Research on impressions and social interactions has predominately examined perceptions of artificial stimuli or those made by convenience samples of undergraduates. In the present work, we introduce and validate a new experimental method, the Computer-Mediated Online Round Robin (CMORR), with the aim of providing researchers a tool to extend the study of interpersonal phenomena to more diverse populations. We describe the method and provide guidance for future CMORR studies. We collected CMORR data from an undergraduate sample (N = 171), and compared the structure and accuracy of impressions of Big Five personality trait to two in-person studies; one with group interactions (N = 225), one with dyadic interactions (N = 511), and meta-analytic estimates from the literature. The results showed a general correspondence between impressions formed in online interactions and in in-person contexts. The findings support using CMORR to study general questions about impressions and social interactions.
AntheunisM. L.SchoutenA. P.WaltherJ. B. (2020). The hyperpersonal effect in online dating: Effects of text-based CMC vs. videoconferencing before meeting face-to-face. Media Psychology, 23(6), 820–839.
2.
AschS. E. (1946). Forming impressions of personality. The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 41(3), 258–290. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0055756
3.
AsendorpfJ. B.PenkeL.BackM. D. (2011). From dating to mating and relating: Predictors of initial and long–term outcomes of speed–dating in a community sample. European Journal of Personality, 25(1), 16–30.
4.
BackM. D.PenkeL.SchmukleS. C.AsendorpfJ. B. (2011). Knowing your own mate value: Sex-specific personality effects on the accuracy of expected mate choices. Psychological Science, 22(8), 984–989.
5.
BackM. D.PenkeL.SchmukleS. C.SachseK.BorkenauP.AsendorpfJ. B. (2011). Why mate choices are not as reciprocal as we assume: The role of personality, flirting and physical attractiveness. European Journal of Personality, 25(2), 120–132.
6.
BiesanzJ. C. (2010). The social accuracy model of interpersonal perception: Assessing individual differences in perceptive and expressive accuracy. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 45(5), 853–885.
7.
BorkenauP.LieblerA. (1992). Trait inferences: Sources of validity at zero acquaintance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 62(4), 645–657. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.62.4.645
8.
BrodskyA.LeeM. J.LeonardB. (2022). Discovering new frontiers for dyadic and team interaction studies: Current challenges and an open-source solution—SurvConf—for increasing the quantity and richness of interactional data. Academy of Management Discoveries, 8(3), 337–340. https://doi.org/10.5465/amd.2021.0257
9.
ChmielewskiM.KuckerS. C. (2020). An MTurk crisis? Shifts in data quality and the impact on study results. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 11(4), 464–473.
10.
CohenJ.CohenP. (1983). Applied multiple regression/correlation analysis for the behavioral sciences. Erlbaum.
11.
ConnellyB. S.OnesD. S. (2010). An other perspective on personality: Meta-analytic integration of observers’ accuracy and predictive validity. Psychological Bulletin, 136(6), 1092–1122. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0021212
12.
DesJardinsN. M. L.SrivastavaS.KüfnerA. C.BackM. D. (2015). Who attains status? Similarities and differences across social contexts. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 6(6), 692–700.
13.
FiskeS. T.TaylorS. E. (1991). Social cognition. McGraw-Hill Book Company.
FunderD. C.DobrothK. M. (1987). Differences between traits: Properties associated with interjudge agreement. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52(2), 409–418. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.52.2.409
16.
GoslingS. D.GaddisS.VazireS. (2008). First impressions based on the environments we create and inhabit. In AmbadyN.SkowronskiJ. J. (Eds.), First impressions (pp. 334–356). Guilford Press.
17.
GoslingS. D.VazireS.SrivastavaS.JohnO. P. (2004). Should we trust web-based studies? A comparative analysis of six preconceptions about internet questionnaires. American Psychologist, 59(2), 93–104. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.59.2.93
HumanL. J.BiesanzJ. C. (2011). Through the looking glass clearly: Accuracy and assumed similarity in well-adjusted individuals’ first impressions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 100(2), 349–364. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0021850
20.
JohnO. P.SrivastavaS. (1999). The Big-Five trait taxonomy: History, measurement, and theoretical perspectives. In PervinL. A.JohnO. P. (Eds.), Handbook of personality: Theory and research (Vol. 2, pp. 102–138). Guilford Press.
21.
KennyD. A. (1994). Interpersonal perception: A social relations analysis. Guilford Press.
22.
KennyD. A. (2004). PERSON: A general model of interpersonal perception. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 8(3), 265–280.
23.
KennyD. A. (2019). Interpersonal perception: The foundation of social relationships. Guilford Publications.
24.
KennyD. A.GomesS. B.KowalC. (2015). The Intergroup Social Relations Model: ISRM. Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, and Practice, 19(3), 152–165.
25.
KennyD. A.La VoieL. (1984). The social relations model. In BerkowitzL. (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 18, pp. 141–182). Academic Press.
LiaoW.BazarovaN. M.YuanY. C. (2018). Unpacking medium effects on social psychological processes in computer-mediated communication using the Social Relations Model. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 23, 90–106.
MignaultM. C.HeymanJ. L.BiesanzJ. C.HumanL. J. (2022). On being and feeling transparent: Examining expressive accuracy awareness in first impressions of personality and links to well-being. Journal of Research in Personality, 96, 104185. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2021.104185
MohrC. D. (1997). Stereotypes, communication context, and accuracy in impression formation [Master’s thesis]. University of Connecticut.
32.
MolnarA. (2019). SMARTRIQS: A simple method allowing real-time respondent interaction in Qualtrics surveys. Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, 22, 161–169. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbef.2019.03.005
33.
MousaS. (2020). Building social cohesion between Christians and Muslims through soccer in post-ISIS Iraq. Science, 369(6505), 866–870.
34.
PreacherK. J. (2002, May). Calculation for the test of the difference between two independent correlation coefficients [Computer software]. http://quantpsy.org
35.
RauR.CarlsonE. N.BackM. D.BarrantiM.GebauerJ. E.HumanL. J.LeisingD.NestlerS. (2021). What is the structure of perceiver effects? On the importance of global positivity and trait-specificity across personality domains and judgment contexts. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 120(3), 745–764.
36.
R Core Team. (2023). R: A language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing. https://www.R-project.org/
37.
Salazar KämpfM.LiebermannH.KerschreiterR.KrauseS.NestlerS.SchmukleS. C. (2018). Disentangling the sources of mimicry: Social relations analyses of the link between mimicry and liking. Psychological Science, 29(1), 131–138. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797617727121
38.
SassenbergK.DitrichL. (2019). Research in social psychology changed between 2011 and 2016: Larger sample sizes, more self-report measures, and more online studies. Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science, 2(2), 107–114.
39.
ScaccoA.WarrenS. S. (2018). Can social contact reduce prejudice and discrimination? Evidence from a field experiment in Nigeria. American Political Science Review, 112(3), 654–677.
40.
SchloerkeB.CookD.LarmarangeJ.BriatteF.MarbachM.ThoenE.ElbergA.CrowleyJ. (2024). GGally: Extension to “ggplot2.” (R Package Version 2.2.1). https://github.com/ggobi/ggally
41.
SchönbrodtF. D.BackM. D.SchmukleS. C. (2012). TripleR: An R package for social relations analyses based on round-robin designs. Behavior Research Methods, 44, 455–470. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-011-0150-4
42.
SchönbrodtF. D.BackM. D.SchmukleS. C. (2016). TripleR: Social Relation Model (SRM) analyses for single or multiple groups (R Package Version 1.5.3). http://cran.r-project.org/package=TripleR
43.
SotoC. J.JohnO. P. (2017). Short and extra-short forms of the Big Five Inventory–2: The BFI-2-S and BFI-2-XS. Journal of Research in Personality, 68, 69–81. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2017.02.004
TisseraH.MignaultM.-C.HumanL. J. (2023). “Zooming” in on positive and accurate metaperceptions in first impressions: Examining the links with social anxiety and liking in online video interactions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 125(4), 852–873. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000457
VazireS. (2010). Who knows what about a person? The self–other knowledge asymmetry (SOKA) model. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 98(2), 281–300.
