1. Relational Development And Maintenance on Social Networking
Sites Through The Use of Similarity, Attraction, Self-Disclosure,
And Uncertainty Reduction Theory.
Neville Wiles
Prof. M. Papa
Com301
12/13/2012

2. Introduction
Many people in the world today use the internet as a way to connect with their peers on
social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, and Google+. “Networking sites are
usually open or semi-open systems, everyone is welcome to join, but new members have to
register and sometimes the site only allows members if they are invited by existing members”
(Schouten, 2006). According Hunt (2012) social networking sites have been defined as web-
based services that allow individuals to (1) construct a public or semi-public profile within a
bounded system, (2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and (3)
view and traverse their list of connections (Hunt, 2012). There are many uses of these social
networking sites, some including; maintaining relationships, connecting with people of shared
interests, (old and new friends), and initialing romantic relationships. Facebook’s website states
the site’s mission statement is “To give people the power to share and make the world more open
and connected” which is a perfect explanation for why people use these sites.
The motives behind why a person would use social networking sites can be examined
using the Uses and Gratifications Theory. Uses and Gratifications Theory is concerned with:
(1) The social and psychological origins of (2) needs, which generate (3)
expectations of (4) the mass media or other sources, which lead to (5) differential
patterns of media exposures (or engagement in other activities) resulting in (6) need
gratification and (7) other consequences, perhaps mostly unintended ones” (Hunt,
2012).
There were five motives that were discovered for internet use; interpersonal utility, passing
time, information seeking, convenience, and entertainment. Social networking sites have similar

3. motives behind their use; express information, information seeking, passing of time,
entertainment, companionship, professional advancement, social interaction, forming new
friendships, and maintaining friendships. Self-expression was added as an additional motive
because of research suggestion that social networking site users express themselves through their
online personalities. Self-expression can be seen as the act of presenting one’s point of view or
creative work (Hunt, 2012). The internet has provided users a chance to express themselves in a
way that may be hard to express in a face-to-face environment.
Communication apprehension was first developed as a tool to measure public speaking
anxiety and in the past 50 years has become one of the most researched constructs in the field of
communication (Hunt, 2012). In the digital context dimension, communication apprehension is
bases on personality types and trait-like dimensions. Hunt (2012) discovered that people seem to
feel more comfortable while communicating though computer-mediated means than in face-to-
face situations. The amount of information shared and the ease of sharing it is shown to be done
at an increased rate while using computer-mediated communication. There is also a sense of
shared interests that comes along with the limited amount of information that is posted on these
sites. Someone could see that a person they know only on a social networking site likes
something like cats, and the person viewing this could also like cats, so a shared interest of cats
can making communicating easier.
Uncertainty Reduction Theory
Relational development research has widely used Uncertainty Reduction Theory. There
are three types of ways people can reduce uncertainty. The passive approach is when a person
sits back and learns about another without interacting with anyone else to aid their attempts to

4. reduce uncertainty. The active strategy is when someone is seeking information about another
and asks the other persons known friends or acquaintances. The last way is the interactive
approach, when a person directly asks for information from the person they wish to know better.
This theory is used to explain the cognitive response of uncertainty that occurs when interacting
with others for the first time. In order to reduce uncertainty, people engage in communication to
gain knowledge about others with whom they are interacting (Craig & Igiel, 2007). The desire to
reduce uncertainty is present if there are going to be future interactions, if there is a belief that
you could benefit from the relationship, or if the other person acts in a deviant fashion. In
reference to social networking sites, the relative lack of social cues and the potential for feedback
delays lead to higher uncertainty and also more difficulty determining how to act, how the other
person will react, and how to interpret how the other person acts. One way to reduce uncertainty
on social networking sites is if someone perceives the other as having a similar attitude and if the
other person is similar in being socially attractive. This could also lead to greater predictability
of the other person’s behavior. Sharing in self-disclosure also leads to greater predictability
between people on social networking sites.
Berger and Calabrese (1975) explained that when we are getting to know another, our
communication patters are associated with our uncertainty about our partner – how much
information we seek, how much information we share, and even our nonverbal communication,
are associated with out uncertainty.
Uncertainty Reduction Theory guides the study of get-acquainted conversations by
demonstrating the rather low tolerance that most individuals have for ambiguity while
conversing with an unfamiliar partner. This theory asserts that when interacting with strangers,
people are driven by their desire to reduce their uncertainty about the other person and they use

5. communication as a tool for doing so. In minimizing their uncertainty, individuals strive for
both explanation and prediction of behavior (Sharabi, 2011). There is an uneasy feeling that
comes along with not knowing, and not knowing how the person you are communicating with
will react is an issue that every person encounters. Sharabi reported that a decrease in
uncertainty does not always lead to an increase in social attraction. Rather, social attraction is
mediated by the valence of the information obtained using uncertainty reduction strategies.
Focuses on perceived similarity as a motivation for reducing uncertainty, Antheunis,
Valkenburg, and Peter (2008) state: by perceiving someone as similar, one can more easily
employ self-knowledge to draw conclusion about the other. This increases the information
seeker’s knowledge about the target person, which in turn reduces his or her level of uncertainty.
Perceived similarity may also result in more effective communication, which, in turn, results in
lower levels of uncertainty. They also observed that: during the uncertainty reduction processes,
the information seeker creates mental models that help him/her to make sense of the other people
and their intentions, emotions, and behaviors. Through this, a person can see when someone
they are interested to get information from, they could start a conversation with that person about
a perceived similarity, believing that the response will be positive, which then opens the path for
more conversations later with more ease and a positive outlook.
There are seven axioms that are part of the Uncertainty Reduction theory that relate
uncertainty to: ‘verbal communication, nonverbal affinitive expressiveness, information seeking,
intimacy level, reciprocity rate, similarity, and liking” (Sharabi, 2011). The lack of knowledge
or a feeling of comfort in any of these fields leads to uncertainty. Social networking sites offer a
profile page that can be personalized to show information about oneself that can help to reduce
uncertainty and aid interactions. Because of these profile pages, users can use a more passive

6. uncertainty reduction strategy by gaining the information from the profile page without
interacting with the person whose information is being sought. Although these social networking
sites also offer a more interactive strategy by adding features like chat functions and being able
to comment on another person’s ‘wall’.
Relational Development and Maintenance
Social networking sites have become overwhelmingly popular in recent years, and
previous research suggests that these sites aid individuals in the maintenance of preexisting
relationships and provide opportunities for individuals to form relationships with new people via
their connections with existing friends (Craig & Wright, 2012). Relationships are a huge driving
force in decision making, life planning and choices. Maintaining relationships thus becomes an
important factor. Communication scholars have long argued that the process of relational
development and maintenance is crucial to relational satisfaction and the ultimate survival of a
relationship (Craig & Wright, 2012). Researchers have found that people spend more time
maintaining current relationships than developing new ones. Even so, both maintaining current
relationships and developing new relationships work together in tandem. Every day we meet
new people and the same goes for the people we are connected with. An old friend may ask you
to meet their new acquaintances and in many cases these new relationships intercept the old and
they become enjoined, and this happens as a process of maintaining your current relationships.
There are three factors that aid in maintaining relationships, they are; similarity, attraction, and
self-disclosure.
Similarity, attraction, and self-disclosure

7. Wright, Craig, Cunningham, and Igiel (2008) found that the two most common relational
maintenance strategies (being positive and open when communicating) were associated with
perceptions of partner similarity. Social networking sites, such as Facebook, may help people
maintain relationships with others by providing a site where people who share interests, ideas,
and tastes, can conveniently interact on a daily or weekly basis. Similarity is the key motivating
factor for the likelihood that a relationship will continue to be developed or maintained.
Perceptions of similarity including more positive perceptions of one’s relational partner, greater
trust, and increased satisfaction – are important predictors of interpersonal attraction (Craig &
Wright, 2012).
The ability to maintain impressions of attraction (physical and social) with one’s
relational partners is important in terms of ultimately maintaining these relationships. Social
attraction refers to the degree to which a target is seen as a likely friend, and it is often highly
correlated with physical attraction (Craig & Wright, 2012). In fact a recent study of Facebook
found that the content of “wall postings” and the physical attractiveness of the authors of these
posts affect the perceptions of the profile owner’s attractiveness and credibility. For most users,
“the wall” is a place to post short comments or leave notes, while viewing the profile of their
friends (Wright, 2008).
Self-disclosure is one of the primary means people manage and communicate information
about themselves through computer mediated communication. Craig and Wright (2012) have
found that people who use Facebook tend to be strategic when deciding what information to post
about themselves in an effort to better manage the impressions others have of them. Due to the
lack of contextual cues, it is important to study self-disclosure in computer mediated
communicated relationships. Openness, a common relational maintenance strategy, relies on

8. reciprocal self-disclosure between partners. The range of topics (breadth) and personally
revealing information that is at the core of one’s self-concept (depth) have been found to be
equally important in the process of relational development and maintenance. Two outcomes that
are particularly relevant are predictability and interdependence. Relational uncertainty exists in
all relationships, and it appears to be the motivation behind increases in self-disclosure during
the process of relational development and maintenance, especially among people who are
geographically separated or frequently rely on media for relational maintenance. Some
researchers argued that increases in online self-disclosure tend to lead to perceptions of greater
predictability (Craig & Wright, 2012).
Self-disclosure is a key factor in developing relationships in online environments as in face-to-
face situations. Since self-disclosure is an intentional thing, there might be some factors that
make people want to reveal themselves more or less; motivation for using the site is one factor
(Jinsuk, 2009). In a study to determine if age has anything to do with the amount of online self-
disclosure on the social networking site Myspace, Jinsuk, Klautke, and Serota (2009) wrote;
“People who used the web page with a communication motive posted more demographic
information about themselves to the Web pages than those who did not have the
motivation for communication. People who used the Web page in order to escape from
real life showed more emotional self-disclosure than those who did not have the escape
motivation. People who used the Web pages for entertainment, communication, and self-
expression purposes posted more photos of themselves and others. People who had self-
expression, communication, and information motivations presented more opinions than
who did not have these motivations”.

9. Five core relational maintenance dimensions
A study by Stafford and Canary (1991) conceptualized relational maintenance behavior
from the standpoint of equity theory, claiming that such behavior sustains a sense of fairness
between two people. Their initial work identified five core relational maintenance dimensions:
(a) positivity, (b) openness, (c) assurances, (d) shared networks, and (e) shared tasks.
Later research has identified more than these five, such as; joint activities, cards/letters/calls,
avoidance, anti-social, and humor, but the original five are the base of all maintenance research.
In order to maintain a relationship, these five dimensions must be present. One must have a
positive and open view of the relationship. There is the sense of shared networks through how
you know the other person (work, school, other friends) and there has to be a sense of assurance
that the relationship is worth maintaining. The relationship also needs the sharing of tasks to
survive. If one person feels they are contributing more than the other it could lead to a feeling of
being underappreciated. There has to be a balance in order for the relationship to continue
without confrontation, or dissolution.
The use of these relational development/maintenance strategies has been found to be
predictive of long-lasting relationships and a greater satisfaction with one’s relational partner
(Bell et. Al., 1987; Oswald et. Al., 2004) However, future research should examine the ways in
which these and other perceptions of relational partners are related to specific relational
development/maintenance strategies (both positive and negative).
Gender
Research has shown that women use more relational maintenance strategies than men do,
and women continue to maintain all kinds of relationships more than men. Canary and Stafford

10. (1992) found that, in marital relationships, wives differed significantly from husbands in the
enactment of relational maintenance strategies. The data from this research found that
maintenance strategies contain socially accepted forms of communication and, except for how
the partner views tasks and sharing tasks within their respective relationship, people recognize
those behaviors or strategies in their partner. These findings are consistent with the notion that,
due to socialization, gender role orientations to relationship responsibilities are difficult to
change, even in marriage. This sex difference in computer mediated communication utilization
can be linked to preexisting differences between men and women regarding relational
maintenance. Studies found that women use more romantic strategies to maintain a satisfying
relationship, and women tend to be more open and positive in relationships than males. (Houser,
2012). It has also been found that women maintain relationships more through sharing tasks
than men and are also different in the use of networks and openness strategies. This would
suggest that women have a stronger relationship orientation than me, and they self-disclose
more than men. Although Houser (2012) explained strategic relational maintenance is affected
most by the individuals involved and their relationship rather than the communication medium
used to maintain it (2012), the next section will study two computer mediated ways of
maintaining relationships, e-mail and instant messaging.
Research on the site Facebook and the use of it has shown gender differences for the
amount of time spent on the site and the number of friends a person has on the site. Women are
more likely to form an online relationship and they are also known to use Facebook more for
entertainment and the passing of time (Hunt, 2012).
Women also spend more time communicating through e-mail to maintain relationships
with friends and family than men. Women are also known to use the internet to stay in contact

11. with their distant friends than men. Women have, by tradition, been the ones to take a more
significant role in maintaining relationships between family and friends than men have, and in
the 20th
century e-mail has aided them in this role. Women have more of an “expressive style”
of relationship maintenance while men use an “instrumental style”. There is the potential to be
more expressive in e-mails by sharing emotional intimacy, information about personal or current
events, and a common goal. Men’s instrumental style focuses on joint activities and
functionality and this is more difficult with e-mail when distance is a factor. Women write in a
way that includes more “interpersonal sensitivity” and also include activities participated with
others when expressing thing like vacations or holidays through e-mails. Finally women overall
have more “communal and socioemotional” interaction than men (Houser, 2012).
Instant messaging could be through ‘chat’ options on social networking sites, instant
messaging programs, or through text messaging on cell phones. In maintaining relationships,
young women commonly use this form of communicating in relationships with others. They
include in their messages more intimate details and use more emoticons (smile faces, heart
symbols, frown faces) than men, giving their messages slightly more richness. Interactions
conducted through instant messages with women are rated higher in communication quality than
that of males.
Through the study of Uncertainty Reduction Theory and relational development and
maintenance and how these processes are impacted by gender. The following research question
is posed:
RQ: How do men and women develop and maintain relationships on social networking
sites through the use of the Uncertainty Reduction Theory?

12. References:
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