the conversations, the
dyads were separated, and the naive partners rated the ad hoc confederates on their
immediacy and affection. No difference between CMC and face‐to‐face communica-
tion emerged on the degree of affection that naive partners expressed. Analyses of
face‐to‐face recordings revealed a number of vocalic and kinesic cues that had strong
associations with raters’ liking toward the confederate. Although a few verbal cues
showed simple correlations with perceived liking, multiple regression analysis
revealed that the contribution of verbal cues to the perception of liking in face‐to‐
face interaction was nil when compared to the overwhelming influence of vocalic
cues and kinesic cues. Transcripts of the CMC ­conversations, in which there had
been no opportunity to express liking nonverbally, revealed a greater number of
verbal behaviors that corresponded with liking. These included overt statements of
affection (e.g., “I like you”) as well as specific constructions describing the ways that
people expressed disagreement with one another. None of the verbal behaviors associated
with liking in CMC appeared in the analysis of face‐to‐face liking. The contribution
of verbal cues to the overall assessment of liking in CMC (i.e., the amount of variance
they accounted for) was as great as the contribution of vocalic and kinesic cues was
in face‐to‐face conversations. These results demonstrated that when individuals use
CMC, they are readily able to communicate affective messages through language that
they normally do through nonverbal behaviors when they are offline and interacting
face‐to‐face.
4

Aggregation of information over time

The second major assumption of SIP theory is that the rate of social information
exchange in CMC differs from face‐to‐face communication. This assumption helps to
explain and predict one of the major observable differences between CMC and face‐to‐
face communication: The development of impressions and modification of relation-
ships is expected to take longer in CMC than face‐to‐face interaction.
The basis for the different rate of information exchange in CMC compared to face‐
to‐face interaction is another extension of the prior notion about the restricted range of
communication symbols that are used in CMC than in face‐to‐face communication.
Although the SIP theory argues that individuals translate the expression of social
information from multimodal nonverbal and verbal messages into the more restricted
codes of language alone, it also recognizes that the translation reduces the amount of
information that can be exchanged between communicators in a single utterance. ­Face‐
to‐face communication not only features numerous nonverbal behaviors reflecting a
variety of message codes, it displays and conveys messages among these multiple‐cue
systems simultaneously. On the other hand, CMC features only one primary code
system—language—which the theory posits to do the work of the entire range of cue
­systems that occur simultaneously in face‐to‐face interaction. Therefore, even in
so‐called “real time” CMC (i.e., near simultaneous exchange of written messages), the
restriction of expressive systems to a single code system (or what is often called a nar-
rower bandwidth for expression) suggests that less social information is traversing
­between communicators per unit of time. If the opportunity to exchange messages is
limited, too, then we should not expect much social information to be exchanged
altogether.
A proposition of the theory suggests that relatively greater time is required for infor-
mationally restricted CMC exchanges between communicators to reach levels of
impressions that are common in face‐to‐face communication. Because less information
traverses communicators per unit of time, CMC requires more time in order for indi-
viduals to accrue sufficient information with which to make interpersonal ­inferences.
In this case, time is not defined chronometrically, but, rather, time is a function of the
number of message exchanges. More exchanges are required over time in order to accu-
mulate information about an online partner, since each exchange bears relatively less
information than do offline exchanges. Therefore, in order for c­ommunicators to
achieve a comparatively normal level of interpersonal impressions and affect their rela-
tionship in a desired way, numerous messages must be exchanged, which generally
requires more time. The amount of time may be even greater when using asynchronous
messaging systems, with which there may be lags between messaging during which no
social information traverses between communicators at all.
It is not known what specific amount of time or what number of message exchanges
is required in CMC compared to face‐to‐face communication in order for these social
information processing outcomes to accrue. Interpersonal impressions, albeit often
stereotyped ones, accumulate extremely rapidly in face‐to‐face encounters, within
­seconds or minutes. The first empirical study of SIP found that a period of almost six
weeks’ asynchronous group interaction online led to a similar number of verbal
 5

­ essages and equivalent levels of impression development as occurred in face‐to‐face

m
groups. Other studies which made direct comparisons between synchronous (real‐
time) CMC and face‐to‐face or phone conversations in terms of the time required to
accrue a similar number of verbal messages reflect ratios of at least four minutes of
CMC to every one minute of offline communication.
The temporal effect specified by the theory has been demonstrated using several
­different time scales and types of CMC. Some studies have demonstrated development
in impressions and/or relational outcomes in CMC using asynchronous communica-
tion over a period of weeks compare to a series of face‐to‐face meetings (e.g., Walther
& Burgoon, 1992). Other studies have employed synchronous CMC sessions repeated
over several consecutive days, compared to a single face‐to‐face meeting, with similar
results (e.g., Wilson, Straus, & McEvily, 2006). Meta‐analytic results also show that
CMC users achieve greater socioemotional tone in studies in which time was
­unrestricted compared to studies in which time limits were imposed on interaction
(see for review Walther, Van Der Heide, Ramirez, Burgoon, & Pena, 2015).

Formalization

SIP theory was introduced as a formal theory of communication. That is, it specified
assumptions, and derived propositions to frame its explanations and predictions.
These elements include the following (Walther, 1992, p. 69):

Assumptions:

1. Humans affiliate. They use communication to affect the ways they affiliate, and
these messages constitute relational communication.
2. The development of an interpersonal impression of another person is based on
the information one obtains via nonverbal and/or verbal‐textual channels over
the course of several interactions.
3. Developmental change in relational communication will depend on forming
an interpersonal impression of another interactant.
4. Relational messages are transmitted (i.e. encoded and decoded) by nonverbal
and/or verbal, linguistic, and textual manipulations.
5. In CMC, messages take longer to process than do those sent face‐to‐face.

Propositions:

1. Based on assumptions 2 and 5, the development of interpersonal impressions

among previously unacquainted interactants requires more time in CMC than
in face‐to‐face interactions, since CMC takes longer to exchange relevant
information.
2. Based on assumptions 2 and 5, personalized communication (based on
­interpersonal knowledge of others) takes longer to emerge in CMC than in
face‐to‐face interactions.
6

3. Based on assumptions 3 and 4, relational communication changes as the

number of exchanges increases.
4. Based on assumptions 3 and 5 and proposition 1, relational communication in
initial interactions is different than that in later interactions.
5. Changes in relational communication will take longer to accrue in CMC than
in face‐to‐face interactions.
6. Based on assumptions 1 through 5, given sufficient time and message exchanges
for interpersonal impression formation and relational development to accrue,
and all other things being equal, relational valences in later periods of CMC
and face‐to‐face c­ommunication will be the same.

Although this formalism does not lend itself to an obvious match to a specific CMC
setting, context, or application, the structure of the theory provides an abstract frame-
work that allows it to be applied to a wide variety of CMC phenomena. For that reason,
SIP has been applied to numerous contexts including virtual groups, the development
of friendships online, online date‐finding sites, processes in distance and online
e­ducation, and the development of trust in organizations, as well as newer platforms
such as online games and social network sites.

Affiliation and anticipated future interaction

One of the first challenges to the theory that arose in empirical research was interpreted
as a problem with the first assumption of the theory, the simple assumption that
humans affiliate. The issue arose because the first empirical SIP test of relational com-
munication in CMC over time revealed more positive initial levels of relational com-
munication than had been expected. Hypotheses had predicted that terminal levels of
relational communication would be elevated, yet the measures of relational communi-
cation after the first of three episodes were not as low, relative to face‐to‐face control
groups, as they had been predicted to be.
Researchers recognized that one difference between longitudinal studies and the
one‐shot studies that typified the cues‐filtered‐out tradition, in addition to the obvious
difference in interaction opportunities, was that individuals would generally know
whether they were going to communicate with one another extensively, over time, or
only once. Prior research about the anticipation of future interaction suggested that
when people think they are going to interact with a specific person multiple instances
over time, they are more inquisitive to the person, act friendlier, and perceive that the
person is more similar to themselves, than is the case when individuals do not antici-
pate subsequent encounters. In other words, having anticipated future interaction or
not can affect the desire for affiliation.
If the desire for affiliation is, itself, affected by other factors, then the first ­assumption
of the theory that people affiliate must be treated as a variable rather than a constant.
If  it varies, and the remainder of the theory is true, then the events that follow this
­construct in the theory’s specified chain of events depend on whether an affiliation
motive is active or not.
 7

The first empirical test of this modification to the theory specifically examined
the impact of variations in anticipated future interaction on relational commu­
nication in CMC and face‐to‐face interaction (Walther, 1994). Research partici-
pants were r­ andomly assigned to CMC or face‐to‐face groups. Within each of these
medium ­conditions, researchers attempted to instill a lower anticipation of future
interaction among half the groups by informing those groups’ members that they
would interact with their partners for one task, and then work with other partners
on each of two subsequent tasks. In order to instill greater anticipation of future
interaction within the other half of the groups, researchers informed them that
they would interact with the same group partners successively and repeatedly over
the course of three tasks. All groups completed one task working together, online
or face‐to‐face, whereupon researchers administered measures of anticipated
future interaction and relational communication. The results demonstrated that
the instructions about continuing with the same people or changing partners made
a larger difference among CMC ­ participants than it did among face‐to‐face
­partners. The anticipation of future interaction had a significant positive effect on
various dimensions of relational communication. Moreover, the participants’
expectation of anticipated future interaction affected relational communication so
strongly, there was no significant effect remaining that was attributable to whether
participants had communicated face‐to‐face or via CMC.
Research has also identified other factors that affect affiliation motives in CMC,
which appear to have an impact on the accrual of other SIP‐related events. For ­instance,
when CMC users enter a chat space the ostensible purpose of which is to engage in
social banter and make friends, their affiliation motives are probably quite elevated,
and their impression development and relational development via CMC is accelerated.
One study also found that when CMC users are skeptical about whether CMC can
foster relationships (rather than merely support autonomous online game‐playing, for
instance), they are uninterested in developing social relationships online, and SIP
processes adhere less than they might in a face‐to‐face conversation (Utz, 2000). In
other research, online game players have been shown to exchange social banter and
develop greater socioemotional communication over time, consistent with SIP (Peña &
Hancock, 2006).

Language and emoticons

Emoticons refer to the use of typographic symbols to depict facial expressions (turned
sideways) in CMC, such as :) or :( or other combinations. SIP theory is often i­ nterpreted
to suggest that CMC users rely on emoticons to replace social information that is absent
from CMC due to CMC’s lack of nonverbal cues. Some researchers actually refer to
emoticons as a form of nonverbal cues in CMC. Similar to emoticons, other typographic
cues that have become conventions in CMC include the use of ellipses, repetitious
punctuation marks, and capitalization of letters. These symbols may provide
­paralinguistic information about the emotion of the message sender. Much research
suggests that emoticons and similar cues in CMC convey emotions and emphasis,
8

although very little empirical evidence supports these assertions. Studies have, for the
most part, documented the widespread use of these symbol systems, and differences in
their usage due to factors such as gender, geographical region, and other individual
differences.
Despite the prevalence of emoticons and their familiarity to CMC users, SIP
theory recognizes but does not focus strongly on emoticons. The theory recog-
nizes that CMC users avail themselves of any cue system available to them in order
to express and decode social information, and in that respect, emoticons are
within the parameters of the theory. However, the theory has focused primarily on
the use of language to express social meanings. The capacity for humans to use
language to express emotions and interpersonal regard predates the development
of stylistic conventions such as ­emoticons, and may be more natural to produce as
well as to interpret than these s­ tylistic shortcuts provide. Although it is true that
language is not universal and that different language groups may not recognize the
emotional and attitudinal expressions of people using a different tongue, it is also
the case that emoticons vary between ­c ultures in terms of their typography and
their interpretations.
One study examined the relative contributions of emoticons and language to the
detection of attitudes and emotions in CMC (Walther & D’Addario, 2001). Hypotheses
were derived from various positions in nonverbal communication research. One set of
hypotheses reflected visual primacy, which favors the ­emoticon as over‐riding verbal
statements on the interpretation of messages. In  addition, the additivity hypothesis
was evaluated. This hypothesis predicted that (a) a positive message element and a
negative element would balance each other out in terms of emotional interpretation,
and (b) that two similar elements (e.g., a positive verbal statement plus a happy emo-
ticon) should be more emotionally potent than a single, positive verbal message
appearing with no emoticon. In a between‐subjects study, experimentally contrived
e-mail m ­ essages reflected one communicator’s statements about a course he had
taken. The statements were valenced positively or negatively with regard to the course.
Each statement was experimentally crossed with one of four emoticon conditions: a
happy “smiley” :) or a sad :( or a winking ;‐) or no emoticon at all. Respondents com-
pleted measures reflecting their impression of the message sender’s emotion. None of
the hypotheses were clearly supported. Questionnaire results revealed that positive,
smiley face emoticons had no effect at all on message interpretation. In contrast, a sad
­emoticon did change interpretation of the verbal statement to be negative, if the verbal
statement was positive. If the verbal statement was already negative, h ­ owever, the
addition of the sad emoticon had no additional impact on message interpretation.
Likewise, verbal message content had a similar effect: A negative verbal statement
­rendered ­interpretation of the statement negative, no matter what emoticon appeared
with it. Nor was it the case that additivity occurred in the case of a positive statement
and a positive emoticon.
All in all, the results suggested a negativity effect. That is, a negative message
element, whether it is a verbal statement or a sad emoticon, renders message inter-
pretation ­negative no matter what other symbols appear with it. Overall, more vari-
ance was accounted for by verbal statements than by emoticons. Limitations to this
 9

research included the fact that emoticons were never tested in the absence of any
verbal ­statement, nor were emoticons accompanied by neutrally valenced verbal
statements.

Self‐disclosure

Another important process related to SIP is self‐disclosure. Self‐disclosure has a

long theoretical and empirical history in interpersonal communication as a verbal
­mechanism by which people come to know one another and develop relationships,
and as a verbal process self‐disclosure should fit neatly into the parameters that SIP
theory delineates with regard to online impression formation and relational
development. Research has argued that face‐to‐face communicators have numerous
physical appearance cues and vocal characteristics on which to base impressions
and infer their ­partners’ attitudes, which are unavailable in CMC. Therefore, CMC
users cannot rely on these so‐called “passive” strategies with which to gather
information about one’s partner; they must, instead, employ “interactive” strat-
egies. Interactive strategies include asking personal questions in order to prompt a
partner’s self‐disclosure, and disclosing one’s self in order to trigger reciprocal
self‐disclosure from one’s partner. It stands to reason if these strategies are a­vailable
in CMC, and passive strategies are not, these interactive strategies will be deployed
when communicators are motivated to learn about one another in a CMC
context. This should result in more self‐disclosure in CMC than in face‐to‐face
communication.
Several studies have examined the prevalence and impact of self‐disclosure on
impression formation and liking in CMC. Research has established that self‐disclosure
is more prevalent in CMC than in comparative face‐to‐face settings. Similarly, Tidwell
and Walther (2002) found that self‐disclosures were not only proportionately more
­frequent in CMC than in face‐to‐face dyads, but that the level of depth of disclosures,
and of personal questions leading to disclosures, were proportionately more intimate in
CMC than in face‐to‐face dyads. Tidwell and Walther also found that, although people
reduced uncertainty more quickly in face‐to‐face communication than in CMC
conversations, the use of questions and disclosures in CMC allowed partners
­
­communicating online to catch up to the level of uncertainty reduction that had been
achieved by face‐to‐face partners more quickly.

Social identification as a challenge to SIP

One of the strongest challenges that has faced SIP theory has been the suggestion of
an alternative theoretical process that also predicts the development of liking in
CMC, but for altogether different theoretical reasons. The social identification/de‐
individuation (SIDE) model of CMC (Reicher, Spears, & Postmes, 1995) departs
from the SIP model in terms of its basic assumptions about how people relate to
each other online.
10

The SIDE theory is derived from social identification and self‐categorization

models. This tradition assumes that people may sometimes not relate to each other
as i­ ndividuals but rather as members of one’s in-group, i.e., on the basis of a common
social identity. When social identification occurs, people do not get to know
one another as individuals per se, but rather, they experience one another on a de‐
individuated and depersonalized basis. De‐individuation refers to the suspension of
a sense of self, and depersonalization refers to the inability to detect interindividual
differences among one’s communication partners. The SIDE theory has argued that
CMC communication involves visual ­anonymity, that is, people typically do not see
one another when they are communicating online. When people do not see their
partners, they are less likely to notice interindividual differences, or to be cognizant
that their communication partners are even superficially different from themselves.
This suspension of interindividual sensitivity makes online communicators prone to
social identification.
The SIDE theory argues that if a social identity is salient to online communica-
tors—that is, there is some superordinate identity that is apparent as part of
the online communication context—then communicators are apt to categorize them-
selves in terms of that salient social identity and to relate to other communicators on
the basis of their common, in‐group membership. When social identification is
activated, people are attracted to the in‐group and, thereby, to its members in a rather
undifferentiated and collective way. They are relatively more prone to social influence
by the other group members as well. These processes relate to tenets of social
identification theory which proposes that individuals enhance their esteem by
reflecting the norms of their group, and that they value others who also reflect the
group’s norms.
The reason that this theory presents a challenge to SIP is that it asserts that the basis
of relationships in online communication is not interpersonal in nature, whereas SIP
assumes that CMC users develop idiosyncratic relationships online. That is, whereas
SIP theory argues that individuals use online cues to form interpersonal impressions of
their online partners, the SIDE theory rejects the interpersonal basis of that a­ ssumption.
It argues instead that people do not attune themselves to one another as individuals but
rather relate to others on the basis of membership in a collective. It is on this social and
collective basis that people develop affinity for others, rather than, as SIP theory
­suggests, because they have gotten to know each other and like each other personally.
These two positions do not simply exist as theoretical alternatives. The difficulty arises
in that either theory can be invoked in order to account for the empirical results of
studies conducted under the aegis of either of the two approaches, muddying the waters
with regard to which of the two mutually exclusive theoretical process actually occurred
in a given set of events. In other words, when SIP research shows that people in an
online group get to like each other more over time, SIDE theory can also be invoked as
an explanation for these observed patterns.
After the recognition of this theoretical problem surfaced, a number of studies
endeavored to clarify whether each theory could be used to account for online
processes in unique and mutually exclusive ways. Researchers scrutinized the mea-
sures they had used in SIP and SIDE research, and discovered that they did, indeed,
 11

measure different forms of liking: one that was interpersonally based and the other
that was based in social identification. Research also endeavored to provide experiments
that could allow the two theoretical processes to compete for empirical support in a
single experimental online setting. The work of Wang, Walther, and Hancock (2009)
is exemplary in this regard. This experiment tested SIDE and SIP dynamics simulta-
neously. It arranged groups of four members with two subgroups within each group
of four, and successfully instilled a common identity within each of these subgroups
(based on obscure, exotic astrological signs). Within each group of four, one
individual was prompted by the researchers to display very friendly or very
unfriendly behavior to the other three participants. In this way the experiment was
able to assess whether patterns of liking or disliking followed the interpersonal
behavior or if they were biased by the in‐group or out‐group membership of the
individual with respect to each other member. Social identification hypotheses pre-
dicted that an affiliative in‐group member would be e­ specially attractive, whereas a
disaffiliative in‐group member might be disliked less than a disagreeable out‐group
member would (unless a “black sheep effect” arose, in which a traitorous in‐group
member would be significantly less liked than a disaffiliative out‐group member).
Other hypotheses reflected issues of protoypicality and liking that followed social
identification theory.
Generally speaking, the SIDE‐based hypotheses were not supported. Participants’
attraction to the affiliative or disaffiliative individual generally followed that person’s
positive or negative interpersonal behavior and was not filtered on the basis of the
­individual’s subgroup membership, either by the other in‐group member or by the two
out‐group members. Although real‐world social identification processes are based on
categories of group membership far less arbitrary than obscure horoscope signs, the
study offers a fair replication of SIDE studies’ use of the minimal group paradigm (that
is, ad hoc and simple assignments into fairly arbitrary in‐groups and out‐groups) and
finds that these heuristics appear to pale in comparison to the effects of simple, SIP‐like
expressions of interpersonal regard in CMC.

Contemporary media and current status

The advent of contemporary multimodal CMC platforms has raised questions

about the utility of SIP theory. Some newer CMC interfaces convey more nonverbal
cues than did CMC when SIP was first articulated, and because the theory focuses
on what ­happens in the absence of nonverbal cues, SIP theory’s relevance has been
and should be questioned. A most recent study has, for example, compared plain‐
text CMC with audio‐based platforms, video‐based platforms (using Skype), and
face‐to‐face communication; results showed that CMC leads to significantly less
social attraction than do the other forms (Sprecher, 2014). These results seem
­similar to the cues‐filtered‐out findings from experiments in the 1980s and 1990s,
before the dissemination of SIP theory. However, this may not be altogether
­surprising: The research methods in studies such as this one also resemble the
shortcomings (from the perspective of SIP’s central tenets) of the cues‐filtered‐out
12

studies: inadequate time spans for the accrual of impressions and relational
development in CMC, and insufficient differentials in the time allowed for CMC
participants to communicate, relative to face‐to‐face or ­multimodal communication
partners. These studies seem to ignore the idea that SIP predicts nothing other
than cues‐filtered‐out types of impersonal outcomes when communicators are not
provided ample opportunity to translate social information from the usual multi-
modal channels that nonverbal and verbal face‐to‐face communication provide,
into the more restricted channel of language and typographics of CMC. Studies
that aim to test SIP theory but do not provide the requisite conditions for SIP
dynamics to accrue might rightly be considered failed studies rather than studies
providing evidence for the failure of SIP theory.
A more robust recent study related to SIP is seen in research using a social network
system such as Facebook (Antheunis, Valkenburg, & Peter, 2010). This study
­investigated the possibility that social network sites provide sufficient information
using passive strategies for uncertainty reduction about other individuals and that they
obviate the need for interactive conversation. That is, users can look at photos and/or
read the biographical information other people place in their online profiles,
­surreptitiously, and as a result they need not ask questions and self‐disclose in order to
get to know someone else. Such a finding would suggest that new media offer a
significant boundary condition on the scope of SIP theory. The survey research found,
however, that although individuals uniformly do avail themselves of others’ online pro-
file information, their uncertainty is reduced primarily through interactive discussion
with another individual. This finding seems to affirm SIP theory in the context of
­contemporary social media. It suggests that online interaction through language, slow
and effortful as it may be, continues to offer a mainstay affordance for the development
of impressions and relational management, despite the advent of newer multimodal
platforms online.

SEE ALSO: Modality Switching; Online Dating; Paralanguage; Self‐Disclosure; Social

Identity Theories; Uncertainty Reduction Strategies; Virtual Communities; Virtual
Teams

References

Antheunis, M., Valkenburg, P. M., & Peter, J. (2010). Getting acquainted through social network
sites: Testing a model of online uncertainty reduction and social attraction. Computers in
Human Behavior, 26, 100–109. doi: 10.1016/j.chb.2009.07.005
Burgoon, J. K., Bonito, J. A., Ramirez, A., et al. (2002). Testing the interactivity principle: Effects
of mediation, propinquity, and verbal and nonverbal modalities in interpersonal interaction.
Journal of Communication, 52, 657–677. doi: 10.1111/j.1460‐2466.2002.tb02567.x
Burgoon, J. K., Buller, D. B., & Woodall, W. G. (1989). Nonverbal communication: The unspoken
dialogue. New York, NY: Harper & Row.
Culnan, M. J., & Markus, M. L. (1987). Information technologies. In F. M. Jablin, L. L. Putnam,
K. H. Roberts, & L. W. Porter (Eds.), Handbook of organizational communication: An interdis-
ciplinary perspective (pp. 420–443). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
 13

Peña, J., & Hancock, J. T. (2006). An analysis of socioemotional and task communication in
online multiplayer video games. Communication Research, 33, 92–109. doi: 10.1177/
0093650205283103
Reicher, S., Spears, R., & Postmes, T. (1995). A social identity model of deindividuation phe-
nomena. European Review of Social Psychology, 6, 161–198. doi: 10.1080/14792779443000049
Short, J., Williams, E., & Christie, B. (1976). The social psychology of telecommunications. London,
UK: Wiley.
Sprecher, S. (2014). Initial interactions online‐text, online‐audio, online‐video, or face‐to‐face:
Effects of modality on liking, closeness, and other interpersonal outcomes. Computers in
Human Behavior, 31, 190–197. doi: 10.1016/j.chb.2013.10.029
Tidwell, L. C., & Walther, J. B. (2002). Computer‐mediated communication effects on disclosure,
impressions, and interpersonal evaluations: Getting to know one another a bit at a time.
Human Communication Research, 28, 317–348. doi: 10.1111/j.1468‐2958.2002.tb00811.x
Utz, S. (2000). Social information processing in MUDs: The development of friendships in
virtual worlds. Journal of Online Behavior, 1(1), 2002.
Walther, J. B. (1992). Interpersonal effects in computer‐mediated interaction: A relational
­perspective. Communication Research, 19, 52–90. doi: 10.1177/009365092019001003
Walther, J. B. (1994). Anticipated ongoing interaction versus channel effects on relational
­communication in computer‐mediated interaction. Human Communication Research, 20,
473–501. doi:10.1111/j.1468‐2958.1994.tb00332.x
Walther, J. B., & Burgoon, J. K. (1992). Relational communication in computer‐mediated i­ nteraction.
Human Communication Research, 19, 50–88. doi: 10.1111/j.1468‐2958.1992.tb00295.x
Walther, J. B., & D’Addario, K. P. (2001). The impacts of emoticons on message interpretation in
computer‐mediated communication. Social Science Computer Review, 19, 323–345. doi:
10.1177/089443930101900307
Walther, J. B., Loh, T., & Granka, L. (2005). Let me count the ways: The interchange of verbal and
nonverbal cues in computer‐mediated and face‐to‐face affinity. Journal of Language and
Social Psychology, 24, 36–65. doi: 10.1177/0261927X04273036
Walther, J. B., Van Der Heide, B., Ramirez, A. Jr., et al. (2015). Interpersonal and hyperpersonal
aspects of computer‐mediated communication. In S. S. Sundar (Ed.), The handbook of psy-
chology and communication technology (pp. 3–22). Oxford, UK: Wiley Blackwell.
Wang, Z., Walther, J. B., & Hancock, J. T. (2009). Social identification and interpersonal
­communication in computer‐mediated communication: What you do versus who you
are  in virtual groups. Human Communication Research, 35, 59–85. doi:10.1111/
j.1468‐2958.2008.01338.x
Wilson, J. M., Straus, S. G., & McEvily, B. (2006). All in due time: The development of trust in
computer‐mediated and face‐to‐face teams. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision
Processes, 99, 16–33. doi: 10.1016/j.obhdp.2005.08.001

Joseph B. Walther is the Wee Kim Wee Professor in Communication Studies at the
Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information at Nanyang Technological
University in Singapore. He has held several faculty positions in the US and Europe,
including a 2013 Senior Fulbright Fellowship at the Amsterdam School of Commu­
nication Research. A fellow of the International Communication Association (ICA),
his theoretical and empirical work on computer‐mediated communication has been
recognized by two National Communication Association Woolbert Awards for articles
that changed conceptualizations in communication research, and the ICA’s Chaffee
Award for Career Productivity.