This study hypothesised that male and female Facebook profiles which contained an alcohol statement would differ in their ratings of attractiveness as a colleague and in their ratings of employability. 80 participants consisting of 40 males and 40 females with a mean age of 25.1 were recruited by request from members of the general public and randomly allocated into two groups.
Participants were then shown six Facebook profiles one at a time, for 60 seconds per profile, consisting of one male and one female with an alcohol statement, one male and one female with a non-alcohol statement and one male and one female control. For each profile, participants were instructed to rate the attractiveness of each profile for the colleague and employability conditions.
Using a 2 (participant gender: male, female) x2 (alcohol content: alcohol, non-alcohol) x2 (stimulus gender: male, female) mixed ANOVA design, the results revealed that profiles containing a non-alcohol statement were found to be more employable than profiles containing an alcohol statement, and that females were considered to be more employable than males.
A significant interaction was found between target gender and target alcohol content, which showed that alcohol statements increased the ratings of attractiveness as a colleague for females whilst decreasing the attractiveness of males.
As the results from both the colleague and employability conditions were significant, the proposed hypothesis was accepted. On the basis of these findings, it was concluded that male and female Facebook profiles which contain an alcohol statement do differ in their ratings of attractiveness as a colleague and in their ratings of employability.
Introduction
A relationship can be defined as an interdependent association between two individuals, where the behavior of one member is likely to affect the behavior of the other (Clark and Reis, 1988). Forming social relationships is a fundamental need of human beings (Maslow, 1943), and an inability to do so can lead to loneliness, depression and an increased risk of premature death (House, Landis and Umberson, 1988).
People choose to affiliate with others for a variety of reasons. They may for example, desire to compare themselves with another person as a means of self evaluation (Festinger, 1954), desire contact with another person to reduce feelings of anxiety (Hewstone, Fincham and Foster, 2005) or simply as a means of gathering information (Shaver and Klinnert, 1982).
Festinger, Schachter and Back (1950), suggest that such relationships are most likely to be formed with those whom we are familiar with, live in close proximity to and come into regular contact with. Traditionally, this has occurred via face-to-face contact and thus the scope of a social network was largely limited by one’s physical location (Wang and Pizam, 2011).
Advances in communication technology however, have allowed for a computer-mediated-communication (CMC) to occur so that individuals from across the world can now become familiar, remain in close proximity and have regular contact with each other virtually within an online environment (Ridings and Gefen, 2004).
The ability to communicate virtually however, has led some to question how effective this form of communication is and the accuracy of the impressions that are obtained from it.
Social presence theory for example, proposes that the lack of nonverbal cues during CMC adversely affects online impression formation by limiting the amount of information that one can obtain about another person (Gunawardena, 1995).
There are however, objections to this proposal, such as those involving the social information processing theory (Walther, 1992) and the Brunswikian lens model (Walther, Van Der Heide, Kim, Westerman and Tong, 2008), which state that despite there being an absence of nonverbal cues, CMC still provides many environmental cues from which interpersonal impressions can be formed.
Furthermore, some researchers, such as Liu and Ginther (2001), argue that certain aspects of CMC such as the use of “emoticons”, the frequency of messaging and the duration of messaging, can serve as nonverbal cues and thus provide more information for online impression formation than was previously thought available.
Whilst there may be both verbal and nonverbal cues present during CMC, questions still remain as to the accuracy of the impressions formed from such cues. Jacobson (1999) for example, found that it was not uncommon for online impressions to change once two individuals had met face-to-face.
These findings could suggest that CMC does not provide an accurate portrayal of another person, possibly as a result of there being fewer cues than in a traditional face-to-face interaction, which subsequently inhibits awareness of others (Parks and Floyd, 1996).
An alternative interpretation is that online impressions are accurate, but that they may not be entirely truthful because CMC tends to emphasise verbal cues over nonverbal cues thereby making self-censorship and impression management easier to perform online (Walther, 1996).
As alluded to earlier however, impressions can also be formed by environmental cues in addition to verbal and nonverbal cues. Therefore, the environment in which CMC occurs may be just as important as the type and content of that communication. One such environment, which is also the central focus of this study, is the social networking site Facebook.com.
Unlike other forms of CMC, such as e-mail or instant messaging which provide a user with complete control over the type of information that they disclose, Facebook differs in that it allows a users’ friends to post public messages on their profile page which can then be seen by other friends within their social network. As a result, Facebook users can turn to these environmental cues to help them form a more accurate, truthful and detailed impression of another user (Tong, Van Der Heide, Langwell and Walther 2008).
Walther et al. (2008) for example, discovered that statements made by a person’s Facebook friends significantly impacted the perceived credibility and social attractiveness of the profile owner. References to sociable behavior for example, led to an increase in favourable ratings, whilst statements relating to excessive alcohol consumption or philandering led to a decrease in favourable ratings.
It is important to note however, that the presence of alcohol or sexually related statements does not always result in the formation of a negative impression, as Walther et al. (2008) found that college students only viewed such statements in a negative light when they were taken to an extreme. For example, references made to an illness caused by excessive drinking resulted in a negative impression of a profile owner, but drinking a lot of alcohol did not.
Furthermore, a separate study found that male undergraduate Facebook users who made the most references to alcohol were likely to have more friends than users who made fewer references to alcohol (Egan and Moreno, 2011), thereby suggesting that social norms may also influence the type of impressions which people form of others.
The findings of Walther et al. and Tong et al. suggest that in an online environment such as Facebook, verbal cues (i.e., what a person says about themselves) and environmental cues (i.e., what other people say about you) can both be used to form impressions by affecting how one person is perceived by another.
Such impressions may even affect the perceived employability of an individual (Byrnside, 2008), as some employers are now using Facebook as a means of researching prospective employees to determine whether or not a profile owner would be a suitable fit for their company (Luse, 2009).
The aim of this study was to expand upon the work of Walther et al. (2008) by examining the influence of alcohol and non-alcohol related statements on ratings of attractiveness of male and female Facebook users as a colleague, and to determine whether or not such statements affected how employable an individual was perceived to be.
It is hypothesised that male and female Facebook profiles which contain an alcohol statement will differ in their ratings of attractiveness as a colleague and in their ratings of employability.
Method
Design
This study consisted of three independent variables, each with two levels, following a 2 (participant gender: male, female) x2 (alcohol content: alcohol, non-alcohol) x2 (stimulus gender: male, female) mixed design, with the first independent variable, participant gender, being of a between-subjects design and the second two independent variables, alcohol content and stimulus gender, being of a within-subjects design.
The dependent variables which were measured were the ratings given by participants for colleague attractiveness and employability of each stimulus profile.
Participants
80 participants were recruited by request of the experimenter from members of the general public. These consisted of 40 males and 40 females aged 18-60 with a mean age of 25.1 years that were randomly allocated into either “stimulus group one” or “stimulus group two”, with each group having an equal number of male and female participants.
Materials
Participants from each stimulus group were shown six Facebook profiles consisting of four target profiles and two control profiles (appendix i). The target profiles contained one male and one female stimulus with each displaying an alcohol related statement, and one male and one female stimulus with each displaying a non-alcohol statement. This gave a total of four different alcohol related statements and four different non-alcohol statements that were fully counterbalanced between the two groups.
Statements on the target profiles were target authored and appeared at the top of the profile page directly beneath the profile owner’s pictures as shown in figure 1. This was the only statement on each profile that was manipulated for alcohol or non-alcohol content, and all other elements of the profile were left untouched.
All alcohol statements made reference only to the presence of alcohol and not to the physical or psychological effects of its consumption, and all target profiles displayed a colour head and shoulder photograph of the target with a neutral expression.
Figure 1 – Target in Stimulus Group One With Alcohol Statement
Targets that had displayed an alcohol statement to participants in group one, were altered so that a non-alcohol statement was displayed to participants in group two as shown in figure 2. Alterations were also made so that targets which displayed an alcohol statement to group two, displayed a non-alcohol statement to group one.
The purpose of this manipulation was to determine whether references to alcohol affected a participant’s impression of a profile owner as Walther et al. (2008) had found, by recording the ratings that participants gave for colleague attractiveness and employability.
The two control profiles in each group were the same, and consisted of one male and one female profile taken at random from Facebook.com.
Figure 2 – Target in Stimulus Group Two with Non-Alcohol Statement
All participants were given a score sheet and instructed to record their ratings for each of the six profile owner pages using a 7-point Likert scale (appendix ii). Each participant was asked to rate i) how much they would like the stimulus as a colleague, ii) how socially attractive they perceived the stimulus to be, iii) how physically attractive they perceived the stimulus to be and iv) how likely they would be to employ the stimulus.
All profile pages were displayed for 60 seconds on a 19″ colour computer monitor using a stopwatch and the Microsoft Windows Picture and Fax Viewer software in room S26 at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland.
Procedure
Participants were randomly allocated into either stimulus group one or stimulus group two, so that each group consisted of three male and three female participants.
Each participant was then shown one Facebook profile on a 19″ colour computer monitor for 60 seconds in room S26 at the University of Aberdeen, and instructed to record their ratings for social attractiveness, physical attractiveness, colleague attractiveness and employability of each stimulus profile on a 7-point Likert scale. This procedure was then repeated for all six Facebook profiles.
After all the profiles had been rated, participants were verbally debriefed and then given a written debrief form (appendix iii).
Results
In the employability condition, a mixed-design ANOVA with alcohol content (alcohol, non-alcohol) and stimulus gender (male, female) as the within-subjects factors and participant gender (male, female) as the between-subjects factor, revealed a significant main effect of target gender [F(1,76) = 13.2, p < .001, ηρ² = .148] and target alcohol content [F(1,76) = 13.6, p < .001, ηρ² = .152].
As shown by figure 3, females (M = 5.02, SD = 1.60) were rated as more employable than males (M = 4.42, SD = 1.64).
Figure 3 – Mean Male vs. Female Employability Ratings
As shown by figure 4, profiles with an alcohol statement (M = 4.42, SD = 1.74) were rated as less employable than profiles with a non-alcohol statement (M = 5.02, SD = 1.50). No interactions were found for employability.
Figure 4 – Mean Alcohol vs. Non-Alcohol Employability Ratings
No main effects were found for the attractiveness as a colleague condition. However, a significant interaction was found between target gender and target alcohol content [F(1, 76) = 16, p < .001, ηρ² = .174]. The results of these interactions are reported below.
As shown by figure 5, a paired-samples t-test indicated that males (M = 4.06, SD = 1.61) with an alcohol statement were perceived as being less attractive as a colleague than females (M = 4.83, SD = 1.56) with an alcohol statement, t(77) = 3.42, p = .001.
Figure 5 – Mean Male Alcohol vs. Female Alcohol Colleague Rating
As shown by figure 6, a paired-samples t-test indicated that males (M = 4.67, SD = 1.53) with a non-alcohol statement were perceived as being more attractive as a colleague than females (M = 4.08, SD = 1.92) with a non-alcohol statement, t(77) = 2.48, p = .015.
Figure 6 – Mean Male Non-Alcohol vs. Female Non-Alcohol Colleague Rating
As shown by figure 7, a paired-samples t-test indicated that males (M = 4.06, SD = 1.61) with an alcohol statement were perceived as being less attractive as a colleague than males (M = 4.67, SD = 1.53) with a non-alcohol statement, t(77) = 2.35, p = .021.
Figure 7 – Mean Male Alcohol vs. Male Non-Alcohol Colleague Rating
As shown by figure 8, a paired-samples t-test indicated that females (M = 4.83, SD = 1.56) with an alcohol statement were perceived as being more attractive as a colleague than females (M = 4.08, SD = 1.92) with a non-alcohol statement, t(77) = 2.92, p = .005.
Figure 8 – Mean Female Alcohol vs. Female Non-Alcohol Colleague Rating
The results obtained from the employability and colleague conditions were all significant, and therefore support the proposed hypothesis.
Discussion
The aim of this study was to determine whether or not alcohol or non-alcohol related statements affected the ratings of colleague attractiveness and the perceived employability of Facebook users.
A mixed-design ANOVA revealed a significant main effect of target gender where females were rated as being more employable than males, and a significant main effect of target alcohol content where profiles with an alcohol statement were rated as being less employable than profiles with a non-alcohol statement. No interactions were found for the employability condition.
Four significant interactions were found between target gender and target alcohol content for the attractiveness as a colleague condition; Males with an alcohol statement were rated as less attractive than females with an alcohol statement, males with a non-alcohol statement were rated as more attractive than females with a non-alcohol statement, males with a non-alcohol statement were rated as more attractive than males with an alcohol statement, and females with an alcohol statement were rated as more attractive than females with a non-alcohol statement.
As the data obtained from both conditions was significant, these results therefore provide statistically significant support for the proposed hypothesis that male and female Facebook profiles which contained an alcohol statement would differ in their ratings of attractiveness as a colleague and in their ratings of employability.
The results of this study provide mixed support for the findings of Walther et al. (2008). Profiles with non-alcohol statements for example, led to an increase in favourable ratings for the employability of profile owners. These results are similar to those obtained by Walther et al. (2008) who found that sociable references tended to increase favourable ratings.
However, Walther et al. (2008) also found that references to alcohol resulted in the formation of a negative impression, but only when they were taken to an extreme. Yet, in the present study, which used statements that made reference solely to the presence of alcohol and not to the physical or psychological effects of its consumption, lower ratings of employability were found for profiles that contained an alcohol statement.
These latter results therefore appear to contradict the findings of Walther et al. (2008) in terms of the ability of non-extreme alcohol statements to adversely affect impression formation, at least in regards to how employable an individual is perceived to be.
In the attractiveness as a colleague condition, more consistent support was found for Walther et al. (2008). Males with a non-alcohol statement for example, were rated as more attractive as a colleague than males with an alcohol statement. This may suggest that for males, the consumption of alcohol could be regarded as an unsociable behavior as it led to a decrease in favourable ratings in this condition.
Interestingly, this did not appear to apply to females, as the results revealed that females with an alcohol statement were regarded as being more attractive as a colleague than males with an alcohol statement and also more attractive than females with a non-alcohol statement. One could argue therefore, that based upon these findings, the consumption of alcohol is perceived as a sociable behavior for females as alcohol references led to an increase in favourable ratings in this condition.
One explanation which may account for why references to alcohol were considered to be a sociable behavior for females and an unsociable behavior for males, are the stereotypes that people have, and the subsequent expectations which they form, of different genders.
Landrine, Bardwell and Dean (1988) for example, discovered that males are more likely to be stereotyped as heavy drinkers who drink with the intention of getting drunk, whereas females tend to be viewed as more moderate drinkers who drink for the purpose of social bonding.
Thus, as a result of these stereotypes, females in the present study may have been perceived as being more responsible and less likely to engage in antisocial behavior than the males, which, in turn, could have made them more desirable to work with as a colleague.
If these assumptions are correct, they could expose a serious limitation to the effectiveness of using Facebook as a means of researching prospective employees, as the results obtained in this study may in fact have occurred due to a cognitive bias which caused participants to incorrectly attribute desirable traits to females with alcohol references and undesirable traits to males with alcohol references, thereby distorting the employability ratings of each sex (Brown and Vaughn, 2011).
Future research may be able to minimise the effect of cognitive biases by providing information detailing the typical drinking habits and social interests of a profile owner, in an attempt to reduce the use of heuristic attributes that are associated with stereotypical judgements (Bodenhausen, 1990).
Another limitation of this study and suggestion for future research, relates to the context of the manipulated statements. These statements were all target generated but were not responded to by the profile owner’s friends and so lacked a context within which they could be judged.
Future research may wish to investigate the effect of including a friend generated statement that contains an alcohol or non-alcohol response to the target’s statement (i.e., an environmental cue), so as to determine whether the context of a conversation will affect the ratings given for colleague attractiveness and employability.
Conclusion
The results of this study showed that Facebook profiles with a non-alcohol statement were rated as being more employable than profiles with an alcohol statement, and that females were considered to be more employable than males. The study also found that references to alcohol increased the attractiveness of females as a colleague but had an opposite effect on males.
On the basis of these findings, the proposed hypothesis that male and female Facebook profiles which contain an alcohol statement will differ in their ratings of attractiveness as a colleague and in their ratings of employability, can be accepted.
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