Online Community Membership and Social Impact Theory:

Abstract

Social Impact Theory, developed in the 1980s by Bibb Latané, proposes, among other things, that the quality of relationships generally decreases over distance. Much past research regarding SIT has specifically tested behaviors and perceptions related to persuasion and cooperation. This research builds off of past research to test these behaviors and perceptions over two different distance conditions: a task partner located 50 miles away from a participant and a task partner located 5000 miles away from a participant. This research adds an additional condition: self-identification as a member of an online community. Participants originally responded to a survey asking about online community membership, and then went on to complete a series of online tasks with a task partner at one of the two distances. Half of the task participants (n = 32) were members of online communities, and most of the survey responders involved in online communities used Facebook as their primary platform for interactions. The other half (n = 32) of task participants were not members of online communities. It was hypothesized, based on the carryover effect, that online community members would be less likely to be affected by distance than participants who were not members of online communities. Most of the results were inconclusive, though trends indicate that distance did not seem to have played a very strong role. However, there were some conclusive results regarding the self-identification condition: online community members were likelier than non-online community members to be cooperative and to perceive their task partner as cooperative, regardless of distance. This may be explained in part by the carryover effect or perhaps Social Identity Theory processes. Recommendations are based on the trends visible in the results and the conclusive results: remote work-based employers ought to consider whether they facilitate development of an online community among their employees and whether their choice of platform is beneficial. Future research should continue along this vein, but with larger sample sizes.