The change in user and IT dynamics: Blogs as IT-enabled virtual self-presentation

Using the blogosphere as an enabling IT environment, this paper investigates how self-concept influences virtual self-presentation behavior and the use of IT artifacts. Self-presentation theory is adapted from the social psychology literature to develop a theoretical research model of virtual self-presentation. We tested the research model and hypotheses with data collected from 312 bloggers. Structural equation analysis of this data reveals a nomological net of self-concept leading to IT-enabled virtual self-presentation and the use of IT artifacts. Our findings provide a new perspective of users as heterogeneous individuals who have various self-concepts that change the sequence and dynamics among users, IT artifacts, and tasks. In contrast to traditional systems, in the social context of virtual self-presentation, users are the primary and essential drivers who determine vaguely defined tasks and systems.     

Group awareness and self-presentation in computer-supported information exchange

A common challenge in many situations of computer-supported collaborative learning is increasing the willingness of those involved to share their knowledge with other group members. As a prototypical situation of computer-supported information exchange, a shared-database setting was chosen for the current study. This information-exchange situation represented a social dilemma: while the contribution of information to a shared database induced costs and provided no benefit for the individual, the entire group suffered when all members decided to withhold information. In order to alleviate the information-exchange dilemma, a group-awareness tool was employed. It was hypothesized that participants would use group awareness for self-presentational purposes. For the examination of this assumption, the personality variable ‘protective self-presentation’ (PSP) was measured. An interaction effect of group awareness and PSP was found: when an awareness tool provided information concerning the contribution behavior of each individual, this tool was used as a self-presentation opportunity. In order to understand this effect in more detail, single items of the PSP-scale were analyzed.     

A private versus a public space: Anonymity and buying decorative symbolic goods for avatars in a virtual world

The virtual world has become a new channel in which people can contact with others, and organizations can provide service to their customers. Selling symbolic virtual goods has also emerged as a new economy in the virtual world. Such symbolic goods cannot facilitate people to accomplish any specific tasks; people buy them simply to decorate their avatars. This study is based on the theories of symbolic consumption, self-presentation, and computer-mediated environment, to investigate why people buy decorative symbolic goods in the virtual world. The results show that people buy symbolic virtual goods for both emotional and social values. While user perceived social presence and telepresence affect both social and emotional value of symbolic goods, individual self-presentation motivation affects only social value. Besides, anonymous users in the virtual world show behaviors that differ with non-anonymous ones.     

An exploration of psychological factors on emoticon usage and implications for judgement accuracy

Given the increasing use of online platforms, the current research comprised two studies examining links between personality and emoticon use: Study 1 explored the psychological factors associated with emoticon usage on different online platforms (N = 92), and Study 2 assessed the accuracy of a group of observers' personality judgements of Facebook users (N = 54). Participants in Study 1 comprised previously unacquainted dyads who each completed measures on their Big-5 personality, self-esteem, social anxiety, self-presentation, and self-reported usage of emoticons on email, text messages and Facebook. Participants provided Facebook data and interacted online with each other for 10-min. Trait analysis revealed that agreeableness was positively related to self-reported emoticon usage on Facebook, but not in texts or emails. In Study 2, observers viewed the Facebook stimuli and made personality assessments of the dyad members. Judgement accuracy was determined by correlating these assessments with targets' own self-reported personality. Analyses revealed the highest level of accuracy for extraversion and openness. Finally, positive correlations were found between objective usage of “happy” emoticons and observers' assessments of targets’ agreeableness, conscientiousness and openness. Taken together, findings indicate the importance of specific online behaviours in self-presentation, and their impact on judgement accuracy.     

Another brick in the Facebook wall – How personality traits relate to the content of status updates

Status updates represent a new form of one-to-many communication which is widely used among members of social networking sites (SNS). The present study investigated the question of who in particular uses the self-presentational opportunities of this feature and which users engage in riskier self-disclosures than others. Combining questionnaire and content analysis, we related self-reports on users’ personality traits (extraversion, narcissism, self-efficacy, need to belong, need for popularity) to the actual use of Facebook status updates. Results showed that higher degrees of narcissism led to deeper self-disclosures and more self-promotional content within these messages. Users with higher need to belong disclosed more intimate information in status updates, while perceived efficacy of self-presentation was negatively related to the mass suitability of postings. Findings extend prior research on personality and SNS usage with regard to dynamic features and content differences in online self-presentation.     

Who am I? Representing the self offline and in different online contexts

The present paper examines the extent to which self-presentation may be affected by the context in which is it undertaken. Individuals were asked to complete the Twenty Statements Test both privately and publicly, but were given an opportunity to withhold any of their personal information before it was made public. Four contexts were examined: an offline context (face-to-face), an un-contextualized general online context, or two specific online contexts (dating or job-seeking). The results suggested that participants were willing to disclose substantially less personal information online than offline. Moreover, disclosure decreased as the online context became more specific, and those in the job-seeking context disclosed the least amount of information. Surprisingly, individual differences in personality did not predict disclosure behavior. Instead, the results are set in the context of audience visibility and social norms, and implications for self-presentation in digital contexts are discussed.     

Strategic self-presentation online: A cross-cultural study

Contemporary social networking sites (SNSs) make idealized self-presentation and image maintenance difficult because users’ audiences are becoming more diverse and individual users must negotiate often unanticipated other-provided information in the form of text posts and digital images on their profile pages. This cross-cultural study examines how audience-related variables affect a range of strategic self-presentation and image management behaviors online. Results from samples of Singaporean and American SNS users (N = 411) show that while Americans update their profiles with text-based wall posts more frequently, Singaporeans share significantly more photos. Audience diversity is positively associated with active management of other-provided information, and females share more photos and actively manage unwanted photo tagging. Cultural identity and the tendency to ‘friend’ unknown others interact on managing other-provided wall posts; individualistic cultural identity exhibited positive relationships with these reactions for those less likely to friend unknown others but negative ones for those more likely to friend unknown others. Implications for the theoretical understanding of and practical suggestions about self-presentation online are discussed.     

MySpace is your space? Examining self-presentation of MySpace users

The study examined the role of self-presentation on MySpace pages through the information users post on their sites. MySpace users were more comfortable with posting the broad pieces of information, like gender, race, zodiac sign, and hometown. They were not as willing to present personal information like income, whether they smoke or drank or groups they belonged to. Age and motivations for creating a page were major predictors of how much information people revealed about themselves.     

Identity construction on Facebook: Digital empowerment in anchored relationships

Early research on online self-presentation mostly focused on identity constructions in anonymous online environments. Such studies found that individuals tended to engage in role-play games and anti-normative behaviors in the online world. More recent studies have examined identity performance in less anonymous online settings such as Internet dating sites and reported different findings. The present study investigates identity construction on Facebook, a newly emerged nonymous online environment. Based on content analysis of 63 Facebook accounts, we find that the identities produced in this nonymous environment differ from those constructed in the anonymous online environments previously reported. Facebook users predominantly claim their identities implicitly rather than explicitly; they “show rather than tell” and stress group and consumer identities over personally narrated ones. The characteristics of such identities are described and the implications of this finding are discussed.     

Constraints on message size in quasi-synchronous computer mediated communication: Effect on self-concept accessibility

Anonymity is often regarded as a variable of great importance in research on computer mediated communication. However, this view might neglect the role played by the design of the user-interface. The current study attempted to show the effects of manipulation of the user-interface in terms of quantitative aspects of communication and self-concept accessibility. The manipulation consisted of varying the number of characters available to interlocutors in two conditions. It was predicted that different designs will not only influence communication quantitatively, but also to what degree participants are able to introspect and strategically plan communication in a self-presentation task. The design that allowed elaborate composition of a message during communication was expected to lead to more strategic self-presentation, thus increasing availability of the “actual self”. Two experiments were conducted. The results show that constraints on communication are associated with predictable quantitative effects, among them higher turntaking. Also, accessibility of the actual self appears to be associated with less interactive and involving interfaces. The results are discussed with regards to the Social Identity Model of Deindividuation Effects, as well as the differences between writing and speech.