Computer-mediated impression formation: A test of the sticky cues model using Facebook

This research offers a model of online impression formation that explains how different impression-bearing cues may carry more or less informational value. This research considers the possibility that impression-bearing cues have greater informational value when those cues are distinctive and are task-relevant. This research refers to such cues as sticky cues. Further, this research suggests that sticky cues may help to describe how interpersonal and categorical cues vary in terms of the amount of impression-bearing information they provide to observers. This research reports two original experiments that varied both the distinctiveness of interpersonal and group cues and the task-relevance of those cues. This research examined the effects of group cues on judgments of a target's intelligence and the effects of interpersonal cues on judgments of a target's extraversion. The results were consistent with the sticky-cues hypothesis with regard to interpersonal cues to extraversion, but only cue distinctiveness (and not cue relevance) were effective group cues that informed participants' judgments of a target's intelligence. These findings are discussed in light of other theoretical perspectives on impression formation in computer-mediated communication and future research directions are discussed.