Why Gender Matters in CMC? Supporting Remote Trust and Performance in Diverse Gender Composition Groups Via IM

Abstract

Abstract. An important yet largely unexplored area in HCI is how gender affects trust development and performance in virtual settings. This proposed study aims to investigate whether providing social chat activities to collaborators in a social dilemma game before they collaborate via remote text chat can support trust development and performance among remote team members. This study will provide an understanding of how communication media as well as initial social activities affect male, female and mixed gender pairs' trust development and performance in a virtual environment from a simulated longitudinal perspective. Ultimately, the results of this study may provide insights into ways of improving performance of teams made up of diverse individuals in real world virtual collaborations.