Review of Literature

Questions of how we deal with the sexless face of the internet emerged not long after the internet came into popular use. It rapidly became apparent that the new media had the potential to create a good deal of confusion. Bruckman (1993) points out that the initial reaction to encountering an individual whose sex could not readily be identified was to create a sense of unease. Herring (1993) posited that this lack of readily identifiable cues should be a common condition on the internet.

[Computer mediated communication] neutralizes social status cues (accent, handwriting/voice quality, sex, appearance, etc.) that might otherwise be transmitted by the form of the message.

Over the course of her study of two different message boards, however, she found that this assertion was not supported, but instead that often the sex of the author of a message could be determined through an examination of the language strategies employed.

Dickel (1995) did a study of players of text based online games known as Multiple User Dungeons, or MUDs. In these games players participate with numerous other players worldwide through typing out their actions in real time, giving descriptive language to substitute for the absent visual and audio clues we rely on in face to face communications. In her study regarding the behaviors of presenting gender she points out an interesting and important point.

The available text about a character has been constructed around that character by a player. The player consciously emulates her or his own perception of a particular gender (Dickel, 1995).

Dickel goes on to cite such emulations as including the ways in which the player describes the character’s physical appearance, the speech and behavior choices the player has the character engage in, and even the decorations the character uses when decorating settings for play to take place in.

Hills (2000) had a great deal to say about the communication of sex online, both in its presentation by those who actually possess that sex in real life and by those who are falsely presenting a sex they do not in fact possess. She points out that an understanding of the ways in which sex is communicated could possibly be used in order to determine if someone is presenting falsely. Included amongst these behaviors she cites differences in the use of intensive adverbs, references to emotions, use of modals and tag questions, and the frequency of complementary language. All of these are listed as being far more common amongst female users online than male. Additionally, females typically provide more personal information, are self-derogatory and apologetic, and use intensive adverbs heavily.

On the other hand, males, Hills continues, are more frequent users of references to quantity, more likely to provide opinions and justifiers, typically use aggressive verbiage or judgmental phrases, tend toward the use of informal language, and use rhetorical questions. Additionally, they use insults and insulting language far more frequently.

Further, in her study, Hills discovered that those attempting to present sex falsely had a strong tendency to use sex specific topics heavily to affirm their assumed sex identity. In discussing her analysis of e-mail messages sent between her test subjects, half of which were presenting sex falsely (experimental group) and half of which were presenting sex truthfully (control group) she made several discoveries.

Males in the control condition mentioned typical male topics more than females. In the experimental group, however, females mentioned male typical topics more than males. Similarly, females in the control condition mentioned typically female topics more than males, while this reversed in the experimental group. In short, when presenting gender falsely, gender typical topics were eschewed in favor of topics typical to the falsely presented gender in an effort to be more convincing in the deception.

While conducting her study she discovered, however, that this very tendency to over-emphasis these sex-typical topics actually resulted in a sense of disbelief on the part of those on the receiving end of these messages. By the excessive use of these topics, the opposite result of what was desired was achieved. Males trying to present female through heavy use of female-typical topics actually gave themselves away as presenting falsely.

Additionally, it was noted that when presenting falsely, the individuals she studied continued to use the linguistic behaviors of their own sex heavily. For example, males presenting female still tended to use strong qualitative language and present opinions as being incontrovertible fact, while women presenting male continued to be apologetic, and gave out substantially more personal info than real males.

These factors combined to result in 69% of females and 91% of males presenting falsely still being correctly identified by their actual sex. The lack of an understanding of the sex-typical language use, combined with an excessive zeal for sex-typical topics resulted in most false-presenters giving themselves away.

Herring and Martinson (2004) further reinforce Hills’ conclusion about the behavior of false presenters in their study regarding gender authenticity online. In analyzing the topics typically picked for discussion amongst those presenting sex falsely as well as their language use, the presenters “produce stereotypical content when attempting to pass as the opposite gender, as well as persisting in giving off stylistic cues at the word and sentence levels to their real life gender.”

Further, they added to Hill’s list of typical behaviors. They pointed out that individuals presenting as female regardless of actual sex who displayed an overt sexuality were typically believed to be males presenting falsely, while women who were presenting male and who aggressively pursued females effectively did fool those they interacted with. Additionally, males were noted by Hill to write longer e-mails than females in spite of a wide held belief amongst computer users that females were the more “talkative” users.

However, a discrepancy arises between the results found by Hill and the results found by Herring and Martinson. While Hill found that the majority of false presenters were correctly identified by those interacting with them in her study, Herring and Martinson’s study found that most of those presenting falsely were successful. One key difference between the two studies may be the length of interaction involved. Hill’s subjects interacted over the course of two weeks in a series of e-mails, while Herring and Martinson’s research subjects dealt with single incident contacts.

Further studies examining the sex-typical behaviors and language use (Savicki, Lingenfelter, & Kelley, 2006); Witmer & Katzman, 2006) continue to reinforce these language and behavioral give-aways.