First-impression formation in electronic profiles

Social judgment precedes and accompanies interpersonal attraction, and the development and maintenance of relationships. Social judgment may involve interaction over time, but always begins as a first-impression formation task. First-impression formation in electronic settings is interesting both because it is occurring more frequently as the Net is increasing as a medium for social interaction, and because theory developed from face-to-face (FtF) settings is not entirely applicable. In this doctoral dissertation, I focus on profile-based first-impression formation in electronic environments.;I describe various contexts in electronic environments where people use profiles to choose people to interact with. In these environments, existing theories of impression formation are insufficient, and a theory of electronically mediated first-impression formation is required. I use social psychological theories of impression formation, interpersonal attraction, evaluation of expertise, and trust, to propose a model of first-impression formation using electronic profiles. I then apply this framework to first-impression formation during expert-selection tasks.;I report the results of three studies, two experimental and one archival, which investigate the impact of profile structure and content on first-impression formation during an expert-selection task. The results of these studies support my model of first-impression formation.