Making it Facebook official: The warranting value of online relationship status disclosures on relational characteristics

Abstract

This study utilizes Walther and Parks' (2002) warranting theory to explore the relationship between online system-and co-generated relational cues and the strength of offline romantic relational characteristics. Differences in respondents' (N = 170) relational characteristics were predicted based on their relationship statuses articulated on Facebook. Results indicate individuals who display their relationship status on Facebook are more dependent in their relationship (i.e., more satisfied, committed, invested, and with lower perceived relational alternatives) and used Facebook more. In other words, individuals in relationships that are 'Facebook official' report being in more committed, stronger relationships than non-Facebook official counterparts. Findings are discussed with respect to the relationships among social media, relational attributes, and warranting theory.

Will social media strengthen or threaten romantic love?

“…Their theory is based on a longitudinal research in which they examined the association between Facebook self-presentations of coupledom and relationship longevity: public relationships commitment increased the couple's likelihood of staying together. Their findings were supported by Lane, Piercy, and Carr 22 whose study showed that people who openly publish about their relationship in social medial are more committed and have stronger relationships than those who do not for example reveal their relationship status in Facebook. Results identified However, Northrup and Smith's 23 research inclined that activity in social media does not correlate with love: according to their findings more activity in social media was connected to less love among couples.…”

Can Music Make You Sick? Measuring the Price of Musical Ambition

“…The concept of a musician's relationship status with music plays on the idea from social media that our relationships with others are often a 'status' to be updated and amended over time -friends, separated, engaged, 'it's complicated' . Indeed, there is a small body of literature exploring the links between these online relationship status posts and the impacts they can have in users' real lives (Papp et al, 2012;Toma and Choi, 2015;Lane et al, 2016). We borrowed this idea as a way to conceptualise how musicians might understand their 'relationship status' to music making and to their musical ambition.…”

The use of Facebook in romantic relationships: An actor-partner interdependence mediation model predicting relationship visibility

“…By testing this comprehensive model, we seek to establish whether 1) relational commitment predicts the extent to which partners want their romantic relationship to be an essential part of the image that others form of them via Facebook, 2) partners’ attitudes toward relationship visibility are linked to their behaviors, and 3) mutual associations between partners are observed on these variables. Considering past empirical findings (Lane et al, 2016; Saslow et al, 2012), the self-expansion theory (Aron et al, 1992), and the concept of nonindependence in dyadic data analysis (Kenny et al, 2006), we hypothesized that: H1: Higher relational commitment would be related to higher desired relationship visibility on Facebook. Both actor effects and partner effects were expected to be significant. H2: Higher desired relationship visibility would be related to higher actual relationship visibility on Facebook.…”

“…Recent literature has provided evidence that Facebook self-presentations may shape off-line outcomes and that online behaviors may be an expression of off-line cognitions or emotions (Nadkarni & Hofmann, 2012; Saslow et al, 2012; Steers et al, 2016). In the context of intimate relationships, these studies have investigated associations between Facebook self-presentations of coupledom (which is referred to as relationship visibility) and many relational outcomes, such as love, relationship longevity, quality, or commitment (Lane et al, 2016). However, while many studies explored how relationship visibility predicts relational outcomes (Cole et al, 2018; Hand et al, 2013; Orosz et al, 2015; Papp et al, 2012; Steers et al, 2016; Toma & Choi, 2015), few studies examined how relational characteristics predict relationship visibility (see Lane et al, 2016; Northrup & Smith, 2016; Saslow et al, 2012 for exceptions), even though many researchers acknowledge that the nature of the relationship between the two variables is still uncertain or likely bidirectional (e.g., Orosz et al, 2015; Papp et al, 2012; Rus & Tiemensma, 2017).…”