Science of Emotion and Sensibility (감성과학)

Korean Society for Emotion and Sensibility (한국감성과학회)
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Effects of Initiation and Perceived Similarity on the Evaluation of Online Communities

온라인 커뮤니티 속 가입절차 및 지각된 유사성에 따른 평가의 차이

  • Received : 2018.08.18
  • Accepted : 2018.11.16
  • Published : 2018.12.31
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Abstract

Nowadays, it is hard to imagine one's life without smart phones or the internet. Furthermore, not only do people form groups offline, but also online. Based on the cognitive dissonance theory, there have been many studies about how an offline group's initiation affects attitudes toward the group. However, there has not been a study about how an online group's initiation can affect attitudes toward the group. Therefore, this study aims to find out how cognitive dissonance aroused by initiation affects the attitudes toward the online community, which represents groups that are formed online. In addition, this study examined how perceived similarity affects changes in attitude aroused by cognitive dissonance. Participants were assigned to a group in three ways as follows: without a registration process, with a simple registration process, and/or with a complex registration process. Perceived similarity was calculated by the difference between the current body mass index (BMI) and the target BMI of the participant. Attitudes toward the online group were measured by perceived source credibility, perceived information quality, satisfaction, information usefulness, and continuance intention. Contrary to the cognitive dissonance theory, the results showed that when applied to offline social groups, there were conflicting results. There were cases where there was no difference in the evaluation between initiation conditions. However, other cases showed that groups with the most complex registration process were found to have the worst evaluation. People were more favorable toward the group when the perceived similarity was larger. Interestingly, people who had higher perceived similarity had more positive attitudes toward the groups that had been assigned with a registration process compared to the group formed without a registration process. Conversely, people with lower perceived similarity had more positive attitudes toward the group when there was no initiation process. Online communities may use the results of this study to design more suitable registration processes for their communities.

오늘날 오프라인뿐만 아니라 온라인에서도 집단을 형성하고 집단 활동이 활발히 이루어지고 있다. 오프라인 집단의 경우 인지부조화 이론에 따라 초기 가입절차가 집단에 대한 태도에 어떤 영향을 미치는지에 관한 연구들이 진행되어온 반면, 아직 온라인 집단에 관해 가입절차가 집단에 대한 태도에 미치는 영향은 연구된 바가 미비하다. 따라서 본 연구는 온라인 집단으로 대표되는 온라인 커뮤니티를 대상으로 가입절차로 인해 유발되는 인지부조화가 온라인 커뮤니티에 대한 태도에 어떤 차이를 유발하는지 살펴보았다. 더 나아가 기존 회원과의 지각된 유사성이 큰지 작은지 정도에 따라 인지부조화로 인해 유발되는 태도 변화가 어떻게 달라질 수 있는지 알아보았다. 가입절차는 가입절차 없음, 간단한 가입절차, 복잡한 가입절차의 세 수준으로 나뉘었으며, 지각된 유사성은 참가자의 현재 BMI와 목표 BMI간의 차이로 측정하였다. 또한 지각된 정보 원천의 신뢰성, 지각된 정보의 질, 만족도, 정보 유용성, 지속 사용 의향을 종속변인으로 태도의 차이를 살펴보았다. 연구 결과, 기존 집단에 관한 인지부조화 이론과는 반대로 지각된 정보 원천의 신뢰성, 지각된 정보의 질, 만족도에 관해서는 가입절차 조건에 따른 차이가 없었으며, 정보 유용성과 지속 사용 의향의 경우는 가입절차가 가장 복잡할 때 가장 부정적인 태도를 보였다. 또한 지각된 유사성이 높을수록 더 긍정적인 태도를 보였다. 흥미로운 점은 지각된 유사성에 따라 가입절차로 유발된 인지부조화의 영향이 달랐다는 것인데, 지각된 유사성이 높은 집단에서는 가입절차가 있을 때 더 긍정적인 태도를 보인 반면, 지각된 유사성이 낮은 집단은 가입절차가 아예 없을 때 더 긍정적인 태도를 보이는 경향이 나타났다. 본 연구의 결과를 바탕으로 이후 온라인 커뮤니티의 특성에 따라 보다 알맞은 회원가입 절차를 디자인 할 수 있을 것이다.

Keywords

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