This study focuses on the formation of bullied individuals’ friendships and romantic relationships. Individuals bullied in their past may be more likely to form connections with those who share similar oppressive experiences. Thus, we investigated the possibility that implicit homophily underlies the formation of interpersonal relationships amongst previously bullied individuals. Moreover, we investigated whether these individuals were aware of their friends’ and romantic partners’ similarly oppressive experiences prior to initiating the relationship. Our findings suggest that the young adults in our sample bullied in grade school are significantly more likely to have a close friend and or significant other who also experienced bullying. The findings of this study contribute to the relatively small, yet growing, body of research on implicit homophily, add to research extending homophily processes to bullies and victims, and are in line with research suggesting that deselection (a form of induced homophily) can coexist with homophily by personal preference.
Online social networks are increasingly consequential in individuals’ professional and personal lives, as many people engage online to create and maintain meaningful relationships and satisfy their needs for social connection. People tend to curate their online representations (profile pictures for different websites, videogame avatars, bitmojis, profile page bios, etc.) with almost as much regularity as their corporeal (real-world) self-presentation. As such, the current study explored the socially utilitarian choices people make when presenting themselves in both the corporeal and virtual public spheres. Participants completed a questionnaire assessing various aspects of their self-presentation and behavior in real-life, social media, and online videogames. We found several differences in self-presentation strategies in both online and offline contexts based primarily on ethnoracial background, sex, and skin tone. Minority women (particularly Multiracial women) reported dyeing their hair significantly more than White women, and the overwhelming majority reported dyeing their hair a lighter color than their natural hair color. Women use more emojis and exclamation points in emails and digital interactions than men, and they are more likely to use skin lightening filters before posting a selfie on social media. In addition, we found a descriptive pattern indicating that straight women and bisexual women dating men use more filters than lesbians and bisexual women dating women. Finally, in online videogames, men who are below average height reported creating videogame avatars that were taller than they were, individuals with darker skin tones reported creating avatars with skin tones lighter than their own, and introverts reported that they pretend to be extroverted in videogames more than extroverts reported pretending to be introverted. This study highlights the importance of online self-presentation on people’s social lives and the strategies that people utilize to align how they believe they are socially perceived with a more idealized version of themselves, or a version of themselves that will confer greater social capital than what they believe they naturally embody. Given the increasing possibilities of identity customization in the virtual public sphere, further research is needed to fully understand the complex relationship between online and offline self-presentation.
Despite the gradual social evolution towards gender egalitarianism since the middle of the 20th century, gendered courtship and dating scripts, including chivalry, have remained representative of heterosexual courtship. At the same time, marriage equality and equal rights for the LGBTQIA+ community presents an opportunity to study genderless manifestations of chivalry and “apply the lessons from LGBTQ dating and relationships to heterosexual couples” (Lamont, 2021). In this study, we investigated chivalry expectations across sexual orientation, and among interorientation couples (heterosexual-bisexual and lesbian/gay-bisexual). We found that chivalry expectations were highest for anyone dating a male, expectations were lower for bisexual men than for heterosexual men, and chivalry expectations were generally lower for those in interorientation relationships than those in relationships with someone of the same sexual orientation. Overall, bisexuals have the most egalitarian chivalry expectations, suggesting that it is possible for courtship expectations to be equal regardless of sex.
No abstract
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.