Participants
The study mainly concentrates on the Application of Social Penetration Theory into Successful Online Dating. The age group of the participants would be around 18 to 30 years of age. The study would concentrate on the single individuals, who look towards the access of online websites, in order to find someone to date. The degree of committing to these relationships would vary between different people. Some would be extremely sincere with their dates and may end up getting married with each other, whereas some may be only be looking to casually date and nothing more. The people who have been dating for some time would be included in the study and the rest would be excluded. Two major factors would be critically important in the selection of the participants. These factors would include the length of the relationships and the notion of honesty in the initiation of the relationship building. A large number of participants would be required for this research and they should at least total 150 couples. The selection of the people would be done through various online dating websites and their profiles and relationship statuses would be carefully examined before contacting these participants. On entry, all the participants would be provided with a $50 bonus and a cash prize of $200 would also be given to a single couple. This prize would be given on the basis of a lucky draw, in which every selected participant would be automatically entered.
Instruments
The selection of the participants would also depend on a questionnaire. The questionnaire will majorly consist of a series of measures assessing both self-perceptions and perceptions of partner and the prediction of how long the relationship is expected to carry on. Apart from that, since the paper focuses on the theory of social penetration, the questionnaire would also include different areas within the relationships, which would focus on issues in the relationship as well as the likings and the disliking of each other.
This study also assesses how attraction to partner is related to key variables. The Wallace (1992) Communication Based Measure of Attraction (CBMA) will be used to assess attraction to the partner, in relation with its behavior. This has also been described by Wallace and his 4 factors of reliability would also be included. These are including sensitivity (alpha = .96), confidence (alpha = .74), talkativeness (alpha = .78), and flirtatiousness (alpha = .86). The participants would be monitored at all times, in order to ensure that they do not discuss the research with each, which may lead to inaccurate results. The competence variable will be measured by Cupach and Spitzbergs’s (1984) rating of alter’s competence (RAC) scale. This scale measures perceptions of partner’s competence within a specific context or event. Personal questions would be directly asked by the researchers and these questions would be random questions, relating to the personal life of the individual and the problems of the partners with each other. Apart from that, other personal questions would include the level of attraction with each other and the level of attraction externally felt by the partner. This would determine the level of dullness between the relationships.
Limitations
It is quite possible that the participants do not completely be honest in the research because of their emotional commitment with each other or because of the fear of the other partner finding out the details. Though, information would be secured at all times, before and after the study, there is still a big possibility that even poor relations are portrayed as average. This would damage the overall result of the research.
References
Wallace, L. A. (1992). The communication-based measure of attraction: An inductively-derived instrument.
Tardy, C. H. (1988). A Handbook for the study of human communication: Methods and instruments for observing, measuring, and assessing communication processes. Norwood, N.J: Ablex Pub. Corp.
Spitzberg, B. H., & Cupach, W. R. (1984). Interpersonal communication competence. Beverly Hills: Sage Publications.