The Relations of Shyness With Aspects of Involvement in Online Relationships

Relationships that individuals develop using an online medium constitute a relatively new way of forming personal attachments with others. Researchers have only recently begun to explore online relational involvement and the personality characteristics that may draw individuals to use this medium for relationship development. While certain aspects have been proposed, including loneliness and social anxiety, to date only a few studies have explored these issues. The primary focus of this study involved correlating participants' shyness scores with identical aspects of online and face-to-face relational involvement in order to determine if there were differences in involvement for individuals described as more shy. Results indicated that correlations between shyness and aspects of involvement in online relationships were in the positive direction from aspects of involvement in face-to-face relationships. However, shyness was a not a significant predictor of online relational involvement (in the positive direction) based on stepwise regression analyses. Various other findings included the comparability of surveys measuring both face-to-face and online relational involvement and the relationship of gender with aspects of involvement in online relationships.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Education

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2015

Author dc:creator

• Ward, Christopher Corey

Contributors dc:contributor

• Terence J.G.Tracey

• Psychology, Personality

Language dc:language

eng

Identifier

(MiAaPQ)AAI3023228

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/79633