虛擬社群成員識別匿名性與群體規範之研究：外在自我覺察與社群認同之中介效果

Identifiable Anonymous and Group Norms in Virtual Communities: The Test of Mediating Effects of Public Self-Awareness and Community Identification

吳壽進(Sou-Chin Wu) ； 方文昌(Wen-Chang Fang) ； 黃恆獎(Heng-Chiang Huang)

《資訊管理學報》 19卷2期 (2012/04) Pp. 315-347

https://doi.org/10.6382/JIM.201204.0104

摘要

由於過去研究缺乏驗證匿名性對群體規範正反矛盾的效果，同時也忽略了外在自我覺察與社群認同在匿名互動過程中的可能中介角色。本研究根據「去個人化理論」與「去個人化的社會認定模式（SIDE）」，探討「識別匿名性」在虛擬社群環境的個人認知與社會影響過程。研究設計採用問卷調查方式，收集虛擬社群樣本有效問卷共347份，藉由PLS方法進行量表效度與假說檢定。研究結果顯示識別匿名性在虛擬社群互動的個人認知途徑上，對外在自我覺察具有負向的影響關係；外在自我覺察與社群認同，則分別在個人認知與社會影響路徑上，具有中介效果。結果並建議，欲提高群體規範路徑有二：（1）降低識別匿名性（即提高會員彼此辨識的程度），來提高外在自我覺察，進而提高社群成員的群體規範。（2）或藉由外在自我覺察的增加，來提升社群認同，進而形成群體規範。

關鍵字

識別匿名性 ； 外在自我覺察 ； 社群認同 ； 群體規範

並列摘要

Previous studies rarely examine the anonymity effects upon the intensity of social influence in a virtual community context; moreover, most studies neglect the mediating effect of public self-awareness and community identification in the relationship between anonymity and its results in such community. Nevertheless, this study develops an integrated model by analyzing two different patterns of ”identifiable anonymity” in virtual community in the light of De-individuation Theory and the Social Identity Model of De-individuation Effects (SIDE). With these analyses we hope to determine the influence of anonymity over cognitive factor and social influence as well as its results upon the group norms in virtual community. Questionnaire survey was taken and in the end 347 samples were successfully retrieved. Data collected from the survey were analyzed with the Partial Least Squares (PLS) method. Results by our analysis have indicated that identifiable anonymity was negatively associated with public self-awareness, as expected. A comparison of the mediating model and non-mediating models has revealed that public self-awareness and community identification exert a significant mediating effect on the path relationships between individual cognition and the intensity of social influence in a virtual community context. Furthermore, the results have suggested the following paths: (1) Members with low identifiable anonymity recognize more public self-awareness; consequently, they are more likely to conform to group norms. (2) When communicators have higher public self-awareness, the higher the level of their community identification, the more consistently they follow the norms of their group.

並列關鍵字

Identifiable Anonymity ； Public Self-awareness ； Community Identification ； Group Norms