ON-LINE RELATIONAL MAINTENANCE STRATEGIES AND PERCEPTIONS OF PARTNERS WITHIN EXCLUSIVELY INTERNET-BASED AND PRIMARILY INTERNET-BASED RELATIONSHIPS

Communication Studies, Summer 2004 by Wright, Kevin B

Frequency of on-line interaction. Frequency of on-line interaction was measured by asking participants whether they communicated with their on-line partner on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.

RESULTS

The first research question asked about the relational maintenance strategies that are used most frequently by people in on-line relationships and whether people in exclusively Internet-based relationships use different maintenance strategies than people in primarily Internet-based relationships. Table One reports the frequencies of each type of maintenance strategy used by the participants. The results indicated that openness was the most frequently used type of on-line maintenance strategy for both EIB and FIB relationships, [chi]^sup 2^ (5) = 58.28, p .05, although a post hoc analysis revealed that for both EIB and PIB relationships there were significant differences in maintenance strategies based upon relationship type. People in on-line acquaintance relationships used openness more frequently than other strategies, [chi]^sup 2^ (5) = 15.33, p

The second research question was concerned with whether perceptions of on-line relational partners differ in terms of the type of on-line relational maintenance strategy participants used most frequently. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) procedures indicated that attitude similarity differed significantly by on-line relational maintenance strategy type, F (5,172) = 3.60, p .05), quality of communication (F (5, 172) = 1.01, p > .05), and relational communication (F (5, 172) = 1.47, p > .05) did not differ in terms of the type of on-line maintenance strategy used. However, participants who used the most frequent types of maintenance strategies, positivity and openness, had significantly higher quality of communication scores than people using the other on-line relational maintenance strategies, t (176) = 1.99, p

The third research question asked whether people maintaining EIB relationships differ from people maintaining PIB relationships in terms of perceptions of relational partners. One potential confounding variable that was identified is that participants in PIB relationships identified family members as the target person for their on-line relationship while people in EIB relationships did not identify any family members. In addition, most individuals have very different perceptions of family relationships than acquaintances and friends. Due to this issue, the researcher controlled for type of relationship (looking only at friendship and acquaintance relationships) when comparing perceptions of relational partners between people maintaining EIB and PIB relationships.

Controlling for type of relationship (friendship or acquaintance), the researcher conducted independent samples t-tests between participants in EIB and PIB relationships on each of dependent variable (similarity, quality of communication, relational communication). In terms of friendship relationships, individuals maintaining PIB friendships had significantly higher relational communication scores (M = 27.41; SD = 8.98) than people maintaining EIB friendships (M = 25.52; SD = 4.08), t (102) = -2.301, p

The fourth research question asked whether perceptions of similarity, quality of communication, and relational communication among people maintaining EIB relationships differed in terms of the type of on-line relationship a person has and how frequently he or she communicated with his or her on-line partner. As with the third research question, the researcher limited the analysis to friendship and acquaintance relationships. A series of 2 × 8 ANOVAs were conducted using type of on-line relationship (acquaintance or friendship) as one factor and frequency of interaction (daily, weekly, or monthly) as independent variables and each perception of relational partners (similarity, quality of communication, and relational communication) as the dependent variable.