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Social Information Processing Theory and Hyperpersonal Perspective

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Social Information Processing Theory and
Hyperpersonal Perspective
ERIN M. SUMNER
Trinity University, USA

ARTEMIO RAMIREZ JR.

University of South Florida, USA

Social information processing (SIP) theory (Walther, 1992) is one of the most heuristic
and well-studied theories of computer-mediated communication (CMC). During the
period in which it was first developed, scholars were struggling to account for the ways
in which the recent developments in communication technology, such as email, might
alter traditional notions of how people exchange information and establish relation-
ships. The basic claims offered by SIP theory have been tested and supported in a variety
of CMC contexts as communication technologies have exponentially proliferated and
diversified.

Historical context

During the early days of research, scholars were struggling to fully conceptualize the
phenomenon of CMC and the various ways in which it might affect human interac-
tion. Similarly to mass media such as newspapers, magazines, and to a lesser extent
the radio, CMC lacked many of the nonverbal signals and social cues that people use
when communicating face to face. That said, CMC often occurred from person to per-
son, as opposed to the one-to-many style of broadcasting that characterized most mass
media communication. As a result, email and other forms of CMC seemed to blend
the characteristics of interpersonal communication and mass media communication,
necessitating theoretical perspectives that account for both.
One set of theories, collectively labeled the cues filtered out (CFO) approach
(Culnan & Markus, 1987), asserted that the text-based nature of CMC led nonverbal
and social cues (e.g., eye contact, gestures, vocal inflection) to be essentially filtered out,
resulting in impersonal online interactions. For example, social presence theory (Short,
Williams, & Christie, 1976), which was developed in relation to telecommunications,
posited that various media differ in their social presence, or the extent to which
communicators seem as though they are engaged in face-to-face interaction. Within
the lack of social context cues hypothesis, Sproull and Kiesler (1986) also claimed that
CMC lacked the nonverbal and contextual social norm cues present within face-to-face

The International Encyclopedia of Media Effects.

Patrick Rössler (Editor-in-Chief), Cynthia A. Hoffner, and Liesbet van Zoonen (Associate Editors).
© 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
DOI: 10.1002/9781118783764.wbieme0090
2 SO C I A L IN F O R M AT I O N PR O C E S S I N G TH E O R Y

interaction. Media richness theory (Daft & Lengel, 1984) made similar claims by noting
that media can be ranked on their degree of communicator immediacy and channel
bandwidth (i.e., the number of verbal and nonverbal cues that are supported by the
channel or system) and that communication needs are best met when communicators
match the channel richness to the nature and complexity of the message. As a whole,
these lines of research characterized the CFO approach, which portrayed face-to-face
interaction as being the richest form of communication with the most social presence
because it provides access to a full array of verbal, nonverbal, and contextual cues. All
other communication media were described based on their degree of leanness, or the
extent to which the channel reduces social presence by striping users’ ability to use
nonverbal and contextual cues (Daft & Lengel, 1984; Trevino, Lengel, & Daft, 1987).
As a whole, the CFO approach implied that the lack of nonverbal cues would make
CMC adequate for exchanging information of an impersonal or task-based nature
yet inadequate for communication of a personal or emotional nature. Unfortunately,
this viewpoint rested on the incorrect assumption that human beings are incapable
of adjusting to their environment. In this case, the CFO perspective’s claims were of
a deterministic nature because the communicators were placed as secondary to the
channel characteristics when attempting to determine the potential uses of a channel.
Moreover, the assumption that more cues are always better than fewer cues need not
hold true in all circumstances. In line with these critiques, scholarly and anecdotal
evidence began to portray a picture that diverged from CFO predictions; individuals
were using CMC to exchange personal and emotional communication, and seemed to
enjoy doing so.

Social information processing theory

Social information processing theory (Walther, 1992) offered a testable set of theoretical
mechanisms regarding how and why individuals are able to engage in personal commu-
nication in so-call lean online environments. Walther, an interpersonal communication
scholar, developed SIP theory under the assumption that nonverbal communication is
more complex than the CFO approach suggested. Walther argued that nonverbal com-
munication cues are generally perceived as a whole, and the absence of one or more
cues need not spell doom for communicators. Human beings are social by nature, and,
regardless of medium, CMC users are motivated to engage in the same relational behav-
iors that are prevalent in face-to-face interaction. As such, Walther predicted that users
could find other ways to communicate the meaning that was often conceptualized as
being of a nonverbal nature.
Walther (1992) discussed the relational nature of CMC and reviewed extant research
to derive a set of theoretical assumptions and propositions that became the basis
of SIP theory. In this article, Walther noted inconsistencies in the growing body of
research regarding online communication; one-shot experimental studies indicated
that online communication was less personal than face-to-face interaction, yet studies
with more naturalistic designs indicated that online community members were
forming real friendships. Walther claimed that these inconsistencies might be the
 SO C I A L IN F O R M AT I O N PR O C E S S I N G TH E O R Y 3

result of methodological design. For example, participants in the experimental studies

only interacted for a short time whereas participants in the field studies reported
on naturally occurring relationships that emerged over longer time periods. These
methodological distinctions led Walther (1992) to claim that “the quality of fixed,
impersonal relational communication qualities in CMC may be strictly bounded to
initial interaction conditions among previously unacquainted partners and that these
effects should dissipate over time” (p. 54).
Walther (1992) also raised concerns regarding the conceptualization of nonverbal
communication cues within much CMC research. Research using the CFO perspective
claimed that CMC channels were leaner due to a lack of nonverbal cues yet did
not actually analyze the way that nonverbal cues were being used in face-to-face
communication. Walter used interpersonal communication principles to point out that
nonverbal cues are only valuable to the extent that they fulfill communicative functions
by working in combination to convey subtle meaning. Face-to-face communication
provides a wealth of nonverbal cues all at once, which gives communicators more
subtle messages from which to form impressions. In contrast, CMC provides fewer
cues but can fulfill the same relational functions as face-to-face communication as long
as users find ways to use any accessible cues in an advantageous manner. This argument
was not entirely new, since the telephone strips individuals of the ability to be seen, yet
people had long accepted the fact that vocal inflection could be used to convey personal
and emotional messages in a manner similar to face-to-face interaction. According
to the SIP theory, the same logic should apply to text-based communication; users
will find ways to mitigate the structural limitations of a channel to send messages that
convey the desired level of both informational and emotional content. For example,
a person might interpret that their face-to-face partner is excited because he or she
is telling a story with a huge smile, and while speaking with a higher pitch and at
a faster rate than normal. A CMC user might be able to convey their excitement in
different ways, such as by using many exclamation points, capitalization, bold font,
or even through direct verbal communication such as beginning their story with an
exclamation such as “I’m SO excited!” If the overall communicative function of the
nonverbal cues was to convey an emotion, the CMC example should be interpreted as
being equally successful as the face-to-face example.
Unlike other approaches that present a channel’s structural affordances (i.e., richness
or leanness) as deterministic of relational communication outcomes, SIP theory focuses
on characteristics of the more general communication climate, such as questions of
time. The theory explains that the leanness of online channels is mostly important to
the extent that it slows down the rate of communication (Walther, 1992). In this vein,
Walther (1992) outlined the following theoretical assumptions of SIP theory:

1) Humans affiliate. They use communication to affect the ways they affiliate, and these messages
constitute relational communication; 2) The development of an interpersonal impression of another
person is based on the information one gets via nonverbal or verbal-textual channels over the course
of several interactions; 3) Developmental change in relational communication will depend on form-
ing an interpersonal impression of another interactant; 4) Relational messages are transmitted (i.e.,
encoded and decoded) by nonverbal or verbal, linguistic, and textual manipulations; and 5) In
computer-mediated communication (CMC), messages take longer to process than do those sent
face-to-face. (p. 69)
4 SO C I A L IN F O R M AT I O N PR O C E S S I N G TH E O R Y

While face-to-face communicators can efficiently convey a wealth of verbal and non-
verbal information all at once, online communicators must take extra time to think
through and type out messages that reflect the complex task and interpersonal informa-
tion they wish to communicate. Each individual act of mediated communication might
convey less social information than each act of face-to-face communication, yet, in the
real world (i.e., outside a short-term experiment), mediated communicators have the
ability to send as many messages as is necessary. Importantly, SIP theory posits that, in
many situations, mediated communicators can, and will, successfully adapt their com-
munication to convey the meaning that is typically seen in nonverbal communication
in person.
The five assumptions of SIP theory were built upon by Walther (1992) to articulate
six testable theoretical propositions, which can be summarized as follows:

1. Online communicators take longer to exchange messages.

2. Online communication takes longer to facilitate personalized relational communi-
cation.
3. The presence and tone of relational communication depends on the number of mes-
sages exchanged.
4. The nature of relational communication differs between initial interactions and
later interactions.
5. The changes in relational communication take longer to develop via CMC than via
face-to-face interaction.
6. During later periods of interaction, CMC and face-to-face communication are of
similar relational tone, assuming communicators have had ample time to exchange
messages and form impressions.

In sum, according to SIP theory, the relational outcomes of CMC are not determined by
the channel itself but rather are contingent upon the user, context, and timing in which
the interactions occur. The theory acknowledges that online interaction might end up
being relatively impersonal when previously unknown users possess little time to com-
municate and have no intention of interacting again in the future. However, users who
are given a longer interaction time and ample motivation will find ways to overcome the
leanness of online interaction to accomplish similar levels of personal communication
as are evident in face-to-face settings.
Walther’s (1992) claims regarding SIP theory began to receive more support as
subsequent research continued to document the prevalence of mediated relationship
formation (e.g., Parks & Floyd, 1996; Reid, 1995) and disconfirmed the predictions
of CFO perspectives (e.g., Kinney & Dennis, 1994; Weisband, 1994). Direct tests of
SIP theory were also largely supportive of Walther’s (1992) propositions, yet with a
couple of noticeable divergent trends. First, as seen in Walther and Burgoon’s (1992)
data concerning longitudinal CMC and face-to-face groups, longitudinal CMC groups
seemed to develop relational markers more quickly than predicted. This observation
led the authors to concludes that, when CMC interactants possess the anticipation of
future interaction, they are motivated to act in a more friendly manner and exchange
more relational information than they might do if they thought they would never
 SO C I A L IN F O R M AT I O N PR O C E S S I N G TH E O R Y 5

communicate with each other again. The importance of anticipated future interaction
was confirmed by Walther’s (1994) experiment in which half of the groups were told
they would engage in three separate tasks with the same randomly assigned partner and
the other half were told that they would engage in three tasks with different partners.
This manipulation of anticipated future interaction provoked greater differences
between CMC groups than it did between face-to-face groups, leading Walther to
conclude that mediated communicators might be less likely to engage in large amounts
of personal communication at first because doing so will take extra time, and they are
not motivated to spend that time if they do not think they will interact again.
A second noteworthy finding from the initial tests of SIP theory deals with the the-
ory’s prediction that, over time, mediated relationships would come to be equally devel-
oped as their counterparts engaged in in-person interaction. Initial tests supported the
notion that CMC groups would become increasingly personal with their communi-
cation as they communicated for longer time periods and exchanged more messages
(Walther, 1993). That said, a surprising trend developed in which, over time, CMC
partners actually reported greater levels of relational development than did face-to-face
partners (Walther & Burgoon, 1992). While unexpected, the finding the CMC groups
might actually be more personal than face-to-face groups led to an important and influ-
ential theoretical development: the hyperpersonal perspective.

The hyperpersonal perspective

The hyperpersonal perspective (Walther, 1996) is an extension of SIP theory that was
developed to explain why some CMC users actually display greater levels of personal
communication compared to face-to-face communicators. Walther (1996) noted that
CMC places important constraints on the transfer of messages as conceived by tradi-
tional communication models, particularly in regard to channel, sender, receiver, and
feedback effects.
In regard to channel effects, CMC typically occurs in a reduced cue environment,
which might range from relatively lean text-based channels to relatively rich channels
such as videoconferencing. Rather than framing this as a limitation, the hyperpersonal
perspective points out that CMC users possess increased abilities to find a goodness
of fit by selecting the channel that best fits their unique communicative needs. Like-
wise, CMC channels often possess characteristics such as asynchronicity, editability, and
anonymity. Asynchronicity refers to CMC channels in which communication occurs
with a time lag between messages. Due to increased anonymity, communicators can
use this time lag and the presence of a delete button to carefully craft and edit messages
that reflect their desired impressions. For example, individuals might find it difficult
to control their nonverbal displays in person and might be forced to react before they
have had time to process a situation. The slower rate of CMC provides additional time to
think through the potential interpretation of messages and to play around with various
forms of phrasing before hitting the send button.
In combination with channel effects, sender effects lead CMC users to select and
exploit channels to selectively present themselves in ways that uphold their desired
6 SO C I A L IN F O R M AT I O N PR O C E S S I N G TH E O R Y

impressions and achieve their specific interactional goals (Walther, 1996). Indeed,
CMC users have more freedom to choose which aspects of their selves they wish to
disclose, and this strategic self-presentation is actually a benefit of the reduced social
cue environment.
As a result of this selective self-presentation, CMC partners often receive overly
positive information regarding their partners, and, given a lack of contradictory
negative information, are prone to make additional positive generalizations about
each other and their level of (dyadic) similarity. The propensity to form idealized
impressions is thus labeled a receiver effect, which draws heavily upon the claim of
the social identity of deindividuation effects model (known as the SIDE model; Lea
& Spears, 1991) that CMC provides relatively little social information about senders,
which forces receivers to overgeneralize based on relatively little information (i.e., the
tendency to assume great depth of impressions—whether positive or negative—despite
relatively little breadth of knowledge).
Finally, feedback loops occur in which partners essentially engage in a form of self-
fulfilling prophecy by reciprocating and embodying the often idealized impressions
bestowed on each other. As a result, the channel, sender, receiver, and feedback loop
effects all work in conjunction, with each part affecting every other part. Taken as a
whole, the hyperpersonal perspective explains that these four characteristics of CMC
can allow users to form overly positive or hyperpersonal interpersonal perceptions that
are actually more developed and more personal than is likely to occur in face-to-face
environments.

Current research and future directions

Social information processing theory and the hyperpersonal perspective have been
widely applied to explain the many research findings indicative of CMC partners
forming interpersonal or even hyperpersonal relationships. Much of this research cites
SIP theory and the hyperpersonal perspective as potential explanations for results
pertaining to the formation of online relationships and deals with isolated components
such as timing, the presence or absence of cues, and various sender, receiver, and
channel effects at work in various communicative contexts. For example, in support of
the hyperpersonal perspective’s claims that individuals can take advantage of low-cue
environments, Tidwell and Walther (2002) found that, within unknown dyads, online
partners engage in greater levels of self-disclosure than do face-to-face partners, and
Walther (2007) found that individuals who engaged in more editing behavior via CMC
were rated as more desirable by their partner.
The study of online dating has supported aspects of the hyperpersonal model. For
example, in regard to sender processes, online daters have been found to engage in
selective self-presentation by carefully considering what aspects to reveal on their
profiles (Gibbs, Ellison, & Heino, 2006) as well as by engaging in relatively small yet
nonetheless dishonest mispresentations of basic information such as their height or
weight aimed at creating positive impressions (Toma & Hancock, 2011). Likewise, on
the receiver side of the model, Ellison, Heino, and Gibb’s (2006) study suggests that
online daters attempt to reduce uncertainty by paying attention to the smallest of cues,
 SO C I A L IN F O R M AT I O N PR O C E S S I N G TH E O R Y 7

and they use these to make large-scale generalizations about the other person. Ramirez
et al. (2015) found a curvilinear trend between online daters’ relational impressions
and time of online communication before meeting in person. Interestingly, the
authors concluded that, while idealization mechanisms benefit receivers’ impressions
during the short term, these same mechanisms might lead individuals to develop
unrealistically positive views about the other person and their potential similarity as a
couple. As a result, idealization might set communicators up for failure when they do
not live up to the positive impressions they crafted via CMC.
Other research has investigated the link between self-disclosure and the development
of increased intimacy as specified by SIP theory and the hyperpersonal model. Jiang,
Bazarova, and Hancock (2011) examined the extent to which the attribution process
employed by communicators to understand self-disclosures varied as a result of inter-
acting via text-based CMC or face to face. Their findings showed CMC intensified
the link between self-disclosure and intimacy relative to face-to-face interaction. The
effect, however, was indirect and mediated by interpersonal attributions for users of
CMC. That is, the effect followed a path of self-disclosure to attributions to intimacy.
Similarly, Walther and colleagues (2011) assessed the role of the hyperpersonal per-
spective’s feedback loop in the process of identity shift. The authors argued that the
perspective suggests a process by which CMC alters communicator perceptions of mes-
sages and themselves through feedback. In order to investigate the claim, the authors
tested how feedback about a personality characteristic influenced subsequent partic-
ipant self-perceptions about the trait. Their findings suggest communicators modify
their self-perceptions as a result of feedback provided in CMC settings.
Although SIP theory and the hyperpersonal perspective’s claims are well supported
by research that uses a similar text-based CMC to face-to-face comparison model, the
extent to which they apply to multimodal communication remains less clear. In light
of an increasingly diverse array of communication options, many online interactants
now use text, audio, and even video communication in an often progressive and some-
times simultaneous manner. For example, two individuals who meet in an online chat
room might begin to use instant messages, become friends on a social network site such
as Facebook, and perhaps even make phone calls and/or use video chat systems (e.g.,
Facetime, Skype). Each of these channels provides different access to various nonverbal
cues, which might speed up the rate at which CMC communicators are able to share
relational information and develop relationships.
One pertinent line of research focuses on the extent to which the development of
impressions and intimacy in online relationships might be sped up by increasing the
bandwidth of the channel to provide multimodal media cues. With the exponential
advances in mediated technology, it has become increasingly common for individuals
to interact in online environments that include multimodal options (e.g., audio clips,
photographs, visual clips) that were previously conceptualized as unique to face-to-face
interaction. Westerman et al. (2008) argued that the addition of multimodal informa-
tion might still be fruitfully examined using SIP theory as long as researchers acknowl-
edge that different media with varying levels of bandwidth might affect the amount of
information that can be conveyed at once. For example, a single video message could
transmit more information and speed up the development of social impressions more
8 SO C I A L IN F O R M AT I O N PR O C E S S I N G TH E O R Y

quickly than a single text message. Future research should build on Westerman et al.’s
(2008) notion of faster media and slower media by continuing to examine how SIP the-
ory and the hyperpersonal perspective might apply in light of an increasingly diverse
media environment in which communicators can choose between relatively slower and
leaner channels such as text messaging, and relatively faster and richer channels that
might include audio and video content. Likewise, research could consider how scholars
could isolate the effects of various channels when examining relationships that are truly
multimodal and thus simultaneously formed and enacted using multiple channels.
Another topic that is deserving of future research is the extent to which the hyperper-
sonal perspective can actually help to explain situations in which CMC users come to
form extremely negative views of each other (i.e., hypernegative perceptions). Indeed,
the same mechanisms that produce hypersonal relationships can also facilitate exagger-
ated negative impressions and perceptions of others. According to the hyperpersonal
perspective, and in line with the SIDE model, CMC receivers will latch on to the lim-
ited cues at their disposal and make generalizations about the sender. In most situations
senders are inclined to exert effort to make sure that the cues they provide are positive,
and the channel and feedback loops that accompany the sender effects can help to cre-
ate idealized positive impressions. However, there are other situations in which negative
cues might make their way into a CMC environment, either by the sender’s intention
(e.g., trolling, flaming situations), by oversight on the sender’s part (e.g., not thinking
through a message), or by biases present within the receiver (e.g., something the sender
says triggers a bias that leads the receiver to decide that the sender is not likable or not
similar to their self). In these situations, given a lack of available cues, the receiver might
actually overgeneralize by assigning the sender unrealistically negative traits.

Limitations and critiques

It is important to note that SIP theory and the hyperpersonal perspective were designed
to explain the formulation and subsequent development of relationships initiated
via text-based CMC (e.g., Walther, 1993; Walther & Burgoon, 1992). Subsequent
research has supported the theory’s utility within this context. For example, Hancock
and Dunham (2001) found that CMC partners reported impressions of less breadth
yet greater intensity than did their face-to-face counterparts. Likewise, Ramirez and
colleagues have examined the notion of modality switching, in which CMC-based
partners switch modalities by meeting face to face (Ramirez et al., 2015; Ramirez &
Wang, 2008; Ramirez & Zhang, 2007). The authors found that CMC-based partners
who meet face to face actually display less positive relational outcomes than their
CMC counterparts who never meet in person. Partners engaged in long-term CMC
associations were particularly prone to experiencing negative effects after meeting
face to face, which adds significant support to the hyperpersonal perspective’s claim
that CMC partners establish idealized expectations that are difficult to uphold once
partners meet in person.
Another potential limitation of hyperpersonal communication research is that
researchers commonly focus on one or two aspects of the model in isolation (Walther
 SO C I A L IN F O R M AT I O N PR O C E S S I N G TH E O R Y 9

et al., 2011). Impressions, for example, are often studied by setting up experimental
groups based on the presence or absence of face-to-face communication, or the
timing of a modality switch (e.g., Hancock & Dunham, 2001; Ramirez & Wang, 2008;
Ramirez & Zhang, 2007). The depth, breadth, and valance of partner impressions are
typically assessed as outcomes. The presence of inflated impressions in CMC groups
adds substantial support to the hyperpersonal perspective’s claims regarding the pres-
ence of idealized partner impressions. That said, the actual mechanism through which
idealization is thought to occur during CMC still requires systematic examination.

SEE ALSO: Interactivity; Interpersonal Communication: Media Influence on; Modal-

ity and Medium Characteristics; Nonverbal Cues; Online Identity Construction; Social
Identity Model of Deindividuation Effects; Social Networking

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Further reading

Farrer, J., & Gavin, J. (2009). Online dating in Japan: A test of social information processing
theory. CyberPsychology & Behavior, 12, 407–412. doi: 10.1089/cpb.2009.0069
Postmes, T., Spears, R., & Lea, M. (1998). Breaching or building social boundaries? SIDE-
effects of computer-mediated communication. Communication Research, 25, 689–715. doi:
10.1177/009365098025006006
 SO C I A L IN F O R M AT I O N PR O C E S S I N G TH E O R Y 11

Ramirez, Jr., A., Zhang, S., McGrew, C., & Lin, S. (2007). Relational communication in computer-
mediated interaction revisited: A comparison of participant–observer perspectives. Commu-
nication Monographs, 74, 492–516. doi: 10.1080/03637750701716586
Walther, J. B. (2011). Theories of computer-mediated communication and interpersonal rela-
tions. In M. L. Knapp & J. A. Daly (Eds.), The handbook of interpersonal communication
(4th ed., pp. 443–479). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Walther, J. B., Van Der Heide, B., Ramirez, A., Jr., Burgoon, J. K., & Pena, J. (2015). Interpersonal
and hyperpersonal dimensions of computer-mediated communication. In S. S. Sundar (Ed.),
The handbook of psychology and communication technology (pp. 3–22). Chichester, UK: Wiley-
Blackwell.

Erin M. Sumner is an assistant professor of human communication and theater at

Trinity University, USA. Her research focuses on the role of computer-mediated com-
munication in social and personal relationships. She has served as a doctoral intern with
the Socio-Digital Systems group at Microsoft Research in Cambridge, UK. Dr. Sumner’s
work has appeared or is forthcoming in various edited books, as well as journals such as
Communication Methods and Measures, Communication Monographs, Communication
Reports, the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, the Journal of Social and
Personal Relationships, and New Media & Society.
Artemio Ramirez, Jr. is an associate professor in the Zimmerman School of Adver-
tising & Mass Communications at the University of South Florida, USA. His research
interests focus on the social aspects of computer-mediated interaction including multi-
modal communication, information-seeking behavior, and relational reconnection via
computer-mediated channels. Dr. Ramirez’s research has appeared in numerous outlets
including Communication Monographs, Human Communication Research, the Journal
of Communication, the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, the Journal of
Social and Personal Relationships, and New Media & Society. He also serves on numer-
ous editorial boards for national and international journals.

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