Impression Management And Impression Formation Of Network Instant Messaging

Impression management, as called self-presentation, is the process through which we try tocontrol the impression people form of us.There have been accumulated the massive researchmaterial in the socialpsychology domain since Erving Goffman did an initial work onself-presentation in1959. These years, self-presentation has increasingly drawn attention topsychology, sociology and management science etc.It has become a central concept about theself research in social cognition field.Impression formation is the process of forming the impression of others by the individualswithout any specific purpose or under any awareness. It has been an important field in socialpsychology all these years. Since Higgins began to study this issue with experiment,investigators put forward a great many viewpoints, among which the representative models are:schemata theory, spreading activation model, storage bin model, inclusion/exclusion model,expectation and contrast model, set/reset model etc.With the Internet’s rapid development and wide application,the Internet has been deeplyinfluenced people’s lives at all levels, gradually changed social life of human being and affectedpeople’s living habits. Network break through the constraint of time and space, making peopleestablish and maintain contact, especially those remote people. Network provides a new space ofcooperation and exchange and self-shaped for people.As a famous instant communication tool in China,the full name of QQ is Tencent InstantMessenger. Its registered users have nearly increased by600million so far.The instantmessenger with multi-dimensional and mobility provides a variety of stage for people to play allkinds of roles and to show themselves really and deeply. They develop the pure relationship onthe basis of mutual trust, equal exchange, option for self-determination and mutual benefit. Withthese characteristics, QQ has far exceeded as a communication tool. Netizens use QQ to makeinstant interaction and shape various roles as they like.Regarding QQ chatting tools as investigation points,this thesis makes a research of netcommunication among people, particularly in the instant interaction. The purpose is to explorethe process of self-presentation and impression formation in instant messenger from the basis ofthe characteristics of cyberspace.Study one: QQ users impression managemen cross-sectional studyThis study takes448QQ users as research object, using the methods of content analysis andcase interview, to investigate the effects of different parts the QQ user information for theirimpression managemen. And then the significant difference on gender, education, age was discussed with chi-square statistics.Study two: QQ users impression managemen follow-up studyUsing the methods of natural observation,content analysis and case interview, a100-dayfollow-up study on38QQ users of the researcher was done to investigate the change over timeof different parts the QQ user information for their impression managemen. And then thesignificant difference on gender, education was discussed with chi-square statistics.Study three:QQ friends-searching impression formation studyTaken38QQ users as research object, a micro, dynamic and complex process for QQfriends-searching impression formation was simulated experimentally with instantmessenger,using the methods of content analysis and case interview, to investigate QQ users’values and standards of friends choosing formed by years of socialization and personalization.And then the significant difference of their inner mind processes in gender, educationbackground was discussed with chi-square statistics.These findings have important implications for understanding the feature of impressionmanagement and the mechanism of impression formation in the network, as well as practicalvalues for interpersonal communication.