The Process of Members' Interaction in Virtual Communities: An Integrated Perspective of Cognitive Factors and Social Influence

• Main Authors: Sou-Chin Wu, 吳壽進
• Other Authors: Wen-Chang Fang
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2009
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/77710696805967838448

博士 === 國立臺北大學 === 企業管理學系 === 97 === Previous studies rarely examine the anonymity effects of social norms from a mutually conflicting perspective. Moreover, most studies neglect the mediating effect of public self-awareness and community identification in the relationship between anonymity and its results, especially in a virtual community context. This study redefines anonymity as “identifiable anonymity,” and discusses this concept from the perspective of cognitive factors and social influence. This study develops an integrated perspective model for the process of member interaction, and analyzes two different models, Deindividuation Theory and the Social Identity model of Deindividuation Effects (SIDE), to determine the role of anonymity in a virtual community. According to the research design, this study first conducted a qualitative study involved of three popular virtual communities: the MMC on-line club, gamer.com, and i-part.com. This initial study helped ascertain the path relationships between related variables. This study then performed the scale validation and hypotheses test with data from the members of several virtual communities in Taiwan. A total of 347 members completed the questionnaire. The data was analyzed with the Partial Least Squares (PLS) method. The present study confirms the theoretical applicability and predictability of the integrated model (with mediating effects) compared to other rival models. Results also indicated that identifiable anonymity was negatively associated with public self-awareness, as expected. A comparison of the mediating model and non-mediating models revealed that public self-awareness and community identification exerted a significant mediating effect on the paths of individual cognition and its social influence. Furthermore, the results suggested the following paths: (a). Members with low identifiable anonymity recognize more public self-awareness, and therefore, are more likely to conform to group norms. (b). When communicators have higher public self-awareness, the higher their level of community identification, the more consistently they follow the norms of their group. As a result, the higher their level of group identification and norms, the more community engagement and cooperative behaviors they exhibit.