How communication context impacts judgments of a potential peer mentor

Abstract

Disclosure is a critical element of interpersonal relationships and individuals are often evaluated on what they share with others, whether in personal, professional, or learning contexts. Technology now allows for many different outlets for communicating with other people. We used experimental methods to explore the impact of communication medium (i.e. print diary, online diary, blog, or email) on psychosocial perceptions of a potential peer mentor. Female participants gave more positive mentor ratings on likeability, likeliness to disclose to the mentor, and perceived closeness than did males, but not on judgments of the mentor’s privacy. Participants judged the mentor to be more private when they viewed the print diary than in the online conditions and when reading the online diary than the blog (the least private condition). We also found that women were more likely to reciprocate disclosure when they viewed disclosures in the print condition than in the blog.

Keywords:

• Disclosure
• online communication
• peer mentor
• judgments
• gender
• privacy

Acknowledgment

We would like to thank Karin Archer for her technical assistance, and Susan Fridlyand, Nicole McAlary, and Sarah Breckenridge who volunteered their research skills for this study.