- 學位論文
虛擬社群成員互動過程之研究：個人認知與社會影響之整合觀點
The Process of Members’ Interaction in Virtual Communities: An Integrated Perspective of Cognitive Factors and Social Influence
摘要
過去研究缺乏驗證匿名性對社會規範的矛盾效果，同時也忽略了外在自我覺察與社群認同在匿名性效果過程中的可能中介角色。本研究重新定義匿名為「識別匿名性」，用此概念來討論個人認知與社會影響過程，根據「去個人化理論」與「去個人化的社會認定模式」(SIDE)，分析兩個不同模式在虛擬社群環境的匿名角色，進而整合出其相互影響關係與解釋路徑。研究採兩階段設計，透過質性調查三個熱門社群，包括MMC車友會(MMC on-line club)、巴哈姆特(gamer.com)與愛情公寓網站(i-part.com)，以確定概念定義與研究變數之間的路徑關係。其次，採用問卷調查收集虛擬社群樣本，最終有效問卷共347份，並藉由PLS方法進行量表效度與假說檢定。研究結果顯示，本研究之結構模型具有高度的解釋與預測能力。其中，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，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，欲提高群體規範一致性的路徑有二：(a).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，進而提高社群成員對群體規範一致性認知。(b). 或藉由外在自我覺察的增加，來提升社群認同，進而形成群體規範的一致性。最後，當外在自我覺察與社群認同增強，會正向影響群體規範一致性，且有助於最終社群投入的結果。
並列摘要
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.