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research-article

Quantifying the Effect of Social Presence on Online Social Conformity

Published: 29 May 2020 Publication History

Abstract

Social conformity occurs when individuals in group settings change their personal opinion to be in agreement with the majority's position. While recent literature frequently reports on conformity in online group settings, the causes for online conformity are yet to be fully understood. This study aims to understand how social presencei.e., the sense of being connected to others via mediated communication, influences conformity among individuals placed in online groups while answering subjective and objective questions. Acknowledging its multifaceted nature, we investigate three aspects of online social presence: user representation (generic vs.user-specific avatars), interactivity (discussion vs.no discussion ), and response visibility (public vs.private ). Our results show an overall conformity rate of 30% and main effects from task objectivity, group size difference between the majority and the minority, and self-confidence on personal answer. Furthermore, we observe an interaction effect between interactivity and response visibility, such that conformity is highest in the presence of peer discussion and public responses, and lowest when these two elements are absent. We conclude with a discussion on the implications of our findings in designing online group settings, accounting for the effects of social presence on conformity.

Supplementary Material

ZIP File (v4cscw055aux.zip)
Read Me 1. The attached file includes the 18 multiple choice quiz questions used for this research study. 2. Each multiple choice question has 4 answer options. 3. The questions are organised into two subsections (as per the requirement of the study): objective and subjective questions. 4. Each objective question has one correct answer (in bold). 5. The document is in pdf format and can be opened in a web browser or any other conventional pdf reader.

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cover image Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction
Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction  Volume 4, Issue CSCW1
CSCW
May 2020
1285 pages
EISSN:2573-0142
DOI:10.1145/3403424
Issue’s Table of Contents
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Publication History

Published: 29 May 2020
Published in PACMHCI Volume 4, Issue CSCW1

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Author Tags

  1. interactivity
  2. majority size
  3. online social conformity
  4. online social presence
  5. response visibility
  6. self-confidence
  7. task objectivity
  8. user representation

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