Interpersonal perception in bulletin board systems among Chinese Internet users

A study investigating the accuracy of interpersonal perception in Internet Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) and the variables that affect the accuracy were conducted in two phases: in the phase one, 58 participants were selected from the BBS which was built on the Internet in advance. During the phase two, participants were requested to complete the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) to assess their personalities, and to choose another member in the BBS as their “target”. The assessment packets were then administered to the participants in the following order: the demographic and Internet use survey, the MBTI used by the judge to assess their target’s personality, and the relationship survey between judge and target. The results showed that 76.7% participants made the correct judgment on two to three out of four dimensions of the personality type. The correlation analysis indicated that the variables affected the accuracy were from four aspects: judge, target, relationship and similarity. The binary logistic regression analysis showed that the target’s personality, the judge’s education level, the similarity between them, the stereotypes and projection played important roles on the accuracy. Possibilities for future research on this issue are also briefly discussed.