Real-life Relationships Research Articles

Can Mixed Feelings About Your Spouse Harden Your Arteries

Studies linking measures of marital satisfaction with health outcomes have yielded variable results. Recognizing that real-life marital relationships are often characterized by perceptions of one's spouse as both helpful and upsetting (i.e., ambivalence), investigators examined spouses' ratings of social relationship and marital adjustment and used standard scans to assess coronary artery calcification. The 136 couples were married for a mean of 36 years (97% non-Hispanic white; mean age, 63; …

Object relations and real life relationships: A cross method assessment

This study examines the relationship between the psychoanalytic concept of object relations and real life behavior of being in an intimate relationship among heterosexual women. In a multi-method approach we used two different measures; the self-report Bell Object Relations and Reality Testing Inventory (BORRTI; Bell, Billington & Becker, 1986) and the performance based Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) Social Cognition & Object Relations Scale- Global Rating Method SCORS-G (Westen, 1995) to measure the object relations of 60 women. The Alienation subscale of the BORRTI and understanding of social causality subscale of the SCORS-G explained 34.8% of variance of the intimate relationship variable. Thus, women involved in a romantic relationship reported lower rates of alienation on the BORRTI and produced TAT narratives that were more adaptive with regard to understanding of social causality as measured by the SCORS-G than those not currently in a relationship. Results are discussed with reference to the relationship between object relations and real life measures of healthy individuals and in light of the need for a multi-method approach of assessment.

Attachment Needs and Social Networking Sites

Attachment is a significant human need throughout life. Recent developments in communication technologies indicate that social networking sites (SNS) play a significant role in forming relationships. In addition to forming real-life relationships, students also form new relationships and maintain already existing relationships through SNS. In other words, in line with uses and gratifications theory, new media are used to gratify students' needs. In this study conducted in 2011, we compared real-life friendships with friendships formed through SNS, in fulfilling the attachment needs of students at the English Preparatory School at the Eastern Mediterranean University. We found statistically significant differences between attachments formed in real life and those formed through SNS. Therefore, we determined that SNS play a significant role in satisfying the need for attachment among young people who are at the outset of their tertiary education.

Comment on Walter N. Stone's “Thinking About Our Work: Siblings”

Comment on Walter N. Stone’s “Thinking About Our Work: Siblings” Robert S. Pepper1 issn 0362-4021 © 2014 Eastern Group Psychotherapy Society group, Vol. 38, No. 4, Winter 2014 361 1 Director of Training, Long Island Institute of Mental Health. Correspondence should be addressed to Robert S. Pepper, PhD, CGP, 110-50 71st Road, #1E, Forest Hills, NY 11375. E-mail: DrRobertSPepper@aol.com. It seems odd to me that there is very little mentioned about siblings in the indexes of group therapy texts, because to my mind group therapy is sibling relationships, that is, as they exist in the form of the as-if sibling relationships between members. In the treatment process, members regress and re-create the dynamics of their families of origin in the group. Some prospective group members are quite hesitant to begin treatment for this reason. They are convinced that the group experience will be stressful and damaging , like their first group experience. And who wants to repeat that? They actually may be right, but for the wrong reason, as we shall see shortly. I strongly agree with Stone’s and Bodansky’s assessment that members’ relationships to their real-life siblings during childhood have a profound impact on the course and outcome of group treatment. Stone suggests leaders wait for patients’ spontaneous sharing of their sibling histories, but I take it a step further: I don’t wait; I ask directly. Those relationships are so important that I include questions about them in the screening interviews of prospective group candidates. I always want to know about the nature of their relationships with siblings. How many? Where are you in the birth order? How many years apart? Are you close? If there are more than one, who are you closest with? Brothers, sisters? Not so close with? Why and why not? These questions are often an accurate indicator of the newcomer’s adaptation to group: The better the relationships with real-life siblings, the better the relationships with the as-if siblings in group. Although nothing is 100%, the answers to these questions tell me a lot about the role the newcomer will most likely play out in the 362 pepper group. Alfred Adler (1964) was one of the first to notice that personality was linked to birth order: the oldest as caretaker, the middle-child syndrome, the youngest as the baby, and so on. I also agree that a good sibling relationship has the power to compensate for parental neglect. However, it is not necessarily true that members with unhealthy sibling relationships are doomed. Even members whose childhood relationships with siblings were less than ideal have an advantage in group treatment that the patient in individual treatment doesn’t: the group is the healing agent (Ormont, 2001). I have seen many such group members resolve closeness issues by building strong bonds with their group siblings even when the transference was initially negative. The negative transference is just as important as the positive transference in the healing process, which is one way in which group therapy helps. It has been my experience that resolving the negative transference has a stabilizing effect on members’ outside-the-group functioning. In the groups that I run, the contract states that members are to say how they feel toward each other and why they feel that way. This creates an emotional immediacy and intimacy not possible in individual treatment, an immediacy that can compensate for the damage done in childhood. I see my role in this process as fostering an atmosphere in which members seek out each other for comfort and support, rather than looking to me for comfort first. If a member asks for feedback from me before everyone else has spoken, I point this out and wait until all the others have responded before addressing the member in need. This is particularly important in instances where the member’s experience with real-life siblings has been unsatisfactory. It has been my experience that negative real-life relationships between siblings can be a screen for tension that existed between the parents that has spilled over onto the children. In group, that often translates into an overheated attachment to...

Are online support groups always beneficial? A qualitative exploration of the empowering and disempowering processes of participation within HIV/AIDS-related online support groups

BackgroundHuman immunodeficiency virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is one of the leading concerns in healthcare. Individuals living with HIV/AIDS are often confronted with tremendous physical and psychosocial challenges. Online support groups can provide a valuable source of information, advice and support, and a medium through which individuals living with HIV/AIDS can interact with each other and share their experiences. However, very little is known about how online support group might promote empowerment and the potential disadvantages associated with online support group use among individuals living with HIV/AIDS. ObjectivesThe present study explored the potential empowering and disempowering processes, and empowering outcomes of online support group use among individuals with HIV/AIDS. Design, settings, participantsA total of 115 HIV-positive online support group members were recruited from HIV-related online support groups. They completed an online survey exploring their experiences of online support group use. ResultsThematic analysis revealed six empowering processes arising from use of online support groups: exchanging information, sharing experiences, connecting to others, encountering emotional support, finding recognition and understanding, and helping others. Six empowering outcomes were identified: increased optimism, emotional well-being, social well-being, being better informed, improved disease management, and feeling confident in the relationship with physicians. Potentially disempowering processes were also identified which included: being unable to connect physically, inappropriate behaviour online, declining real life relationships, and information overload and misinformation. ConclusionFindings suggest ways through which individuals with HIV/AIDS may be empowered although some problematic features specific to the online context may also be present.

Opting in to Online Professionalism: Social Media and Pediatrics

* Abbreviations: AMA — : American Medical Association The Council on Medical Student Education in Pediatrics (COMSEP) is committed to excellence in medical student education in pediatrics. This article continues our series on skills of, and strategies used by, great clinical teachers. Kind et al argue that the digital world provides a great opportunity for clinical educators to promote and enhance student education and model professionalism. They provide resources and tips to get started using this domain . —Susan Bannister, MD Editor-in-Chief, COMSEP Monthly Feature Social media can be described as a digital space for creating and sharing information with others, disseminating it widely and rapidly.1 It can extend real-life learning and relationships into a shared space to foster online connections and learning. Physicians and physicians-in-training are entering this digital environment with little guidance on best practices. Professionalism lapses online can have consequences not only for individuals but also for public trust in the medical profession.2 And yet, when used well , social media enriches the personal and professional lives of clinicians and learners. We’ll consider the risky (red) zone, the safe but go slow (yellow) zone, and the opt in to opportunity (green) zone to explain the challenges students may face and to outline how to teach and model professionalism in the use of social media. Several studies describe social media use by medical students,3,4 physicians,5,6 and medical educators.7 In 2012, 67% of online adults reported using Facebook, 20% LinkedIn, 16% Twitter, 15% Pinterest, 13% Instagram, and 6% Tumblr.8,9 These and other platforms allow users to connect through words, photos, audio, or videos in various ways: privately or publicly, synchronously or asynchronously, and uni- or multidirectionally. There are also less public avenues, such … Address correspondence to Terry Kind, MD, MPH, Children’s National Medical Center, 111 Michigan Ave, NW, Washington, DC 20010. E-mail: tkind{at}childrensnational.org; [@kind4kids][1] (Twitter) [1]: http://www.Twitter.com/kind4kids

‘To be number one in someone’s eyes …’: Children’s introspections about close relationships in reading Harry Potter

Audience aesthetics and responses to popular culture genres which were once considered low brow have now long occupied the interests of the academy. This is a point to be taken seriously especially within children’s literature circles, where reading and reception is often generalised about under the theoretical umbrella of ‘the reader’ and ‘the spectator’ who is ‘drawn’ into a range of largely unproven pathways by the text. This article explores youthful perceptions of real-life, close relationships, the projection of these relationships onto those seen in the media text and the resulting mediation of relationship ideals, desires and wishes. Analysing data from fieldwork with teen audiences of the Harry Potter series, this article argues that there is more to the mediation of relationships than the undoubtedly rich discussions of the media bringing people together at the moment of reception/use, whether online or offline. The findings presented in the article reveal the intricate and often perplexing ways in which children continue to introspect long after the act of reception, drawing parallels between relationships in their own lives and those they read about or view. The article draws attention to the introspective depth with which children use screen/text relationships as raw material to ponder emotional questions, ones, for instance, on love, hate, detachment, attachment and friendship, and the many ways the media mediate real-life relationships not by setting unreachable ideals to emulate but by offering interpretive pathways.

Parasocial Romance: A Social Exchange Perspective

Parasocial relationships are one-sided relationships that people hold with media figures. Although it has been previously demonstrated that people often feel strong friendships with people that they have never met, parasocial romantic attachments have not been well-studied. In the current study, we examined reasons why people form parasocial romances from a social exchange perspective by surveying participants on perceived costs and benefits of both real-life and parasocial romantic relationships (PSROMs), and on the strength of their PSROMs. We found that participants who reported stronger PSROMs also reported greater perceived benefits (relative to costs) of PSROMs, and that these benefits are surprisingly similar to those received from real-life relationships (RLRs). The results suggest that parasocial relationships are formed for similar reasons as real-life relationships, but that there are some unique costs associated with PSROMs. This research helps to explain why people form romantic attachments with media characters.

Adolescents’ Interpersonal Relationships with Friends, Parents, and Teachers When Using Facebook for Interaction

The purpose of the study is to investigate the adolescents’ interpersonal relationships with friends, parents, and teachers when using Facebook for interaction. A total of 740 junior high school students were invited to fill in a questionnaire and 673 questionnaires were available. Data were analyzed using one-way analysis of variance and paired-samples t-test. The analytic result confirms that adolescents with high frequency use of Facebook for interactions can expand their interpersonal relationships with friends than those who with low frequency use, regardless of real-life or virtual relationships. However, their real-life interpersonal relationships with parents may weaken if overly use Internet tools for interactions. Another finding, eliminating the factor of the time on Facebook use, reveals that the adolescents’ real-life interpersonal relationships are stronger than virtual interpersonal relationships, regardless of with friends, parents, and teachers. Combining the above two findings, it is worth noting that the real-life interaction with parents may reduce if overly use Internet tools for interactions. This study contributes to the literature by investigating the adolescents’ relationships with friends, parents and teachers and indicates the potential program when adolescents using Facebook use for interaction. This study, thus, further recommends that parents should be concerned their children about Facebook use.

Does Loving an Avatar Threaten Real Life Marriage?

The purpose of this study was to examine the nature of relationship satisfaction and its predictors for those who simultaneously maintain committed relationships, in both real life (RL) and in an immersive virtual world, with either the same or a different partner. All 236 self-selected study participants were recruited on the virtual, multiplayer, online game and social platform of Second Life (SL), screened to insure that they had a committed relationship with both an avatar and a RL partner, and then asked to respond to an online survey about these relationships, and how satisfying they were. The results showed that (1) virtual committed relationships with a partner other than one’s RL partner were extremely prevalent (81.7%), (2) both males and females were highly satisfied with their virtual intimate relationships, (3) no RL relationship was found to be significantly more satisfying than any SL relationship in any statistical analysis conducted, (4) females tended to define their SL relationships as being significantly more satisfying than their RL relationships, (5) males tended to define their SL and RL relationships as equally satisfying, and (6) that those older in RL tended to be more satisfied with their virtual relationship than those who were younger. These results were interpreted in terms of their implications for culture, RL relationships and RL marriage.

Ask the Passengers (review)

Reviewed by: Ask the Passengers Deborah Stevenson, Editor Ask the Passengers. by A. S. King. Love is a complicated thing for seventeen-year-old Astrid. On the one hand, she's silently sending it to people who merely cross her path, and she's particularly focused on floating up warm feelings to the passengers in the planes flying over her backyard. On the other hand, reciprocal, real-life relationships are much more difficult. Her small, ironically named town of Unity Valley engages in harassment and ostracism of those outside what's considered the norm, and secrets lurk behind its homogenized exterior. Astrid's best friend, Kristina, is officially the longterm girlfriend of yearbook editor Justin, but they're both gay and using double dates as a front for their real relationships. Astrid herself has fallen for her coworker, Dee, but she hasn't mentioned this to Kristina, who believes Astrid is straight. Then there's Astrid's tense life at home, where her overcontrolling mother notices only Astrid's younger sister, Ellis, while Astrid's father retreats from life behind a constant haze of pot smoke. All these façades of unity shatter, however, when Astrid and her friends get publicly busted for underage drinking—at a gay bar. This isn't simply a coming-out-among-the-homophobes tale, however. Its main topic is really finding and owning your own truth, which King authentically depicts as a painful process. Astrid's nearly buried under a multitude of expectant and judgmental voices, whether they're coming from the townsfolk, her own "brain people," or even friends who are supposed to be on her side, like Kristina and Dee. Astrid counterbalances this input by taking her questions to less invested sources: those same passengers to whom she sends her love, and an amiable, imagined Socrates (modernized into Frank Socrates), who waits patiently for Astrid to flounder her way toward truth. That process has more than a few bumps, of course. As Astrid tries to find what's true for her—is she gay, does she want to have sex with Dee—she sometimes overlooks the equally legitimate travails of those around her. Dee struggles with waiting for an uncertain girlfriend's commitment, being tacitly disowned at every turn; Kristina, who trusted Astrid with her own secret, feels betrayed that Astrid kept the truth from her in turn; Ellis, already negotiating the gender stereotypes of being on the field hockey team, suffers harassment as a consequence of her sister's new reputation. In fact, King gifts every character with validity: they all have their own hopes, fears, and ways of coping, and readers can see how they got to where they are and where they might go next. And even amid the brutality of small-town judgment, little decencies abound: the boy who Astrid dated to cover her tracks amiably shrugs off her deception; Ellis' biggest tormentor is matter-of-factly challenged on her own terms by her peers. [End Page 63] It was Astrid's Humanities class that brought her the bolstering companionship of Frank Socrates, and it's also there that she finds her central metaphor, that of Plato's famous cave. When all you know is the dark place with shadows, it's hard to emerge to a reality of light and dimensionality, so hard that you might go back into the cave. Astrid knows this well, as she repeatedly contemplates coming out of her "Unity Valley suit" to let her real self out, only to turn back at the last moment. That's understandable, since she's not wrong about the judgment she'll encounter, but she also sees glimpses of the light-filled life beyond it, where this small-town teen pettiness looks as trivial as it really is. And when eventually she takes that step to stand or fall as who she really is (and does it so loudly—"I'M GAY! Okay? I'm fucking GAY!"—that she earns a suspension from school), it's a glorious, freeing mess that really does make things better. For kids still struggling with their own truths, it can be hard to believe how much light there is once...

P-1312 - Does the internet offer social opportunities for individuals with schizophrenia? a cross-sectional pilot study

Individuals with schizophrenia suffer from deficits in social skills, lack of motivation and social rejection. Web-browsing seems to create opportunities to forge social ties, bypassing traditional social skills and rejection. Assessing web-browsing habits and web based social interaction among individuals with schizophrenia. 1) Comparison of internet use for virtual relationships among patients suffering from psychotic spectrum disorders, non-psychotic patients and healthy subjects. 2) Examining correlation between creating virtual relationships and real-life social interactions among these groups. The web-browsing habits, social skills and demographic data of 143 patients suffering from Psychotic spectrum disorders were evaluated via the use of self- administered questionnaires, clinical data and information from their computerized medical files. As control groups, similar data were collected from a group of Non-psychotic patients (n = 118) and healthy volunteers (n = 100). When controlling the demographic data for the three groups, no difference was found in the extent of creating virtual and real-life social interactions via internet use. A trend association could be seen between the Psychotic group and creating virtual relationships. All groups exhibited significant correlations between creating virtual and real-life relationships through the internet. However, the Psychotic group exhibited a higher correlation (r = .76;p < 0.01) than the Non-psychotic group (r = .52;p < 0.01) and the Control group (r = .32;p < 0.01). This study provides preliminary data regarding internet use for social interaction among individuals with schizophrenia. Our results suggest that these individuals do benefit from internet use, as it seems to enhance their social abilities.

Zoning Laws: Facebook and Google+

Zoning Laws: Facebook and Google+

The Supervisory Relationship When Women Supervise Women: An Exploratory Study of Power, Reflexivity, Collaboration, and Authenticity

What does it mean to have a collaborative, authentic supervisory relationship? Can power and hierarchy in supervision be acknowledged, talked about, and incorporated as part of the learning? What does a supervisory relationship look like that incorporates intentional reflexivity about the relationship into the relationship? Discussions about the importance of the supervisory relationship, including the above topics, have emerged within different psychological communities, such as feminists, contemporary psychoanalytic thinkers, the competency framework in psychology training, and counseling psychologists. The supervisory relationship was investigated through a small-N, exploratory, qualitative study of women psychologists supervising women psychology trainees. Data were gathered for eight “outstanding women supervisors” and supervisees through sessions and interviews. These exploratory, descriptive data of real-life supervision sessions and relationships add to the conversation about relational supervision. Benefits of a reflexive, collaborative, and authentic framework to supervision are presented.

Realism, idealization, and potential negative impact of 3D virtual relationships

One hundred and ninety-nine participants, each of whom was currently involved in an intimate relationship within the 3D virtual world of Second Life, completed measures assessing whether they (1) viewed their 3D virtual relationship as an exercise in fantasy or one that had a quality of realism, and (2) perceived the personality characteristics of their 3D partner in more positive or idealized terms than a current or recent real life partner. Additionally, 71 of the 199 participants (36%) who were concurrently involved in a real life romantic relationship as well as their Second Life relationship provided data regarding the potential negative impact of Second Life relationships on co-occurring real life relationships. Results indicated that (1) the majority of participants viewed their Second Life relationships as real rather than as a form of game-playing, (2) participants generally reported more positive or idealized personality traits for their Second Life partners compared to their real life partners, and (3) a portion of participants in co-occurring Second Life and real life relationships indicated that their virtual relationship served as an emotional competitor or potential threat to their real life relationship, with the potential for detrimental effects rising as the couple progressively adds non-immersive digital and physical channels of communication to the original 3D relationship.

“Let My Fingers Do the Talking”: Sexting and Infidelity in Cyberspace

This exploratory project investigated the behaviors of sexting and infi- delity on the internet. The researchers placed a survey on a web site designed for married people to find sexual partners outside their marriage. Using a sample of 5,187 respondents, the study explored how people use the internet to find partners. Using both descriptive statistics and binary logistic regression analysis, the researchers found that the respondents use the internet to find real-life partners, both for dating and for sex hookups, but many are anxious about being caught. Females are more likely than males to engage in sexting behaviors, while females and males are equally as likely to cheat both online and in real life while in a serious real-life relationship. Older males, however, are more likely than younger males to cheat in real life. The results suggest that perhaps people who are using dating web sites do not conform to the ''official'' standards of dating culture, but that maybe the standards are changing.

Communication Patterns and Satisfaction Levels in Three-Dimensional Versus Real-Life Intimate Relationships

The present study compared communication patterns and satisfaction levels between three-dimensional (3D) and real-life intimate relationships using a sample of 71 participants who were concurrently involved in an intimate relationship within Second Life and a separate real-life romantic relationship. Participants indicated that the quality of their communication was significantly better in their Second-Life relationship and that they experienced higher levels of satisfaction with their virtual partners. The more positive or idealized view of the 3D relationships may have been due to higher levels of focused interaction and reduced stressors in the virtual world and the greater length, and associated problems, in participant's real-life relationships. In addition, the presence of a concurrent relationship within Second Life could have negatively affected participant's judgments of their real-life relationships. These data offer the first detailed assessment of communication patterns and satisfaction levels in intimate relationships across the real and 3D virtual realms as the number of users and romantic partners in immersive virtual environments continue to grow.

There is Heterosexuality: Jessie Fauset, W. E. B. Du Bois, and the Problem of Desire

Near the end of Jessie Fauset's first novel, There is Confusion (1924), Joanna Marshall gratefully accepts Peter Bye's offer of marriage, saying, Why, nothing in the world is so hard to face as this problem of colored in America .... But now that we have love, Peter, we have a pattern to guide out of the (283). Peter echoes Joanna's thoughts when he says, Yes, thank God, we've got Love .... But you're right, Joanna, it is frightful to see the havoc that this intangible bugaboo of color works among us (284). On the one hand there is as pattern; on the other, there is race as queer intangible bugaboo. Joanna and Peter expect the pattern to trump the bugaboo; they expect love to offer some solidity, some foundation in an otherwise tortuous American racial landscape. There is something sweet about their expectation in the same way that there is something sweet about the desperately naive. For if there is one thing that Fauset's novels tell us, it is that in the 1920s, particularly for African American women, is a decidedly slippery piece of work--more intangible bugaboo than safe, reassuring pattern. This is especially the case if we understand to be the public face of something called heterosexuality, and if we understand that heterosexuality was a relatively recent invention by 1924--a structure of desire bearing very little similarity to the heterosexuality we know today: In the pages that follow, I want to play out the implications of the metonymic substitution that my title enacts. More specifically, I want to read the confusion of Fauset's title less as the result of racial deformation, and more the necessary byproduct of a newly emerged heterosexuality. And though I have begun with an emphasis on There is Confusion, my focus here is also Fauset's second novel, Plum Bun, published in 1929. For if There is Confusion ends in the hope that can offer stability amid racial confusion, Plum Bun shows that hope to be misplaced, as the novel's heroine Angela Murray struggles to find her place within the new heterosexuality. In fact, There is Confusion and Plum Bun comprise something of a two-part movement on the themes of desire, marriage, and heterosexuality in the twenties. (1) Fauset had been planning There is Confusion since at least 1914, though it would not be published until ten years later. (2) The fifteen years between the inception of There is Confusion and the publication of Plum Bun witnessed a number of significant changes in Fauset's life, most of them having to do with her ever-evolving relationship with W. E. B. Du Bois. At the risk of joining art too neatly to biography, I do want to read these two romances as parts of a romantic trilogy--the third volume the reallife relationship of Fauset and Du Bois. In so doing, I offer a new way of thinking about Fauset's novels in relation to the rapidly changing sexual currents of the 1920s. At the same time, I complicate the newly emerging story of heterosexuality's early days by emphasizing its roots in perversion in Fauset's case, a perversion complicated by the interlocking relations of race and sex in America. Heterosexuality as a trope has long been embedded in discourse, ever since Langston Hughes referred to Fauset as one of the three people who midwifed the so-called New Negro Literature into being (218). Midwifery invokes heterosexual reproduction and one's somewhat ambivalent relation to it: responsible for the birth, but not ultimately responsible; engaged in heterosexual reproduction, but only after the instigating moment. And we should not forget that the very phrase Harlem Renaissance depends upon the same set of associations--a new birth in Harlem. With heterosexuality serving as the governing logic of these central metaphors, it is worth pondering Fauset's relationship to it. As we will see, heterosexuality in the 1920s contained within it the dueling energies of the respectable and the illicit, the normative and the outre; also, the question of Fauset's respectability has been a key issue in the response generated by her novels. …

Fictional representations of author–translator relationships

This paper explores the nature and spectrum of relationships between authors and translators as identified in a corpus of fictional representations. Author–translator relationships offer fertile ground for fiction writers because of the frequent entangling of these two roles. These fictional constructions have the potential to offer theoretical insights into the creative nature and limits of translatorship and its overlapping with authorship and also to question the superiority usually ascribed to the latter. They can problematize concepts such as creativity, original and translation by highlighting both the derivative aspects of “original” writing and the creative aspects of translation, and they can identify certain aspects that have not been fully explored in the theoretical literature, such as the affective impact of translators' work. They might also stimulate meditations on or provide alternative models for real-life relationships, highlight the need to counter misleading constructions, or operate purely at the level of art.

People or profiles: Individual differences in online social networking use

Scholars have debated whether social networking websites provide valuable social connections or distract individuals from more rewarding real-life relationships. We propose that examining individual differences in one’s tendency to approach versus avoid the perspectives of other people can help resolve this issue: perspective curiosity and perspective defensiveness may predict different patterns of online behaviors. The present study uses a trait measure of Mind-Reading Motivation to assess the relationship of these tendencies with different categories of behaviors on Facebook. Results revealed that certain aspects of Facebook behavior (direct interactions with others over Facebook; Facebook as Real-life Supplement) were associated with approach motivation, a willingness to seek out others’ perspectives, while other aspects of Facebook behavior (Facebook-only Relationships; romantic relationship-seeking) were associated with a tendency to effortfully avoid others’ perspectives. Furthermore, openness to experience, but not extraversion, predicts Facebook behaviors above and beyond the effect of MRM.