09e4150ec6ff2ed6c0000000.pdf

8/10/2019 09e4150ec6ff2ed6c0000000.pdf

1/15

European Journal of Social PsychologyEur. J. Soc. Psychol. 35 , 361374 (2005)Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI : 10.1002/ejsp.254

Attitude change in face-to-face and computer-mediatedcommunication: Private self-awareness as mediator and

moderator

KAI SASSENBERG 1 *, MARGARETE BOOS 2 ANDSVEN RABUNG 21 Friedrich-Schiller-University of Jena, Germany 2 Georg-August-University of Go ttingen, Germany

Abstract

Two types of social inuence can be distinguished: norm-based inuence occurs when social identityis salient and interpersonal inuence occurs when personal identity is salient. In two experiments theimpact of trait and state private self-awareness on interpersonal inuence during face-to-face and computer-mediated communication (CMC) was investigated. It is argued that interpersonal inuenceresulting from face-to-face communication is stronger than interpersonal inuence resulting fromCMC because CMC heightens state private self-awareness. As a result, it leads to a focus on personal perceptions and thoughts which in turn reduces attitude change. Experiment 1 suggests that communication media may inuence attitude change via private self-awareness. Experiment 2 showed that trait private self-awareness moderates the effect of communication media on interpersonal

inuence. Interpersonal inuence was stronger in face-to-face communication than in CMC only for individuals higher in private self-awareness. This nding indicates that the impact of situationalvariations of a concept can be limited to individuals who have a more elevated sense of private self-awareness. Copyright # 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Since the invention of the Internet and the World Wide Web, computers have increasingly become ameans for interpersonal communication. Today e-mails, messengers, and chat-rooms form part of many peoples everyday lives (W3B, 2004; for additional details about Internet use and Internet userssee Nua, 2003); thus the psychological impact of the Internet should be studied. The communicationsetting on the Internet differs in several aspects from the usual face-to-face setting (McKenna & Bargh,2000; Spears & Lea, 1994): First, it is possible to act anonymously on the Internet and to interact withothers who are also (or are not) anonymous to the actor. Second, physical distance or propinquity does

not matter on the Internet. Moreover, physical appearance and visual cues are not present duringcommunication the way they are in face-to-face settings and communication can take place in physicalisolation. Finally, in asynchronous computer-mediated communication (CMC) there is no need tocoordinate communication in terms of time (so-called entrainment).

Received 18 July 2004Copyright # 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Accepted 22 October 2004

*Correspondence to: Dr K. Sassenberg, Department of Social Psychology, University of Jena, Jenergasse 8, D-07743 Jena,Germany. E-mail: [email protected]

8/10/2019 09e4150ec6ff2ed6c0000000.pdf

2/15

Social psychologists began in the early eighties to conduct research on the consequences of CMC.The reduced social cues approachone of the rst modelsassumes that CMC leads to less self-awareness and in turn to more anti-normative, extreme, and in some cases even rude behaviour (e.g.Kiesler, Siegel, & McGuire, 1984). Inuenced by this model, differences in social inuence betweenface-to-face communication and CMC received substantial attention (e.g. Hiltz, Johnson, & Turoff,1986; Kiesler et al., 1984; McGuire, Kiesler, & Siegel, 1987; Postmes, Spears, & Lea, 1998; Postmes,

Spears, Sakhel, & de Groot, 2001; Sassenberg & Boos, 2003; Sassenberg & Postmes, 2002; Siegel,Dubrovsky, Kiesler, & McGuire, 1986; Spears, Lea, & Lee, 1990). In some studiesin line with thereduced social cues approachmore attitude change was found resulting from CMC than from face-to-face communication (Kiesler et al., 1984; Siegel et al. 1986); in other studies the pattern wasreversed (McGuire et al., 1987). These inconsistent ndings have lead to two different explanations forthe impact of communication media on social inuence: one based on the distinction between personaland social identities (e.g. Spears & Lea, 1992) and the other focusing on differences in private self-awareness. Drawing on both of these explanations, the current research analyses the impact of privateself-awareness as a state affected by media use on social inuence when personal identity is salient.We also explore whether interpersonal differences in private self-awareness moderate the impact of different communication media on interpersonal inuence.

INTERPERSONAL VERSUS NORM-BASED INFLUENCE

According to the social identity approach (Tajfel & Turner, 1979; Turner, 1987), social inuence takesdifferent routes depending on whether social identity (i.e. the self-perception is dominated by a groupmembership) or personal identity (i.e. the self-perception is dominated by the individuality of aperson) is salient. When a social identity is salient, social inuence is based on the adherence toingroup norms as a means of acting as a group member (Turner, 1991). We will call this type of socialinuence norm-based inuence in the remainder of this article. Concerning social inuence under asalient personal identity the social identity approach is less elaborated. Some researchers have arguedthat individuals inuence each other the more the closer their interpersonal bonds are (Postmes &Spears, 2000; Sassenberg & Boos, 2003); others have suggested that social inuence is driven by thestriving for individual distinctiveness from the communication partners when personal identity issalient (Spears et al., 1990). Social inuence under salient personal identity will be calledinterpersonal inuence in this article.

According to the social identity model of deindividuation effects (SIDE; Reicher, Spears, &Postmes, 1995; Spears et al., 1990; Spears & Lea, 1992) the distinction between norm-based andinterpersonal inuence can be used to explain the contradictory ndings reported in studies comparingface-to-face communication and CMC. The key difference stressed by SIDE is the anonymity of theother group members. When social identity is salient, anonymity in CMC fosters norm-basedinuence, because the social categorization remains more pronounced (i.e. more salient), when noindividuating knowledge is available about the fellow ingroup members compared to situations inwhich individuating information is transmitted in non-anonymous communication. Thus, the ingroupnorm is more inuential in CMC compared to face-to-face communication. When personal identity issalient, anonymity hinders interpersonal inuence, because anonymous communication does not allowfor the development of interpersonal bonds that are the basis for interpersonal inuence. If personalidentity is salient, less interpersonal inuence and less attitude change can be expected in CMCcompared to face-to-face communication. Several studies deliver evidence for the assumed effects onnorm-based inuence and the underlying processes (Lea & Spears, 1991; Lea, Spears, & de Groot,

362 Kai Sassenberg et al.

Copyright # 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Eur. J. Soc. Psychol. 35 , 361374 (2005)

8/10/2019 09e4150ec6ff2ed6c0000000.pdf

3/15

2001; Postmes et al., 1998, 2001; Postmes, Spears, & Lea, 2002; Sassenberg & Boos, 2003;Sassenberg & Postmes, 2002; Spears et al., 1990). There is also some evidence that more interpersonalinuence results from face-to-face communication than from CMC when personal identity is salient(Spears et al., 1990). In other studies reporting less interpersonal inuence in CMC (Hiltz et al., 1986;Kiesler et al. 1984; Siegel et al., 1986) personal identity was most likely salient, because of theinstructions stressing individuality (see Spears & Lea, 1992). However, no measure supporting this

conclusion was taken.Less attention has been paid to the processes leading to these effects but one potential mediator is

private self-awareness (Kiesler et al., 1984; Spears & Lea, 1992). Although research has shown thatdifferences in norm-based inuence using anonymous and non-anonymous communication are notmediated by private self-awareness (Postmes et al., 2001), the role of private self-awareness oninterpersonal inuence in CMC so far has not been addressed.

THE IMPACT OF CMC ON PRIVATE SELF-AWARENESS

Following Prentice-Dunn and Rogers (1982, p. 504) public self-awareness involves [ . . . ] concernsabout ones appearance and the impression made in social situations. [ . . . ] On the other hand, privateself-awareness refers to a focus on personal, more covert aspects of oneself such as perceptions,thoughts, and feelings (for a detailed discussion of the differentiation between personal and socialidentity on the one hand, and public and private self-awareness on the other hand see Abrams, 1990,1994). Both dimensions vary independently of each other (Fenigstein, Scheier, & Buss, 1975). Thetrait component of these two characteristics is the general tendency to pay attention to these aspects of oneself, whereas the state component refers to the tendency to pay attention to these aspects of the self in a specic situation. Trait private self-awareness has sometimes been labelled privateself-consciousness (e.g. Fenigstein et al., 1975; Scheier, 1976). 1 We will use the term trait privateself-awareness, because state private self-awareness and trait private self-awareness (i.e. self-consciousness) refer to the same concept and the same mechanisms.

To address whether self-awareness increased or decreased interpersonal inuence in CMC,Matheson and Zanna (1988) conducted an experiment in which they compared the impact of CMCand face-to-face communication on public and private self-awareness. As expected, public self-awareness was slightly lower in the CMC condition. However, contrary to the predictions resultingfrom the reduced social cues approach private self-awareness was even higher after CMC than face-to-face communication. The latter nding was replicated by Matheson and Zanna (1989; see also Franke,1997), whereas the impact of communication media on public self-awareness did not receive anyadditional empirical support. The explanation given for the differences in private self-awareness is thatpeople are less distracted from themselves by their communication partners during CMC than duringdirect communication due to physical isolation. Taken together, these are good reasons to believe thatCMC fosters private self-awareness whereas public self-awareness is most likely not affected by thecommunication media.

1We decided to use private self-awareness (self-consciousness) in the broad sense as it was originally dened (e.g. Fenigstein

et al., 1975) and not to use the subscales introduced by Watson, Headrick, and McKinney (1989), because these subscales seemto be hard to replicate (Bernstein, Teng, & Garbin, 1986; Britt, 1992) and most of the CMC research refers to the broad conceptof private self-awareness (e.g. Kiesler et al., 1984; Matheson & Zanna, 1988).

Self-awareness and CMC 363


8/10/2019 09e4150ec6ff2ed6c0000000.pdf

4/15

PRIVATE SELF-AWARENESS AS A MEDIATOR

If higher private self-awareness leads to less interpersonal inuence, it can explain why there isreduced interpersonal inuence when communication is computer-mediated rather than face-to-face.Indeed, Scheier (1980) found that individuals with higher levels of private self-awareness stateopinions that are closer to their personal values. Moreover, Froming and Carver (1981) found thathigher private self-awareness as a trait leads to less compliance (for studies on state private self-awareness see Froming, Walker, & Lopyan, 1982). Hence, due to the higher private self-awarenessresulting from CMC, this medium should result in less interpersonal inuence compared to face-to-face communication.

Matheson and Zanna (1989) conducted a study that addressed the role of private self-awareness formedia differences in attitude change. They compared the impact of a written persuasive message afterface-to-face communication or CMC interaction that was related to a different topic than the writtenmessage. As predicted, participants showed higher self-awareness after CMC than after face-to-facecommunication. However, different communication media did not lead to differences in attitudechange or communicator evaluation. One problem with this study is that Matheson and Zanna (1989)varied the group membership (ingroup vs. outgroup) of the communication source as an additionalexperimental factor (for a similar study see Postmes et al., 2001). Therefore, we think these studiesfocused on norm-based inuence and not on interpersonal inuence. Nevertheless, the lower levels of private self-awareness in CMC compared to face-to-face communication and the above mentionedevidence for the impact of private self-awareness on interpersonal inuence led us to the followingpredictions: CMC leads to less interpersonal inuence and higher levels of private self-awareness thanface-to-face communication. Moreover, we expect that the effect of the communication media on theinterpersonal inuence will be mediated by state private self-awareness.

PRIVATE SELF-AWARENESS AS A MODERATOR

Besides the notion that state private self-awareness might mediate the impact of communication mediaon interpersonal inuence, it could at the same time be argued that it moderates the relation betweenboth variables. Contrary to the mediation, the moderation is not driven by situational differences inprivate self-awareness but by interpersonal differences.

Spielberger (1966; Spielberger, Jacobs, Russell, & Crane, 1983) dened trait anxiety as thefrequency of the occurrence of state anxiety. In other words: the features of a situation affect a statemore, the more a person has the respective trait. Applying this reasoning to the current context, wehypothesized that the impact of the communication media (a manipulation of state private self-awareness, e.g. via CMC) on interpersonal inuence is especially strong for individuals high in traitprivate self-awareness.

In fact, Webb, Marsh, Schneiderman, and Davis (1989) found some evidence supporting thisprediction, even though their research was not about private self-awareness but pertained to self-monitoring. Self-monitoring is dened as the extent to which people monitor and regulate theircognitions and interpersonal behaviour on the basis of situational instead of dispositional, representedinformation (Snyder, 1979, 1987). Hence, individuals low in self-monitoring show similarities to thosehigh in private self-awareness as both are strongly guided by their attitudes and self-image and notlikely to adjust to situational cues. Webb et al. (1989) found that individuals low in self-monitoring aremore reactive to manipulations of private self-awareness than individuals high in self-monitoring. This



8/10/2019 09e4150ec6ff2ed6c0000000.pdf

5/15

nding suggests that trait private self-awareness (similar to self-monitoring) is likely to show aninteraction with situational manipulations of private self-awareness (such as face-to-face commu-nication versus CMC) in its impact on responses that are generally related to private self-awareness.Hence, we predict that trait private self-awareness moderates the relationship between the commu-nication media and interpersonal inuence. We expect that for individuals with high trait private self-awareness CMC will result in less interpersonal inuence than face-to-face communication, whereas

this difference should disappear or even show a reversed pattern for individuals with low private self-awareness.

THE CURRENT RESEARCH

In Experiment 1 we tested the hypothesis that private self-awareness mediates the effect thecommunication medium has on interpersonal inuence. In addition to the face-to-face communica-tion and the CMC condition we included a control condition in which participants communicatedface-to-face but in which their private self-awareness was heightened. This additional condition wasincluded in the design to test the impact of state private self-awareness on interpersonal inuence

separately from other differences between face-to-face communication and CMC. If state privateself-awareness is the crucial psychological state (a) differing between both communication mediaand (b) leading to differences in interpersonal inuence, the results in the control condition shouldmatch those in the CMC condition even though participants in the control condition communicateface-to-face. Statistically, our prediction is best tested by a -2 (face-to-face) 1 (CMC) 1 (control)contrast.

We conducted Experiment 2 to test the prediction that trait private self-awareness moderates theimpact of communication media on interpersonal inuence. We therefore assessed dispositionaldifferences in private self-awareness 1 week before the experimental session took place. In theexperimental session, participants communicated with each other either via computers or from face-to-face. As in the rst experiment, we measured the degree of interpersonal inuence in eachexperimental condition.

Both experiments made use of instructions that are usually employed to make personal identitysalient in order to study interpersonal inuence. More precisely, the participants were addressed asindividuals working with each other but never as a group member. Unlike experimental manipulationsof social identity salience, the instructions did not refer to any shared social categories that might berelevant for the participants. Moreover, the experimenter asked participants to introduce themselves toeach other by their rst name and participants received no group number or label.

EXPERIMENT 1PRIVATE SELF-AWARENESS AS A MEDIATOR

Method

Design and Participants

An experiment with three conditions (CMC, face-to-face, and control) was conducted. Thirty-sixfemale and 18 male undergraduate students of the Georg-August-University of Go ttingen (Germany)with a mean age of 23 years (range 1942) took part in this experiment.



8/10/2019 09e4150ec6ff2ed6c0000000.pdf

6/15

Procedure

Participants were invited to the lab in groups of three. First, they were asked to work on a problem-solving task individually. A shortened version of the NASA survival tasks (Bottger & Yetton, 1988)was administered. Participants rank ordered nine items concerning their importance for survivalon the moon. After they had reached an individual decision, they were asked to introduce

themselves to each other in order to make their personal identity salient. Then they discussed therank ordering within the group until they reached a common decision. In the CMC condition a chattool was used for the communication. Participants rst names were used as nicknames in the chat.In a separate window that was visible on the screens to all three participants they could rank orderthe items (a so-called shared whiteboard). In the other two conditions face-to-face communicationwas used and the rank order of the items had to be noted down on a sheet of paper. There was notime limit.

After the discussion concerning the survival task, participants in the CMC and the face-to-facecondition were asked to discuss an unrelated topic for another 5 min. In the control conditionparticipants listened to a relaxation tape that was based on biofeedback during these 5 min. Biofeed-back relaxation is very likely to strengthen private self-awareness, because it directs attention tophysiological and psychological processes. Then participants in all three conditions were asked to

solve the NASA task again individually. Afterwards, participants received a questionnaire assessingstate private self-awareness (PSA, M. Appel, K. Sassenberg, & M. Boos, poster presented at the 41stConference of the German Psychological Society, Dresden, Germany, 1998). The scale consisted of seven items (e.g. In this moment I am very much aware of my intentions, 0.66; internalconsistency reported by M. Appel et al., poster presented at the 41st Conference of the GermanPsychological Society, Dresden, Germany, 1998: mean 0.77). This scale is an adaptation of theprivate self-consciousness subscale from the self-consciousness questionnaire by Fenigstein et al.(1975) for the assessment of situational variations in private self-awareness. Finally, participants weredebriefed and thanked.

Two indices for interpersonal inuence were computed. First, a measure of disagreement wastaken. This index was similar to the one employed by Hiltz et al. (1986) in a rank order task. Moreprecisely, the mean of the absolute differences between the rank position in the group decision and inthe individual decision after the discussion for each item was computed. Second, the change in theindividual rank order induced by the group discussion was computed ( attitude change ). This is themost common index in research on interpersonal and social inuence in CMC (e.g. Kiesler et al., 1984;Sassenberg & Boos, 2003; Spears et al., 1990). The score was computed by averaging the mean of theabsolute differences between the rank position in the individual decision before and after thediscussion for each item (range 0 to 4.44). Thus, higher amounts of disagreement indicate lessinterpersonal inuence, whereas higher values of attitude change indicate more interpersonalinuence.

Results

It was predicted that PSA would be higher in both the CMC and the control condition compared to theface-to-face condition. To test this prediction an analysis of variance (ANOVA) with the condition asan independent factor and PSA as criteria was computed. As hypothesized, the PSA differed betweenconditions, F (2, 51) 4.78, p 0.013,

2 0.158. A planned contrast ( 2 1 1) revealed that the PSA

was higher in both the CMC condition ( M 2.47) and the control condition ( M 2.15) than in theface-to-face condition ( M 1.78), t (51) 2.75, p 0.008,

2 0.129.



8/10/2019 09e4150ec6ff2ed6c0000000.pdf

7/15

Moreover, we expected that the face-to-face condition would lead to more interpersonal inuencethan the other two conditions. This prediction was tested with two ANOVAs, one for the disagreementand one for the attitude change. The effect of the condition on the disagreement was in line with thehypothesis, F (2, 51) 3.40, p 0.041,

2 0.117. A planned contrast ( 2 1 1) showed that there was

less disagreement in the face-to-face condition ( M 0.25) than in the control condition ( M 0.39) andthe CMC condition ( M 0.51), t (51) 2.40, p 0.020, 2 0.102. For the attitude change measure,

the ANOVA and the planned comparison ( 2 1 1) did not show a signicant impact of the condition,F (2, 51) 0.38, p 0.687, 2 0.015, t (51) 0.73, p 0.470, 2 0.010. However, attitude changewas (descriptively) higher in the face-to-face condition ( M 1.23) than in the control condition( M 1.14) and the CMC ( M 1.02).

To test whether changes in private self-awareness mediate the relationship between the commu-nication media and interpersonal inuence, we conducted a mediation analysis following theregression based procedures suggested by Baron and Kenny (1986). The procedure was applied toboth dependent measures even though attitude change was not affected by the experimental conditionto a signicant extent. Following Kenny, Kashy, and Bolger (1998), a test for a mediation can beapplied even though the direct effect is not signicant because indirect effects can be signicantwithout a signicant direct effect.

The test for indirect effects was restricted to the CMC and the face-to-face condition. In the CMC

condition (0) PSA was higher, 0.43, p 0.009, 2

0.213,2

and disagreement was lower, 0.39, p 0.019, 2 0.157, than in the face-to-face condition (1). However, no mediation of

the effect of communication media on disagreement by PSA was found, Sobel t (35) 0.28, 2 0.002. No difference concerning attitude change was found between both communication media, 0.15, p 0.388,

2 0.022, but a trend towards an indirect effect of the communication media on

attitude change via PSA was found, t (35) 1.53, p 0.067, one-tailed, 2 0.063. The regressionweight of the communication media on attitude change is reduced from 0.15 to 0.003 byincluding the PSA ( 0.33) into the regression (see Figure 1). The indirect effect of theexperimental condition via both interpersonal inuence measures on PSA was not signicant, bothSobel t s < 1. Similar results are found, when the CMC and the control condition are combined beforethe mediation analyses are computed.

Figure 1. Path diagram (with standardized regression coefcients from multiple regression analysis) of themediating role of state private self-awareness. The impact of media on attitude change without including privateself-awareness into the regression is given in brackets (Experiment 1; CMC and face-to-face condition only)

2 All effect sizes for from multiple regressions have been computed using the General Linear Model module of SPSS12 and aretherefore partial 2 s.



8/10/2019 09e4150ec6ff2ed6c0000000.pdf

8/15

Discussion

The aim of Experiment 1 was to show that less interpersonal inuence in CMC compared to face-to-face communication occurs due to the higher state private self-awareness produced by CMC. Aspredicted group members disagreed more with their groups decision after CMC than after face-to-facediscussions. There was no direct effect of the experimental condition on the other measure of

interpersonal inuence (attitude change). One reason why we failed to nd this effect might be themoderating impact of trait private self-awareness discussed in Experiment 2. However, there was atrend towards the predicted indirect effect of the experimental condition on attitude change. Theabsence of this pattern for disagreement, which at the same time was more strongly inuenced by thecommunication media, suggests that different processes might underlie the effect of communicationmedia on the amount of disagreement. The impact of communication norms might be stronger fordisagreement than for attitude change (e.g. after agreeing on a group decision one does not divergefrom it). Moreover, the range of the disagreement was very restricted in our sample (01.33,SD 0.32) compared to the range of attitude change (03.11, SD 0.70) and the possible range of the index (04.44). This also works against the predicted indirect effect.

Compared to the face-to-face condition, the amount of disagreement was higher in the controlcondition where private self-awareness was manipulated independently of the communication media.

Combined with the trend towards an indirect effect of communication media on attitude change viaprivate self-awareness, this result suggests that private self-awareness is the crucial psychologicaleffect of CMC leading to less interpersonal inuence than in the case of face-to-face communication.One might object that the indirect effect was only marginal and that private self-awareness was notmanipulated during but after the communication in the control condition. However, the convergingevidence from the mediation analysis and the manipulation of the mediator in our opinion compensatefor these limitations.

In general, the results of Experiment 1 are in line with earlier research providing evidence thatprivate self-awareness lowers attitude change (Froming et al., 1982; Froming & Carver, 1981; Scheier,1980). The current research extends earlier ndings because a trend towards mediation of the impactof situational factors on attitude change via private self-awareness to our knowledge has not beenshown so far (see also Postmes & Spears, 1998). Froming et al. (1982) used the presence of a mirrorand an evaluative audience to manipulate private and public self-awareness. The manipulationsshowed the predicted effects on compliance. However, it was not tested whether or not differences inself-awareness mediated these effects. Scheier (1980) and Froming and Carver (1981) tested theimpact of dispositional self-awareness on the public expression of personal beliefs and compliancerespectively. Although they found effects of private and public self-awareness on their dependentmeasures, they focused on long lasting interpersonal differences. This aspect of private self-awarenesswill be addressed in Experiment 2.

EXPERIMENT 2PRIVATE SELF-AWARENESS AS A MODERATOR

The current experiment addresses the role of trait private self-awareness as a moderator of the impactof communication media on interpersonal inuence. As explained above, results from Webb et al.(1989) suggest that trait private self-awareness moderates the effect of communication media oninterpersonal inuence (i.e. lower interpersonal inuence resulting from CMC compared to directcommunication). More precisely, we predict that this effect is stronger, the higher trait private self-awareness is.



8/10/2019 09e4150ec6ff2ed6c0000000.pdf

9/15

The quasi-experimental test of this hypothesis overall was very similar to Experiment 1, butsome adjustments were made. Only a CMC and a face-to-face condition were included, because nocontrol condition was necessary to test the prediction. In some groups the CMC discussion inExperiment 1 lasted more than 1 h. In order to be able to schedule sessions adequately and to run thestudy in a more economical way, the rank order task was replaced by a dilemma similar to the mostfrequently used dilemma in other research on interpersonal inuence (e.g. Postmes et al., 2001;

Sassenberg & Boos, 2003). Additionally, the participants were informed about the xed time frame fortheir discussions. However, no group was actually told to stop before the members reached a commondecision.

Method

Design and Participants

A quasi-experiment with trait PSA and communication media (CMC vs. face-to-face) as independentvariables was conducted. Thirty-eight female and 15 male undergraduate students of the Georg-August-University of Go ttingen (Germany) with a mean age of 25 years (range 1943) took part in this

experiment.

Procedure

Participants were approached in a university building and asked to ll out a questionnaire. Thisquestionnaire consisted of 20 items including a six item scale measuring trait PSA. The items weretaken from Merz (1986), a German translation of Fenigstein et al. (1975; e.g. I watch signals from mybody carefully., 0.69; internal consistency reported by Merz, 1986: 0.91). Hence, the statePSA measure used in Experiment 1 and the trait PSA measure administered in this experiment arebased on a similar set of items, but were phrased differently to capture the stable versus variablecomponent of PSA, respectively. Each item had to be rated on a 6-point scale ranging from 1 for I donot agree to 6 I entirely agree. The mean PSA score was M 4.61 ( SD 0.65). The remaining 14items were distractor items asking for team work experience and computer knowledge.

After a time period of at least 1 week the experimenter called the participants in order to arrange themain experimental session. Participants were invited in dyads or groups of three and randomlyassigned to the experimental conditions. The group size did not differ between communication mediaconditions,

2(1, N 53) 0.01,

2 < 0.001. Participants were asked to answer the following dilemmaitem (administered in German):

A woman has cancer in an advanced state. There is no chance of recovery. Her physician Dr D.knows that she will die in less than six months time. She suffers from indescribable pain but is soweak that a strong pain killer would most likely lead to her immediate death. She has visions andis crazed with pain. Several times she asks Dr D. for help in order to commit a medically assisted

suicide. She explains to him that she cannot stand the pain anymore and that she has to die soonanyway. Dr D. knows that euthanasia is illegal; nevertheless he considers fulfilling the womansdesire. Please try to imagine that Dr D. asks you for advice. At which probability level of Dr D.shelp remaining undetected by others, would you suggest him to follow the womans wish?

Participants in the face-to-face condition rst noted down probability levels on different tables inthe same room. After the participants completed the dilemma item they were then seated around a



8/10/2019 09e4150ec6ff2ed6c0000000.pdf

10/15

common table and asked to introduce themselves to each other in order to make their personal identitysalient. Then they discussed their decision with the other participant(s). In the CMC conditionparticipants were seated in front of a computer in separate rooms. A chat tool was used to discuss thedilemma item concerning the probability levels. Again, participants rst names were used asnicknames. Participants were asked to come to an agreement after 40 min. In the face-to-facecondition participants were asked to stop the discussion as soon as possible with a maximal duration

of 10 min. The shorter time interval was chosen to compensate for the fact that typing is roughly fourtimes slower than speaking (e.g. Kiesler & Sproull, 1992). Face-to-face discussions were recorded by avideo camera. The video camera might have heightened public self-awareness, but the content of theCMC was likewise logged and the study was said to be about communication processes in groups.Hence, participants in both conditions most likely were aware to the same extent that researchers wereinterested in their (communication) behaviour. After the discussion individual attitudes were assessedonce again. Finally, participants were debriefed and thanked.

Dependent Measure

The attitude change computed as the absolute difference between the attitude before and after the

discussion served as a measure of interpersonal inuence. Higher values indicate more interpersonalinuence.

Results

To test the impact of communication media on attitude change, a t -test was computed. Both conditionsdid not differ signicantly in the amount of attitude change, t (51) 1.14, p 0.261,

2 0.025. On a

descriptive level the difference was in the same direction as found in Experiment 1. Attitude changewas higher after face-to-face discussions ( M 26.85) than after CMC discussions ( M 20.19). Theattitude change was slightly higher in three person groups ( M 26.84) than in dyads ( M 15.63),t (51) 1.79, p 0.080, 2 0.059. Therefore, group size was included as an additional factor in theanalyses reported below.

Concerning the impact of trait PSA, it was predicted that PSA would not directly impact attitudechange but that an interaction between PSA and communication media would occur. More precisely,we expected that individuals with high trait PSA would react more strongly to the manipulation of communication media (i.e. show less attitude change in CMC compared to face-to-face communica-tion) than individuals with low trait private self-awareness. To test this prediction, a multipleregression with attitude change as criteria and Media, Trait PSA and a Media Trait PSA interac-tion-term as predictors was computed. To control for the impact of group size, Group Size, the GroupSize PSA interaction and the Group Size Media interaction were included in the analysis.Following Aiken and West (1991) the interaction terms were computed as a product of the centredPSA measure and the media variable (0 for CMC and 1 for face-to-face communication). Overallthe predictors explained a signicant amount of variance, adj. R 2 0.15, F (6, 46) 2.51, p 0.035.Neither the Group Size ( 0.21, p 0.116, 2 0.053), nor the Group Size Self-Awarenessinteraction ( 0.26, p 0.118,

2 0.052), nor the Group Size Media interaction ( 0.24,

p 0.100, 2

0.058) contributed signicantly to the explanation of the attitude change. Moreover,there was neither a main effect of Media ( 0.06, p 0.678,

2 0.004), nor a main effect of PSA

( 0.02, p 0.917, 2

< 0.001). Most importantly, the Trait PSA Media interaction testing ourhypothesis was signicant ( 0.34, p 0.017,

2 0.118). Again following the suggestions of



8/10/2019 09e4150ec6ff2ed6c0000000.pdf

11/15

Aiken and West (1991), we computed simple slopes of attitude change depending on communicationmedia for individuals with (a) mean PSA, (b) 1 SD above mean, and (c) 1 SD below mean. The patternin Figure 2 indicates that for participants with high PSA (b), face-to-face communication leads to moreattitude change than CMC ( 0.39, p 0.043, 2 0.086). However, for individuals with mean (a)( 0.06, p 0.678, 2 0.004) or below mean (c) PSA ( 0.27, p 0.196, 2 0.036) nosignicant difference between face-to-face communication and CMC occurred. Thus, the hypothesisthat individuals with high PSA responded more strongly to media differences than individuals withlow or average PSA was supported.

Discussion

Experiment 2 sought to test whether trait private self-awareness moderates the impact of commu-nication media on interpersonal inuence. As predicted we found that face-to-face communicationleads to more interpersonal inuence than CMC only for participants with high trait private self-awareness. For participants with medium or low private self-awareness no signicant difference wasfound. For participants with low trait private self-awareness the pattern even reversed on a descriptivelevel. They show a slight trend towards more interpersonal inuence after CMC than after face-to-facecommunication. Taken together, the trait private self-awareness moderates the impact of commu-nication media on interpersonal inuence.

How can one explain the interaction between trait private self-awareness and communicationmedia? Trait private self-awareness is the tendency to pay attention to ones perceptions, thoughts, andfeelings in general . During face-to-face communication attention is distracted by the interactionpartner(s). However, during CMC this distraction by others behaviour is reduced and cognitiveresources are available to also pay attention to oneself. This opportunity will more likely be used byindividuals who generally have the tendency to pay attention to personal aspects of themselves than byindividuals who do not have this general tendency. In other words, only individuals with high traitprivate self-awareness will allocate their attention to themselves in CMC. Hence, only for theseindividuals does CMC lead to less interpersonal inuence than face-to-face communication.

Figure 2. Attitude change as a function of communication media and level of trait private self-awareness (PSA;Experiment 2)



8/10/2019 09e4150ec6ff2ed6c0000000.pdf

12/15

CONCLUSION

The current research has shown that the interplay between the communication media on the one handand private self-awareness on the other hand, impacts interpersonal inuence in two ways. First, stateprivate self-awareness mediates the inuence of the communication media on interpersonal inuence.CMC strengthens the private self-awareness of the communication partners compared to face-to-facecommunication. There is some evidence that the heightened private self-awareness, in turn, mightreduce the interpersonal inuence. This nding can be explained by the fact that in CMC less attentionis used by the interaction partners because only written communication is available. Therefore, inCMC more attention might be paid to ones own personal values, perceptions, and attitudes. Hence,interpersonal inuence might become less likely to occur. Second, trait private self-awarenessmoderates the impact of the communication media on interpersonal inuence. For individuals withhigh private self-awareness CMC results in less interpersonal inuence than face-to-face commu-nication. This effect does not occur for individuals low in trait private self-awareness.

Further research on interpersonal inuence in CMC should address the moderated mediation resultingfrom the interplay of both effects reported here. The mediation of the impact of the communication mediaon interpersonal inuence by state private self-awareness is most likely moderated by trait private self-awareness. Research in personality psychology has argued that the general tendency to show a certainbehaviour (i.e. a trait) is a precondition for the impact of many situational variations. At the same time therespective state will mediate the impact of the situation. Scaring someone mildly (situational variation)will only make very anxious people (trait) run away and this is so because they feel anxiety (state)(Spielberger et al., 1983). This state-trait interaction as well as the overall pattern of the ndings presentedhere (i.e. a state mediating an effect that the respective trait moderates) has rarely been addressed in socialpsychological research. However, this pattern may certainly also apply to other domains. Hence, thecurrent approach might also be a model for research in other domains.

In sum, the current results indicate that the impact of communication media on interpersonalinuence is mediated by state private self-awareness and moderated by trait private self-awareness.Earlier research has shown that media differences in norm-based inuence are mediated by thesalience of the social categorization (Lea et al., 2001; Postmes et al., 2001). These different mediators

point to the fact that different characteristics of CMC are responsible for the stronger norm-basedinuence and the weaker interpersonal inuence found in CMC compared to face-to-face commu-nication. The salience of self-categorization is inuenced by the higher levels of anonymity in CMC,whereas the differences in state private self-awareness are most likely elicited by the physical isolationin CMC (Spears & Lea, 1994). All in all the current ndings contribute to the understanding of theeffect of CMC on social inuence.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

We are grateful to Kai J. Jonas, Andrew K. Woltin, Heather Smith, and three anonymous reviewers fortheir extremely useful comments on earlier drafts of this paper.

REFERENCES

Abrams, D. (1990). How do group members regulate their behaviour? An integration of social identity and self-awareness theories. In D. Abrams, & M. A. Hogg (Eds.), Social identity theory: Constructive and criticaladvances (pp. 89112). London: Harvester Wheatsheaf.



8/10/2019 09e4150ec6ff2ed6c0000000.pdf

13/15

Abrams, D. (1994). Social self-regulation. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 20 , 473483.Aiken, L. S., & West, S. G. (1991). Multiple regression: Testing and interpreting interactions . Newbury Park:

Sage.Baron, R. M., & Kenny, D. A. (1986). The moderator-mediator variable distinction in social psychological

research: Conceptual, strategic, and statistical considerations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,51 , 11731182.

Bernstein, I. H., Teng, G., & Garbin, C. P. (1986). A conrmatory factoring of the Self-Consciousness Scale. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 21 , 459475.

Bottger, P. C., & Yetton, P. W. (1988). An integration of process and decision scheme explanations of groupproblem solving performance. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 42 , 234249.

Britt, T. W. (1992). The Self-Consciousness Scale: On the stability of the three-factor structure. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 18 , 748755.

Fenigstein, A., Scheier, M. R., & Buss, A. H. (1975). Public and private self-consciousness: Assessment andtheory. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 43 , 522527.

Franke, G. H. (1997). U ber die Mo glichkeiten der computerunterstutzten Darbietung beim revidierten FreiburgerPerso nlichkeitsinventar. Zwei experimentelle Studien [On the possibilities of computer-based administration of the Freiburg Personality Questionnaire. Two experimental studies.]. Zeitschrift fu r Experimentelle Psychologie,44 , 332356.

Froming, W. J., & Carver, C. S. (1981). Divergent inuences of private and public self-consciousness in acompliance paradigm. Journal of Research in Personality, 15 , 159171.

Froming, W. J., Walker, G. R., & Lopyan, K. J. (1982). Public and private self-awareness: When personal attitudesconict with societal expectancies. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 18 , 476487.

Hiltz, S. R., Johnson, K., & Turoff, M. (1986). Experiments in group decision making. Communication processand outcome in face-to-face versus computerized conferences. Human Communication Research, 13 , 225252.

Kenny, D. A., Kashy, D. A., & Bolger, N. (1998). Data analysis in social psychology. In D. T. Gilbert, & S. T. Fiske(Eds.), Handbook of social psychology (Vol. 1, 4th ed., pp. 233265). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

Kiesler, S., & Sproull, L. (1992). Group decision making and communication technology. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 52 , 96123.

Kiesler, S., Siegel, J., & McGuire, T. W. (1984). Social psychological aspects of computer-mediated commu-nication. American Psychologist, 39 , 11231134.

Lea, M., & Spears, R. (1991). Computer-mediated communication, de-individuation and group decision making. International Journal of ManMachine Studies, 39 , 283301.

Lea, M., Spears, R., & de Groot, D. (2001). Knowing me, knowing you: Anonymity effects on social identityprocesses within groups. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 27 , 526537.

Matheson, K., & Zanna, M. P. (1988). The impact of computer-mediated communication on self-awareness.Computers in Human behavior, 4 , 221233.

Matheson, K., & Zanna, M. P. (1989). Persuasion as a function of self-awareness in computer-mediatedcommunication. Social Behaviour, 4 , 99111.

McGuire, T. W., Kiesler, S., & Siegel, J. (1987). Group and computer-mediated discussion effects in risk decisionmaking. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52 , 917930.

McKenna, K. Y. A., & Bargh, J. A. (2000). Plan 9 from cyberspace: The implications of the internet forpersonality and social psychology. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 4 , 5775.

Merz, J. (1986). SAF: Fragebogen zur Messung dispositioneller Selbstaufmerksamkeit. [SAF: Questionnaire forthe measurement of dispositional self-awareness]. Diagnostica, 32 , 142152.

Nua. (2003). No title. Retrieved Janaury 7, 2004, from http://www.nua.ie/surveysPostmes, T., & Spears, R. (1998). Deindividuation and anti-normative behavior: A meta-analysis. Psychological

Bulletin, 123 , 121.Postmes, T., & Spears, R. (2000). Rening the cognitive redenition of the group: Deindividuation effects in

common bond and common identity groups. In T. Postmes, R. Spears, M. Lea, & S. Reicher (Eds.), SIDE issuescentre stage: Recent developments in studies of de-individuation in groups (pp. 6377). Amsterdam: Royal

Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.Postmes, T., Spears, R., & Lea, M. (1998). Breaching or building social boundaries? SIDE effects of computer-

mediated communication. Communication Research, 25 , 689715.Postmes, T., Spears, R., Sakhel, K., & de Groot, D. (2001). Social inuence in computer-mediated communica-

tion: The effects of anonymity on group behavior. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 27 , 12431254.Postmes, T., Spears, R., & Lea, M. (2002). The effects of anonymity in intergroup discussions: Bipolarization in

computer-mediated groups. Group Dynamics: Theory, Research and Practice, 6 , 316.



8/10/2019 09e4150ec6ff2ed6c0000000.pdf

14/15

Prentice-Dunn, S., & Rogers, R. W. (1982). Effects of public and private self-awareness on deindividuation andaggression. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 43 , 503513.

Reicher, S. D., Spears, R., & Postmes, T. (1995). A social identity model of deindividuation phenomena. In W.Stroebe, & M. Hewstone (Eds.), European Review of Social Psychology (Vol. 6, pp. 161198). Chichester: JohnWiley & Sons.

Sassenberg, K. & Boos, M. (2003). Attitude change in computer-mediated communication: Effects of anonymityand category norms. Group Processes and Intergroup Relation, 6 , 405422.

Sassenberg, K., & Postmes, T. (2002). Cognitive and strategic processes in small groups: Effects of anonymity of the self and anonymity of the group on social inuence. British Journal of Social Psychology, 41 , 463480.

Scheier, M. F. (1976). Self-awareness, self-consciousness, and angry aggression. Journal of Personality, 44 , 627644.

Scheier, M. F. (1980). Effects of public and private self-consciousness on the public expression of personal beliefs. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 39 , 514521.

Siegel, J., Dubrosky, V., Kiesler, S., & McGuire, T. W. (1986). Group processes in computer-mediatedcommunication. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 37 , 157187.

Snyder, M. (1979). Self-monitoring processes. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology(Vol. 12, pp. 85124). New York: Academic Press.

Snyder, M. (1987). Public appearance / private realities: The psychology of self-monitoring . New York: Freeman.Spears, R., & Lea, M. (1992). Social inuence and the inuence of the social in computer-mediated

communication. In M. Lea (Ed.), Contexts of computer-mediated communication (pp. 3065). New York,NY: Harvester Wheatsheaf.

Spears, R., & Lea, M. (1994). Panacea or panopticum? The hidden power of computer-mediated communication.Communication Research, 21 , 427459.

Spears, R., Lea, M., & Lee, S. (1990). De-individuation and group polarisation in computer-mediatedcommunication. British Journal of Social Psychology, 29 , 121134.

Spielberger, C. D. (1966). Theory and research on anxiety. In C. D. Spielberger (Ed.), Anxiety and behavior (pp.320). New York: Academic Press.

Spielberger, C. D., Jacobs, G. E., Russell, S. & Crane, R. S. (1983). Assessment of anger: The State-Trait AngerScale. In J. N. Butcher, & C. D. Spielberger (Eds.), Advances in personality assessment (Vol. 2, pp. 159185).Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Tajfel, H., & Turner, J. C. (1979). An integrative theory of intergroup conict. In W. G. Austin, & S. Worchel(Eds.), The social psychology of intergroup relations (pp. 3347). Monterey: Brooks/Cole.

Turner, J. C. (1987). The analysis of social inuence. In J. C. Turner, M. A. Hogg, P. J. Oakes, S. D. Reicher, & M.S. Wetherell (Eds.), Rediscovering the social group: A self-categorization theory . Oxford: Blackwell.

Turner, J. C. (1991). Social inuence. Pacic Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole.Watson, P. J., Headrick, D., & McKinney, J. (1989). Dimensions of Private Self-Consciousness and attributional

style. Personality and Individual Differences, 10 , 367369.W3B. (2004). Ergebnisse der 17. W3B Umfrage [Results of the 17th W3B Survey]. Retrieved January 7, 2004,

from http://www.w3b.deWebb, W. M., Marsh, K. L., Schneidermann, W., & Davis, B. (1989). Interaction between self-monitoring and

manipulated states of self-awareness. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 45 , 7080.



8/10/2019 09e4150ec6ff2ed6c0000000.pdf

15/15

09e4150ec6ff2ed6c0000000.pdf

Documents

Transcript of 09e4150ec6ff2ed6c0000000.pdf