社会影响理论视角下网络从众及其影响因素

Social Influence Theory Perspective on Online Followership and Its Influencing Factors

从众是一个古老的课题,许多经典研究发现,个体会受到周围群体的影响,从而改变自身态度或行为。随着互联网的高速发展,人类的交互逐渐转变为在线的形式,网络上的群体同样会成为从众的动因。但由于匿名性等因素,网络群体与现实群体本质上是不同的,且现实情景的从众研究结论并不完全适用于网络从众,网络从众或许有着区别于现实从众的独特影响因素。社会影响理论可以更全面地解释不同动机的从众行为,且不受情景的限制。该理论视角下,匿名性、缺少的社会存在等因素导致网络情景中规范性影响的效果或方式可能与现实情景不同,而信息性影响的效果依然明显。据此进一步总结网络从众的独特影响因素,未来研究可以进一步采用不同实验范式,系统对比不同情景中社会影响的作用差异。

Conformity is an age-old topic, and many classic studies have found that individuals are influenced by the groups around them to change their own attitudes or behaviors. With the rapid development of the Internet, human interaction has gradually changed to an online format, and groups on the Internet can also be a motivation for conformity. However, due to anonymity and other factors, online groups are essentially different from real groups, and the findings of herding studies in real situations are not fully applicable to online herding, which may have unique influencing factors that are different from real herding. Social influence theory can explain different motivations of herding behavior more comprehensively and without the restriction of scenarios. In this theory perspective, factors such as anonymity and lack of social presence may lead to different effects or ways of normative influence in online scenarios than in real ones, while the effects of informational influence are still evident. Accordingly, to further summarize the unique influencing factors of online conformity, future research can further adopt different experimental paradigms to systematically compare the differences in the role of social influence in different scenarios.