Synthesis II

How does cooperation, incentives, reputations, trust, identity and accountability relate? Is it different in an online versus offline environment? Judith Donath, in Identity and Deception in the Virtual Community brings up some interesting points. In a physical environment, it is easy to base your initial opinion on someone’s appearance, mannerism, language, etc. All the physical cues contribute to your initial impression of the individual, and these assumptions are based on previous experiences with other people. In an online environment, one could say that many of these physical cues are missing, but are they?

Donath goes on to say that, “Identity cues are sparse” in the virtual world, but not non-existent. People become attuned to the nuances of email addresses and signature styles.” These brought to mind prior research I have done regarding gender differences in an online environment. Susan Herring has contributed significantly to this area of research. Some of her findings include the following:

• Online interaction is an extension of the real world conversations where men dominate.
• Men introduce more new topics and tend to ignore topics introduced by women.
• Men perceive women as talking more than men when women talk only 30% of the time.
• Males are typically adversarial, containing “put-downs, strong often contentious assertions, lengthy and/or frequent postings, self-promotion and sarcasm.
• Male communication often has an underlying purposing of establishing status, power, or domination.
• Females are typically supportive aned attenuable.
• Regarding flaming, Herring states, “the simple fact of the matter is that it is virtually only men who flame.”
• Females tend to place a great deal of emphasis on cooperation rather than competition and often use cooperation as a learning tool.
• Males tend to learn in a separate, autonomous manner.
• Males are direct and to the point.

So why have I spent such a great deal of time pointing out gender differences? A couple of reasons. These online behaviors may provide clues as to who you are talking to in the various online communication arenas. For instance, when I reflect back to my experience with USENET, I’m pretty sure I was interacting with other males. There wasn’t any hedging or a sense of cooperation. The interaction was direct and to the point. Understanding that “Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus” just helps put things into perspective a little bit. Gender is certainly a big part of one’s identity and often in an online environment there is a concern that people are not presenting their true identity. I had an interesting conversation with a co-worker about a month back who pretends to be a black kid from the hood at times and other times an aging housewife (and he is neither of these!) It is interesting to me that a single person can create multiple electronic identities and maintain all of them. Reminds me a bit of offline schizophrenia.