projection of one's own personality to perceived personality of a likeable stranger in instant messenger communication in the czech republic and people's republic of china
When people meet a stranger, they make some first impression about his or her personality. This first impression may have a lot of errors, especially on the Internet, where people are not able to see cues, which can help them to judge strangers. This paper examines tendency of people to assume personality of likeable stranger as similar to their own personality in Windows Live Messenger communication. In the first study with Czech sample, we found, that likeability of communication partner in instant messenger communication correlates with similarity between personality of perceiver and personality of this communication partner judged by perceiver in three Big Five dimensions: Extraversion, Agreeableness and Openness to Experience. Likeability of partner correlates also with decision about his or her personality in all Big Five dimensions: Likeable partner is perceived as less neurotic and more extraverted, agreeable, conscientious and open to experience in IM communication. However, we didn't find correlation between likeability for partner in IM communication and tendency to perceive him or her as similar person in Big Five personality dimensions in the study 2 with sample from People's Republic of China. It seems, that tendency of perceiver to perceive likeable communication partner as similar to himself or herself is typical only for western cultures.
instant messenger communication first impression big five personality perception perception errors cross-cultural research