Research and Publications

Hall, J., Cody, C. Carter, S. & Albright, J. (In Press).  Individual differences in the communication of romantic interest: Development of a flirting scale. Communication Quarterly.

Albright, J. (2009). Commentary: "You can’t be hugging and hitting at the same time, or why allowing hugging in schools is smart policy." Teachers College Record. Teachers College" Columbia University.

Jung, Y., Peng, W., Meghan, M., Jin, S., Jordan-Marsh, M., McLaughlin,
M. L., Albright, J., Cody, M., & Silverstein, M. (2009).
Low-income minority seniors’ enrollment in a cyber café: Psychological barriers to crossing the digital divide. Educational Gerontology.

Albright, J. (2009). “Impossible Bodies: A comparison of TV viewing habits, body image and plastic surgery attitudes amongst college students in Los Angeles and Buffalo, New York. Configurations: A Journal of Literature, Science and Technology. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

This article looks at college students' consumption of reality makeover TV shows such as The Swan, Dr. 90210, and Extreme Makeover, and the impact on body image and body anxiety. The sample was drive from a Northern East Coast University, and a West Coast University. Those from theNorthern East Coast University watched more makeover TV shows, and reported more anxiety about parts of their body than did those from the West Coast. Also - females were more likely to say that women were "more beautiful" after plastic surgery makeovers than males.

Albright, J. (June 2008).  Sex in America Online: Sex, gender, sexual identity, marital status and sex-seeking on the Internet.” Journal of Sex Research.

* Dr. Albright received the Hugo G. Beigel Award for this paper. The award, named for the first editor on the Journal of Sex Research, promotes and rewards research excellence in sexual science, and is granted annually to the author(s) of an outstanding research report on sexuality published in Journal of Sex Research.

Abstract

This was an exploratory study of sex and relationship seeking on the Internet, based on a survey of 15,246 respondents in the U.S.   Seventy five percent of men and 41% of women had intentionally viewed or downloaded porn. Men and gays/lesbians were more likely to access porn or engage in other sex seeking behaviors online compared to straights or women. A symmetrical relationship was revealed between men and women as a result of viewing pornography, with women reporting more negative consequences, including lowered body image, partner critical of their body, increased pressure to perform acts seen in pornographic films and less actual sex, while men reported being more critical of their partners’ body and less interested in actual sex. Marrieds and divorced were more likely than singles to go online seeking a serious relationship. Only 2% of users met the threshold of compulsive use established by previous studies.

Albright, Julie. (2007). “How do I love thee and thee and thee: Impression management, deception and multiple relationships online. In M. Whitty (Ed.), Online Matching. London: Palgrave

Excerpt:

“Hogamus, higamus, men are polygamous.” – cited by Helen Fisker, The Anatomy of Love

Fifty women gathered in June 2003 at a television news conference to announce they had all been duped by a man they had met online: U.S. Army Col. Kassem Saleh, a military officer whom each had met via an online dating site, had been wooing all 50 women simultaneously, even going so far as to propose to many of them, despite the fact that he was already married to another woman. At least two of the unwitting women had already bought wedding gowns before discovering the ruse. One woman called Colonel Saleh’s email love letters “intoxicating” and another said they were “more romantic than the works of poets William Butler Yeats or Robert Browning” (ABC News, 2003).  “You are my world, my life, my love and my universe," Saleh allegedly wrote in an email love note to one of his many mistresses (ABC News, 2003). 

Like Colonel Saleh and his lovers, many are turning to online dating sites to meet a romantic partner:  An estimated 16.3 million users accessed Internet dating sites in 2002 (Muriel, 2003). The most popular matchmaking website, Match.com, claims almost 5 million users (Reagan, 2002). Many seem to be successful in finding love online, with 8% of men and 5% of women in one study  reporting that they had married someone they met online (Knapp, 2004; Albright, 2002). 

Cody, M., Hall, J., Albright, J. &  Flesh, J. (2007). “How to flirt:  What communication research tells us about the dynamics of flirting.”  In M. Motley (Ed.) Studies in Applied Interpersonal Communication. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Albright, Julie. (2007). “Postmodernism.” In George S. Ritzer (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Sociology. Malden, MA: Blackwell.

Albright, Julie. (2005). "Lolita Online: Sex and under-aged smoking on the Internet." International Journal of Critical Psychology, June.” International Journal of Critical Psychology, June.

Abstract:

This paper explores the smoking fetish and sexualized smoking Lolitas online. Nabokov’s sexualized girl-child Lolita has gained currency in recent years in popular cultural depictions and more recently, in increasingly sexualized and fetishized depictions on smoking fetish websites on the Internet. Psychoanalytic and film theories are used to elaborate the construction of Lolita as sexualized subject on these websites. A content analysis was conducted of 86 smoking fetish websites, with results indicating that girls are being sexualized on these sites through (1) situating them in a sexualized context (2) incorporating symbolic markers of youth and (3) overtly constructing smoking as a sign of sexual precocity. Discussion is made of the implications of the smoking Lolita, including the implications for girls’ gender identity, and that smoking may be a new way to mark girls as potential targets for sexual predators.

Albright, Julie & Conran, Tom (2003). Desire, love and betrayal: Constructing and deconstructing intimacy online.  Journal of Systemic Therapies.

Abstract

An understanding of the stages of engagement in online relationships can offer a framework for therapists working with individuals and couples dealing with online relationships and affairs. Drawing on narrative data from 314 key informants who had been involved in at least one relationship on the Internet, the authors constructed three developmental stages common to many participants engaged in such relationships:  1) An initial, falling in love, stage of rapid intimacy. 2) A meeting of the minds, which often later leads to the feeling of a strong, “soul mate” type connection. 3) A virtual mirror stage of mutual optimization and idealization. The article concludes with a discussion of the therapeutic implications and suggestions for future research directions.

Albright, Julie (2001). Women and Computing. Encylopedia of Feminist Theories, London: Routledge.

Albright, Julie (1996). “Cyborg Cultural Politics in the Age of Hypertext,” Proceedings of the 13th Annual European Meeting on Cybernetics and Systems Research.

Albright, Julie. “Walking the Web: A review of websites for women and computing.” In Feminist Collections.

Albright, Julie. (2004). “Making Connections: Tips for Online Dating.” Elle.com

Albright, J., Carter, S. (2007).  “The myth of the siren’s song: Gendered sexual scripts in online courtship.” In review.

Albright, J. 'I’m 99.9% straight':Sexual identity, marital status, HIV status and masculinity amongst MSM online. In review.

Work in preparation:

Unpublished Manuscripts:

Articles

Albright, J. Working title: "I'll know it when I see it" and I see more of it all the time. Invited book chapter - Tranformative Consumer Culture. Publicaiton date: 2010.

Schumatte, M., Miller, L., Albright, J., Appleby, R.  “Which Change Begets Change? Modeling Risky Behavior Change as the Result of an HIV Prevention Intervention.” Health Communication.

Dissertation: Impression Formation and Attraction in Computer Mediated Communication. University of Southern California, 2001.

Abstract:

This is a study about relationships formed over computer networks. The questions addressed are, how do people meet and become attracted to online others, with the lack of social cues due to the anonymity of online interaction? How does initial attraction continue, grow, or diminish with increased information and interaction with the online other?  What happens to attraction when people expand beyond the virtual environment, and increase social cues, through the exchange of photos, through phone calls, and to face to face meetings? Lastly- what happens when people meet face to face? Is their initial impression confirmed about their online lover, or, as many have suggested, does a face to face meeting confirm that online relationships are fraught with deception and lies? In exploring the answers to these questions, this research seeks to add to our understanding of the social psychological processes at work in the formation of attraction and relationships online. This study will attempt to find out how people become attracted to one another online, given the fact that they are outside the physical proximity of one another, lacking many of the cues such as eye contact, body language, etc. which have been seen in the literature as critical to the formation of attraction. For the analysis, survey data is used which was gathered from participants online, as well as qualitative personal narratives of people’s experiences of online relationship formation and online love.

            My first goal is to make use of the work of social theorists who have focused on attraction in face to face contexts, to see how the effects of being in this new social context (online) might change or parallel the formation of attraction and romantic relationships offline, in face to face contexts.  Several theories were tested, and I found that sociobiological theories of online attraction, and homogamy were supported, though resulted were mixed for geographic proximity.

My second goal was to test the theoretical work of Irving Goffman, to see if his dramaturgical approach can be used to explain impression management and impression formation online.  Because CMC affords a great deal of anonymity to communicators, a popularly held notion is that people are more likely to construct false identities through a greater ability to manage the verbal and non-verbal signs which are clues to their gender, social class, race, etc. I found that, though popular belief is that people tend to actively deceive others when trying to form relationships and manage the impression online others develop of them- in fact, this isn’t the case for most people. The majority of participants in this study reported being as or more attracted to their online lovers with increased information via phone calls, photos exchanged and face to face meetings. Most also reported a high degree of honesty with their online lovers, and that the majority of online lovers were honest with them.  Most mis-impressions in these relationships were the result of respondents “filling in the blanks” incorrectly, rather than being victims of overt deception.

In the final chapter, I discuss the results and implications of my survey, and I make suggestions for future research into the formation of and outcomes of these relationships formed online. In particular, I argue that more research is needed into how the process of projection and idealization takes place online, as this is in part what leads to the notion that these relationships are “addictive,” since they often seem to far surpass offline relationships, as well as longitudinal research into these relationships to see if they are more viable than those formed in face to face contexts.