Advancing Warranting Theory

Since its introduction by Walther and Parks (2002), warranting has emerged in the literature as a prominent construct that offers insight for understanding how online self-presentations are produced and evaluated. This manuscript outlines limitations that exist in the literature on warranting and provides suggestions for how the construct can be advanced theoretically and tested empirically. Notably, testable theoretical propositions are derived that specify how various factors are anticipated to affect perceptions of warranting value. In addition, warranting theory is compared and contrasted to Donath's (2007) adaptation of signaling theory and previous work on impression management.