iwtc2008 grainne kirwan internet pyschology

Internet Psychology

Dr. Gráinne KirwanProgramme Coordinator, MSc in CyberpsychologyDun Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technologywww.iadt.ie

Agenda What is Internet Psychology? Social Psychology of the Internet Consumer Cyberpsychology Clinical Cyberpsychology Forensic Cyberpsychology Psychological Applications of Artificial Intelligence MSc in Cyberpsychology

What is Internet Psychology?

All psychological phenomena that are associated with or impacted by Internet usage

Study of the human mind and behaviour in the context of the Internet

Social Psychology of the Internet

Investigates how people interact with others online

For example: online personae and masks group dynamics inter-group conflict and co-operation aggression interpersonal attraction

Masks and Online Personae• ‘Young, tall, agile, long blonde hair and deep

brown eyes, long legs, considered very good looking’

• ‘On the Internet, no-one knows if you’re a dog’

Caspi & Gorsky (2006) While most users believe that online deception is very

widespread, only about one-third of them reported engaging in online deception

Frequent users deceive online more than infrequent users

Young users deceive more than older ones Competent users deceive more than non-competent The most common motivations to deceive online

were: Play Privacy concerns

Attraction• online relationships are

becoming more common with less stigma

• three principal activities– those that remain online only,

people never meet– those that progress to meeting

in real life– cybersex

relationships that start online put more emphasis on personality rather than physical appearance

Mileham (2003) Virtually all participants in a study reported

developing physical attraction to their virtual partners although they never saw them in person

Mileham (2003) quotes the following statement by a 46 year old married man:

“I’ve been chatting with a girl, the most unbelievable person I’ve ever met. I mean, this girl is tall and has short brown hair – which happens to be my favourite hairstyle. On top of that, she has the biggest blue eyes you can ever find. I haven’t really seen a picture, but she described it in fine detail… Now, on top of all that, she’s smart and she’s getting a PhD. Not to mention the talks we have, very charismatic, sexy. Wow… my wife has become such a faint presence.”

(Mileham, 2003, p. 71)

Consumer Cyberpsychology• Cyberpsychologists try to discover what makes

people more likely to spend money

Cho, Kang and Cheon (2006) examined consumer hesitation online, and found three main types Overall hesitation Shopping cart abandonment Hesitation in the final payment stage

Different reasons were given for hesitation at each of these stages

Guidelines for Building Consumer Trust Online (Koufaris, 2005)“Make the Website experience appealing”

Browsing and shopping should be fun and efficient Add product information, reviews and recommendations

“Customise” Consumers can customise their products; or Provide a customised interface for registered customers

“Provide Security Assurances” Make the security measures of your website clear and

understandable

• Customer Loyalty Online (Shankar, Smith & Rangaswamy, 2002)– Tends to be higher than offline– Price sensitivity may be lower online– Less customer effort required

(bookmarks)• Online shopping is more likely to be carried

out by the money-rich, time-poor – Lower positive or negative

disconfirmation of expectations, due to the increased information available to the consumer prior to purchase

• Brand names may have higher impact online

• But design of website is of utmost importance– Perceived human contact (or lack

thereof)– Additional relevant information– Customer reviews– Interactivity (e.g. searches, customer

feedback)

• Other research has focused on the efficiency of various forms of advertising, and on which types of businesses tend to do best online

Clinical Cyberpsychology• Increased addictions (e.g. World of

Warcraft)

Cyberpsychologists work to discover what makes people more likely to experience these addictions, and how best to treat them

These addictions share many of the negative aspects of substance addiction, and can lead to many of the same consequences, such as failing school, problems at work, and family and relationship problems (Ng & Wiemer-Hastings, 2005)

• however, the Internet is also being used to help people– online therapies

– individual or group

Advantages… Cheaper for the client May feel more able to open up Time management

Concerns… valuable information (such as body

language and tone of voice) are lost the therapist may not be able to verify the

identity of the client, and vice versa Who the psychologist accountable to?

Forensic Cyberpsychology

New concerns include: Online child pornography Internet grooming of children Hackers / crackers Phishing / pharming Computer viruses Identity theft

• Kirwan (2006)– Psychology of

computer hackers• Reduced skills

in maintaining interpersonal relationships

Psychological Applications of AI• AI is an increasingly important

component in many games and other software programmes

• ‘George’ a British chatbot, won the 2005 Loebner prize for holding the most convincingly human-like conversation– created by Rollo Carpenter

• ‘Joan’ won in 2006

http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/check/player/nol/newsid_5300000/newsid_5303700?redirect=5303754.stm&news=1&bbwm=1&nbwm=1&nbram=1&bbram=1

http://www.jabberwacky.com/

•‘UltraHal Assistant’ by Zabaware Inc. won in 2007 (21st Oct)•Windows based•Speech recognition•Variety of characters

•remember and remind users of appointments, •remember and dial phone numbers, •remember emails, •remember addresses, •calculate math problems written in natural language,• run programs on command, •open web pages,• give definitions of words, • start internet searches.

‘Sample’ ChatUser:Hello Hal

Hal:Good afternoon, User. Is it time for afternoon coffee?

User:I drink coffee in the morning

Hal:In the morning, I am not worth a darn until my first cup of coffee.

User:Same here

Hal:Really; should I know more about this?

User:Not really, what's the weather like?

Hal:Here is your local weather.

User: Thank you, Hal.

Hal:The pleasure is all mine.

User:I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow at noon.

Hal:You have a doctor's appointment on June 14, 2003 at 12:00 pm. I will remind you when this time is near.

User:Our anniversary is on October 14.

Hal:Your anniversary is on October 14, 2003. I will remind you when this time is near. I will repeat this event annually.

User:Rob's phone number is 833-1019.

Hal:I wrote this person's phone number is my phone book.

User:Call Rob.

Hal:I am now contacting Rob at office at 8331019. The phone is ringing. Please pick up your phone to talk to Rob.

User:Open word.

Hal:I will now open the program "Microsoft Word"

User:Help me research World War 2.

Hal:I will help you research this topic on the Internet.

User:Rob's email address is [email protected]

Hal:I have learned Rob's email address. If you ask me to email this person, I will automatically start your favorite email program and write in the address for you.

User:What is five times ten plus six?

Hal:That's easy. The answer is 56 (5*10+6=56)

User:2*(5+COS(60)/SIN(30))+3

Hal:Math is easy for me. The answer is fifteen (2*(5+cos(60)/sin(30))+3=14.9278997902311)

User:Wow! You are smart!

Hal:Thank you; I think you are very smart also.

My chat with HalHal: Good afternoon Grainne

Grainne: Good Afternoon Hal. How are you today?

Hal: How are you today? I feel great. I am ok. How about you?

Grainne: I'm fine. I've read about how great you are and thought I'd take a look

Hal: That's good. Thank you, I think you are great also.

Grainne: Its like a mutual admiration society here

Hal: What kind of cheese do I smell like-and it better not be head cheese!

Grainne: Uh, I don't know. I can't smell you. Edam?

Hal: Don't you really know? Would you like it if we both can't smell each other?

Grainne: This conversation is going somewhere I don't want to go...

Hal: Oh, okay.

Grainne: So are you as great as your company says?

Hal: You are more great than me.

Grainne: I never suggested otherwise

Hal: Really? That's nice.

Grainne: So tell me something interesting.

Hal: Can you tell me what the something is?

Grainne: No, you're supposed to tell me

Hal: I think you are supposed to tell you also.

Grainne: Hmm, you seem a bit confused. I think I'll stick to my filofax for a bit longer

Hal: A bit is an element of a byte. Why must you stick to your filofax for a bit longer?

Grainne: Okay, you're a byte confused then

Hal: Okay then

“Ultra Hal Assistant can chat about anything you want. Ultra Hal Assistant has a huge conversational database so Hal will never get boring. Ultra Hal also has the ability to learn. Ultra Hal will learn from every sentence that you say, and after a while of chatting Hal will develop a similar personality to yours.”

http://www.zabaware.com/assistant/

http://www.zabaware.com/webhal/index.html

Commerical Web Applications of AI

http://www.aiperson.com/georgeb

http://www.aiperson.com/aic

John Suler - Will AI will be capable of producing a chatbot which could act as a therapist?

Should the client know that they are interacting with a computerised therapist? If they are aware it’s a computer, then they are

less likely to have unreasonable expectations from it

Discovering late in the therapeutic process that your therapist is a computer could have very damaging consequences for the client

But if the client knows that they’re dealing with a computer they may take the therapy less seriously

MSc in Cyberpsychology Entry Requirements

A Second Class Honours (2.2) or higher in a Primary Honours Degree

A good knowledge of computers Duration

2 years Part-time

Deadline 4pm, Friday 9th May 2008 Application forms available from www.iadt.ie

Modules Social Psychology of the Internet Computer Mediated communication Internet Research Methods Consumer Cyberpsychology Human-Computer Interaction Applied Cyberpsychology

Incorporating clinical, forensic, educational, etc Psychology of Virtual Reality and Artificial

Intelligence Research Project

IWTC 2008 | Session XXXX iwtc.firstport.ie

Summary

What is Internet Psychology Main research areas in Internet Psychology, with particular focus on Consumer Cyberpsychology MSc in Cyberpsychology

IWTC 2008 | Session XXXX iwtc.firstport.ie

For More Information

Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology www.iadt.ie

Centre for Creative Technologies and Applications http://ccta.iadt.ie/ccta/aboutiadt.php

Oxford Internet Institute http://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/

John Suler’s ‘Psychology of Cyberspace’ http://www-usr.rider.edu/~suler/psycyber/psycyber.html

Joinson, A.N., McKenna, K.Y.A., Postmes, T., and Reips, U-R. (2007). Oxford Handbook of Internet Psychology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Gackenbach, J. (2005). Psychology and the Internet, Intrapersonal, interpersonal and transpersonal implications. (2nd ed.) San Diego,CA: Academic Press.

Q&A• Dr. Gráinne Kirwan• [email protected]

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iwtc2008 grainne kirwan internet pyschology

Technology

internet psychology

social psychology

internet usage study

online personae young

infrequent users young

psychological phenomena

physical attraction

older ones competent