encouraging commitment kse 652 social computing systems design uichin lee oct. 4, 2012

Encouraging Commitment

KSE 652 Social Computing Systems DesignUichin Lee

Oct. 4, 2012

Commitment

• Committed workers will– help with community activities– sustain group through problems– provide content that others value (e.g., answers,

code, edits)• Goal: making design decisions that influence

whether and how people will become committed to a community

Commitment

• Commitment to a group can be based on– Feelings of closeness to other individuals – Feelings of strong identification with the group or its main

interest– Feelings of obligation to the group, or even the cost or risk of

leaving the group• Field theory (by Kurt Lewin)

– Tells that there are forces in people’s environment (or field) that attract people to a group and keep them loyal

– Ex) principle of proximity; the way in which simply living or working near people initiates a sense of identity and group feelings with those nearby

Commitment

• Three types of commitments applicable to online communities– Affective commitment: based on feelings of closeness

and attachment to a group or members of the group – Normative commitment: based on feelings of

rightness or felt obligation to the group– Need-based (or continuance) commitment: based on

an incentive structure in the group and alternatives available to members from outside that increase the net costs of leaving the group

Affective Commitment

• Two bases for the affective commitment– Identity-based affective commitment: feeling of being

part of the community • Online community: attached to the purpose or topic

– Bond-based affective commitment: feeling close to individual members of the group• Online community: attached to particular members

• Examples: classification of student groups: based on topics vs. friendship (Prentice, Miller, Lightdale 1994)– Topics: newspapers, art groups, etc.– Friendship/bonds: fraternities, eating clubs, etc.

1. Affective commitment 2. Normative commitment3. Need-based commitment

Affective Commitment

• Theory of group cohesiveness (Festinger, Schachter, Back 1950)– Attractiveness of the group: the main focus of social identity theory—

social category like gender, hobby, etc. (Hogg and Abrams 1988)– Attractiveness of individuals in the group: preferences and personal

interactions (Lott and Lott 1965)

• People can feel both types of attachment in the same community• “Two perspectives are separable processes (in development and maintenance of

groups) either of which might dominate under a given set of circumstances” (Prentice, Miller, Lightdale 1994)

• These types of commitment have some distinct causes, consequences, and implications for how designers can encourage and exploit the two types of commitment


Affective Commitment(1) Encouraging Identity-based Commitment

• Social identity theory: identification w/ a social group or category keeps people in a group

• People connected to the group as a whole (or its purpose) without knowing others in a group

• Their commitment to the group is stable in the face of turnover in membership (at least in comparison to bond-based attachment; Abrams, Ando, Hinkle 1998)


Design Claim 1: instilling identity-based attachment leads people to continue their participation in the group in the face of membership turnover


• Design Claim 2: identity-based commitment makes people more compliant with norms than does bonds-based commitment

• Comparisons between group norms in common-identity vs. common-bond online groups (Postmes 2002)

• Attitudes are more similar in common-identity groups• More likely to conform with their group norms

(behavioral measure of compliance to the norms)


Design Claim 2: identity-based commitment makes people more compliant with norms than does bonds-based commitment


• Design Claim 3: Recruiting or clustering those who are similar to each other into homogeneous groups fosters identity-based commitment to a community

• Similarity can creates identity-based attachment (Cartwright 1968)– Member background (e.g., profession, school, locality, race,

occupation, age)– People even tend to dislike groups whose members are heterogeneous

• Online community can let users select into homogeneous subgroups or use statistical techniques to assign people with similar attributes automatically (e.g., Harper 2007)


Design Claim 3: Recruiting or clustering those who are similar to each other into homogeneous groups fosters identity-based commitment to a community


• Design Claim 4: Providing a collection of individuals with a name or other indicator that they are members of a common group increases their identity-based commitment to the community

• Designer can encourage people to identify with the community (or subgroups) – By highlighting members’ common social characteristics– By drawing boundaries around this category– Example social category: gender, home town, religion, job, etc.

• Surprisingly, even random labeling with an arbitrary label works (lab experiment and online)– Categorizing people with fictional personality traits, team uniforms,

arbitrary group names


Design Claim 4: Providing a collection of individuals with a name or other indicator that they are members of a common group increases their identity-based commitment to the community


• Design Claim 5: A name and tagline that articulate the shared interests of a community’s members increases the members’ identity-based commitment to the community

• In most online communities, people come to the group based on:– Shared interest in a particular domain (e.g., perl programming)– Topic (e.g., autism, greyhound rescue, etc)– Common cause (e.g., building a free online encyclopedia)

• People value membership: access and share useful info• Clearly articulated scope with a clever name and tagline:

– Help to define a community’s niche (and differentiate it from others)– Help potential new members to access whether they fit well– Help induce identity-based attachment

• Ex) Wikipedia’s slogan: “free encyclopedia that anyone can edit”


Design Claim 5: A name and tagline (slogan) that articulate the shared interests of a community’s members increases the members’ identity-based commitment to the community


• Creating named subgroups within a larger online community– Design Claim #6: to increase members’ commitment to the subgroups– Design Claim #7: to increase members’ commitment to the community as a

whole --- as long as the subgroups identity is not in conflict with the larger community identity

• Designers can actively promote subgroups: – Subgroup identity can be as powerful as whole-community identity in

eliciting commitment (Zaccaro and Dobbins 1989)• Goals within a subgroup is particularly useful (e.g., 65% more ratings

with group name/goal, Beenen et al. 2004)• Goal conflicts may happen: a guild left en mass to play another game


Design Claim #6: to increase members’ commitment to the subgroups Design Claim #7: to increase members’ commitment to the community as

a whole --- as long as the subgroups identity is not in conflict with the larger community identity


• Increasing identity-based commitment: – Design Claim #8: by making community fate, goals, or purpose explicit– Design Claim #9: providing members with interdependent tasks

• Common fate, goal, purpose, or task can enhance identity-based commitment (Sherif et al., 1961)– Common fate: perception that all members benefit or suffer (Michinov

2004)– Common goal that a group as a whole can attain (e.g., scores, ratings, or

some tangible outcomes)– Common purpose: often advocacy communities and production-oriented

communities (e.g., OSS, Wikipedia) – Join tasks are more cohesive and committed to the group; a powerful way

of overcoming animosity among subgroups (if properly used)


Design Claim #8: by making community fate, goals, or purpose explicit Design Claim #9: providing members with interdependent tasks


• Design Claim 10: Highlighting an out-group (and competing with it) increases members’ identity-based commitment

• Encouraging members to attend to group boundaries and their identification with the group by increasing members’ awareness of a different out-group

• People who define and categorize themselves as members of a group often compare themselves with those in other groups (Hogg and Terry 2000)

• In-group vs. out-group:– WoW: Alliance vs. Horde– Apache server vs. other web servers– Wikipedia vs. other encyclopedia (e.g., Britannica)


Design Claim 10: Highlighting an out-group (and competing with it) increases members’ identity-based commitment

Affective Commitment(2) Bond-based Commitment

• Design Claim 13: recruiting participants who have existing social ties to be members of community

• Recruit members who are already friends or build new friendships• Group cohesiveness: resistance of a group to disruptive forces; it is

also associated with the strength of the relational bonds among group members (Lott and Lott 1965)

Likelihood that a person join a group in LiveJournal increased

with the number of current members of that group they were

linked to (Backstrom et al 2006)

Number of friends (k)

Prob

abili

ty


Design Claim 13: recruiting participants who have existing social ties to be members of community


• Design Claim 14: facilitating interaction with “friends of friends”

• Psychological balance: people who are both friends of a friend are likely to know and like each other and their friendship to a common partner is likely to lead to their becoming friends as well (Curry and Emerson 1970)

LinkedIn’s tool for seeing friends of friends


Design Claim 14: facilitating interaction with “friends of friends”


• Design Claim 15: displaying photos and information about individual members and their recent activities (encouraging new friendships)

• Interpersonal attraction via repeated exposure, similarity, social interaction, and self-disclosure

• Milgram’s discussion of “familiar stranger”: merely seeing other people repeatedly may induce personal attachment

• Providing a stream of fresh information about the others enhances this familiarity effect

Facebook news feedsBejeweled game


Design Claim 15: encouraging new friendships or bonds by displaying photos and information about individual members and their recent activities


• Design Claims: self-disclosure and social interactions– #16: Providing opportunities for members to engage in personal conversation – #17: Providing places, spaces, groups, friend feed, and other mechanisms for social

interaction (and self-disclosure)– #18: Providing user profile pages and flexibility in personalizing them– #19: Pseudonym will increase self-disclosure and liking

• Social interaction is the primary basis for building and maintaining social bonds (Homans 1958)

• As frequency of interaction increases, their liking for one another also increases (Festinger 1950); message exchanges in online communities create liking and trust

• Self-disclosure of personal information (e.g., personal profile) is both cause and consequence of interpersonal attraction

• People like others about whom they know more, and about whom they reveal more (Collins and Miller 1994)


#16: Providing opportunities for members to engage in personal conversation #17: Providing places, spaces, groups, friend feed, and other mechanisms for

social interaction (and self-disclosure) #18: Providing user profile pages and flexibility in personalizing them #19: Pseudonym will increase self-disclosure and liking


• Design Claims: – #20: Active self-disclosure with visible responses– #21: highlighting interpersonal similarity

• Self-disclosure is both cause and consequence of interpersonal attraction

• People like others about whom they know more, and about whom they reveal more (Collins and Miller 1994)

• Disclosure is effective when people know whom they have disclosed to (e.g., who read what, guestbook comments)

• People like groups whose focus seems similar to their own interests and goals (preferences, attitudes, values)


#20: Active self-disclosure with visible responses #21: Highlighting interpersonal similarity

Affective CommitmentReducing Repelling Forces of Commitment

• Design Claim 22: Large communities with a large volume of communication reduce bonds-based commitment, unless some means of clustering communications is used

• Design Claim 23: Diversity of members’ interest in an online community can drive away members, especially those with identity-based commitment

• People feel more committed to smaller groups than to larger ones (Carron and Spink 1995)

• People are able to maintain only a limited number of strong ties (Dunbar 1993): approximately 150

• Social networking sites greatly expanded social circles and reduced the cost of maintaining weak ties; yet ~ 130 ties

• Due to large group size, each pair may not have enough interactions for bonds to buildup (lowering bond-based commitment)

• Identity-based commitment is mostly influenced by homogeneity of a group (common social identity)


Design Claim 22: Large communities with a large volume of communication reduce bonds-based commitment, unless some means of clustering communications is used

Design Claim 23: Diversity of members’ interest in an online community can drive away members, especially those with identity-based commitment

Affective CommitmentReducing Repelling Forces of Commitment

• Design Claim 24: Off-topic communication will reduce identity-based commitment, but increase bonds-based commitment to an online community

• Design Claim 25: Going off-topic together can increase both bonds-based commitment and identity-based commitment.

• Design Claim 26: Personalized filters, which differentially expose members to communications that match their personal interests, will reduce the negative effects

• Diversity among member interests is the root cause of off-topic conversations---irrelevant to the main purpose

• Trade-offs: (1) distraction: lowering identity-based commitment vs. (2) discovering common interests: enhancing interpersonal bonds

• Flexibility: going off-topic together (something becomes on-topic temporarily)


Design Claim 24: Off-topic communication will reduce identity-based commitment, but increase bonds-based commitment to an online community

Design Claim 25: Going off-topic together can increase both bonds-based commitment and identity-based commitment.

Design Claim 26: Personalized filters, which differentially expose members to communications that match their personal interests, will reduce the negative effects (or providing tunable knobs of control)

Normative Commitment

• Feeling that one has obligations to the community, to be loyal and act on its behalf

• Commitment to the cause/purpose (e.g., advancing hobby or helping other people)– Design Claim 27. Highlighting a community’s purpose and

successes at achieving that purpose can translate members’ commitment to the purpose into normative commitment to the community

• Others’ normative commitment (e.g., narrative testimonials)– Design Claim 28. Testimonials about people’s normative

commitment to the community (e.g., moral obligation in OSS projects)


Design Claim 27. Highlighting a community’s purpose and successes at achieving that purpose can translate members’ commitment to the purpose into normative commitment to the community

Design Claim 28. Testimonials about people’s normative commitment to the community (e.g., moral obligation in OSS projects)

Normative Commitment

• Shared norm of reciprocity (direct vs. indirect; tit-for-tat vs. pay it forward) – Design Claim 29. Priming norms of reciprocity by highlighting concepts

that get people to think of their normative obligations (e.g., using language such as “reciprocity” “giving back”) --- this works even unrelated to the context of action (e.g., using religious tones in charity; Pichon 2007)

– Design Claim 30. Explicitly telling people what they have received from the community will increase their normative commitment to it.• Highlighting what individuals have received from a community • Net benefit score in MovieLens• Wikipedia: “It stopped being just a website a long time ago. … it becomes an

indispensable part of our daily life”

– Design Claim 31. Highlighting opportunities to return favors to specific others will increase normative commitment to the community (i.e., soliciting/invoking a direct reciprocity norm)


Design Claim 29-31: Use shared norm of reciprocity (direct vs. indirect; tit-for-tat vs. pay-it-forward)

Needs-based Commitment

• Needs-based commitment: attachment to an online community that depends on the net benefits that people experience from the community

• According to the needs-based models of social cohesion, people stay in a group:– Only as long as they perceive the group and other members as being

attractive and instrumental in fulfilling their personal goals (Homans 1961)• When net benefits are positive, people think that they get sufficient

rewards to warrant the time, effort, and frustration they spend on the community

• People DO care about benefits: low benefit & low cost of leaving low commitment



• Design Claim 32. Providing participants with experiences that meet their motivations for participating in the community

Reasons for joining different types of discussion groups (from Ridings and Gefen, 2004)


Design Claim 32. Providing participants with experiences that meet their motivations for participating in the community


• Design Claim 33. Showing information about other communities in the same ecological niche reduces needs-based commitment

• As with interpersonal relationships, the net benefit that people need to achieve to decide to stay depends on the alternatives or competitors available

• E.g., employees are less likely to quit their company when there are fewer equivalent jobs available


Design Claim 33. Showing information about other communities in the same ecological niche (alternatives or competitors) reduces needs-based commitment


• Design Claim 34. Making it difficult for members to export assets or transfer them to other members

• Lock-in happens when members have accumulated community-specific assets (Shapiro and Varian 1999)

• Established customers were less likely to leave – Status/privilege: e.g., WoW game– Relationship services: e.g., Facebook friends– History/reputation: e.g., eBay – worth about 8% of revenue– Skills (technical skill of operating a community’s s/w)


Design Claim 34. Making it difficult for members to export assets or transfer them to other members

Needs-based Commitment• Design Claim 35. Entry barriers and other opportunities for members to

make community-specific investments (even if they are merely sunk costs that do not create valuable assets)

• Members’ community-specific investments that cannot be recouped (e.g., level) when they leave can generate commitment Rational vs. heuristic cost-benefit analysis

• Cognitive dissonance: people need to believe that their previous investment decisions were good ones, so they make further choices that could result in justifying the earlier ones (Festinger 1957) People like group more if they

endure a severe initiation process to join them (Aronson and Mills 1959), as it is the only way they can reconcile their views..

Effect of entry barriers on post-entry contributions to Movielens (from Drenner, et al, 2008)


Design Claim 35. Entry barriers and other opportunities for members to make community-specific investments (even if they are merely sunk costs that do not create valuable assets)

Summary

• Affective Commitment– Identity-based affective commitment: e.g., social identity, group

norms, homogeneous groups, naming, common fate/goal/task, in vs. outgroups

– Bond-based affective commitment: e.g., leveraging social ties, social interaction mechanisms, profiles, pseudonyms

– Reducing repelling forces: e.g., large group, diversity, off-topic

• Normative Commitment– purpose, other's commitment, reciprocity

• Needs-based Commitment– matching benefits with motivation, competitors, lock-in (sunk cost)

encouraging commitment kse 652 social computing systems design uichin lee oct. 4, 2012

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