Despite the growing popularity of crowdworking platforms, crowdworker engagement and its antecedents are still unexplored. This paper investigates how social support in professional crowdworking ...online communities affects worker engagement in micro-task crowdworking (MTCW). We know from organizational settings that social support is a central antecedent of work engagement, as it creates a sense of identification and enhances experienced meaningfulness of work, which in turn affects engagement. In MTCW this social antecedent is challenging as the work setting rarely provides workers with social support from requesters or platforms. However, workers frequently participate in professional crowdworking online communities that function as an alternative source of social support. So far, it remains unclear whether and how this type of social support contributes to crowdworker engagement. We argue that social support from professional crowdworking online communities enhances group identification among crowdworkers as well as experienced meaningfulness of doing crowdwork, thus fostering engagement. We conducted a two-wave survey with 181 micro-workers showing that affective social support in online communities enhances crowdworkers' identification and experienced meaningfulness, thereby indirectly affecting engagement in MTCW. We contribute to theory and practice on how to create positive work experiences on virtual platforms by highlighting the importance of professional online communities.
•We studied how social support in online communities increases crowdworker engagement.•Affective social support from online communities significantly increases engagement.•Group identification and experienced meaningfulness fully mediate this relationship.•Instrumental social support has no significant effect on crowdworkers engagement.
This research addresses: (1) the salience of employees’ social (organizational, sub-organizational, group, micro-group), interpersonal, and personal identifications and their dimensions (cognitive ...and affective); (2) and the relationship and structure of the identifications of employees in different areas of professional activity. The study was conducted on independent samples of employees in the socio-economic sphere (241 participants), in the law enforcement agency (265), and in higher education (172). To assess the respective identification foci and dimensions, the study employed four questionnaires. The personal identification was the weakest and the micro-group identification was the strongest for both dimensions in all samples. The affective dimension prevails over the cognitive in all identifications, except for interpersonal. Social identifications were significantly positively correlated to each other in all samples whereas personal identification was significantly negatively correlated with all social identifications (on the affective dimension) in two samples. The results expand our understanding of the identifications of employees in organizations.
Video website operators work in a highly competitive market and, thus, cultivating evangelists who keep coming back and spreading positive word-of-mouth (WOM) referrals is important to retain market ...share and boost sustainability. This study empirically tests a model proposing that social presence elicited by the emerging bullet screen ("DanMu" in Chinese or "Danmaku" in Japanese) system in video websites serially affects immersive experience and perceived benefits, which in turn influence viewers' e-loyalty. Data collected from 523 participants provide strong support for the proposed model. The results indicate that compelling immersive experience and perceived benefits are important mediators explaining the theoretical mechanism of how social presence affects loyalty. The presence of moderators such as group identification reinforces the influence of social presence on immersion. In addition, this study also suggests that perceived benefits differentially affect the two facets of e-loyalty (i.e., revisit intention and positive WOM). Specifically, revisit intention is mainly driven by the perceived hedonic benefit while positive WOM likelihood is largely determined by the utilitarian and social benefits. This study is the first to provide theoretical insights into understanding how increased social presence triggered by DanMu comments inspires the desired e-loyalty responses.
An Internet nickname is essential in facilitating online interpersonal interactions. It is a pivotal element of interaction that provides other users with an initial impression and affects the ...decisions and behaviors of users during their online interactions. Although the existing literature has found that nicknames are relevant to users’ psychology and behavior, direct research on the motivation for and the effect of choosing a particular Internet nickname has been very limited. Borrowing from relevant theories on avatars, this paper summarizes the motivations behind Internet nickname choices in terms of three aspects: virtual exploration, social navigation and contextual adaptation. Moreover, from the perspective of collective self-esteem (CSE) and group identification, this research explores the influence mechanism between the motivations underlying Internet nickname choices and users’ online social interactions. A total of 394 samples were obtained from online communities in China to test our research model. We found that virtual exploration, social navigation and contextual adaptation are three motivations for creating Internet nicknames, and they have direct effects on the online social interactions of users. CSE has a full mediating effect between virtual exploration and online social interaction and acts as a mediated variable between social navigation and online social interaction. Group identification fully mediates the relationship between social navigation and online social interaction as well as that between contextual adaptation and online social interaction. The conclusion of this paper provides not only a new perspective for the study of Internet nicknames but also a potentially feasible way to stimulate users’ online social interactions.
•Self-reflective Nicknames can be used as a toolkit to stimulate online social interaction.•Virtual exploration, social navigation and contextual adaptation will motivate users engage in online social interactions.•Self-esteem fully mediated the relationship between virtual exploration and online social interactions.•Group identification partially mediated the relationship between social navigation and online social interaction.
The aim of this study is to investigate the associations among ethical leadership, group identification, relational identification, organizational identification, and knowledge sharing. This study ...conducted a survey in Taiwan to collect the data. The administrative group members of schools were invited to participate in this study. The sample included 510 participants, and the hypotheses were tested by using the path analysis and bootstrapping methods in the Mplus program to examine how ethical leadership influences knowledge sharing, through various means of identification. The results of this study show that ethical leadership has both a direct and indirect effect on knowledge sharing. There are two mediating paths in the ethical leadership-knowledge sharing relationship. Firstly, group identification mediates the relationship between ethical leadership and knowledge sharing. Secondly, ethical leadership has an influence on knowledge sharing by means of increased relational and organizational identification. This is a pioneering article that explores the psychological mechanism between ethical leadership and knowledge sharing, using the social identity approach. This study has shown that the social identity theory (SIT) is a useful and promising perspective for future research studies on ethical leadership-knowledge sharing.
Past research consistently suggests that single people (i.e. singles) are stigmatized, but do they constitute a stigmatized 'group'? The current research will provide deeper insight into the ...stigmatization and well-being of singles by understanding the ‘group-y’ nature of singles, and how identification with groups and perceptions of groups map onto discrimination and prejudice. Study 1 will examine the extent to which singles identify as part of a group. Participants will be assigned a novel minimal group identity and then complete measures of group identification for four distinct group memberships (e.g., minimal group, relationship status, sexual orientation, nationality). We hypothesize that single participants' identification with their single group will be lower compared to other identities—including partnered people—although a smaller subset of singles may identify strongly with other singles. We also hypothesize that singles in general will perceive less discrimination towards singles relative to other aspects of their identity. In contrast, Study 2 will examine the extent to which singles are perceived as a group and the extent to which they are perceived as being responsible for their group membership. Participants will complete measures of entitativity and perceptions of responsibility for similar out-group identities as in Study 1 (e.g., single people or people in romantic relationships, sexual or asexual people, etc.). We hypothesize that singles will be rated lower in entitativity than people in romantic relationships and other groups, yet rated higher in responsibility than other groups. Moreover, we hypothesize that prejudice towards singles will be more acceptable than prejudice towards other groups. Throughout both studies, we will use Bayesian sequential analyses in order to efficiently acquire evidence in favor or against our experimental hypotheses. We discuss the importance of group-based theoretical perspectives for understanding the current and future stigmatization and well-being of singles.
Although the negative consequences of workaholism for well‐being are well‐known, research on its underlying processes and potential boundary conditions is scarce. Drawing on the conservation of ...resources theory, we propose that self‐care mediates the negative association between workaholism and well‐being, such that workaholism decreases self‐care, which, in turn, increases well‐being. Building on the social identity approach, we further argue that group identification moderates the workaholism–self‐care‐link, such that the more individuals identify with their groups, the stronger the negative indirect association. We tested our assumptions in a longitudinal three‐wave study among students (Study 1, NT1 = 300, NT2 = 211, NT3 = 164), in which we found that the indirect association between workaholism and well‐being via self‐care was only significant for those students who more highly identified with their group. We replicated this contingency of the workaholism–self‐care association on group identification in a two‐wave time‐lagged study among employees (Study 2, NT1 = 335, NT2 = 134). Taken together, these findings help gain a deeper understanding of why and when workaholism decreases well‐being.
The present research tested the proposition that the sense of self-continuity that people derive from their group membership provides a basis for group identification and drives in-group defensive ...reactions in the context of identity threat. This proposition was examined in three studies, using the context of national identity. Study 1 found that collective self-continuity uniquely and strongly predicted national identification, when controlling for other identity motives. Studies 2 and 3 demonstrated that existential threats to national identity particularly increase a sense of collective self-continuity, compared to other identity motives, and that this enhanced sense of collective selfcontinuity results in stronger in-group defense in the form of opposition towards out-groups (Study 2) and social developments (Study 3) that may undermine group identity, as well as in stronger in-group protectionism (Study 3). Taken together, these findings indicate that collective selfcontinuity is an important motive for group identification and in-group defense in the context of identity threat.
•Collective self-continuity provides a unique basis for national identity.•Existential threats to group identity elevate collective self-continuity.•Feelings of collective self-continuity enhance in-group defense.
In the present research, we explored social-identity threat caused by subtle acts of omission, specifically situations in which social-identity information is requested but one’s identity is not ...among the options provided. We predicted that being unable to identify with one’s group—that is, in the demographics section of a survey—may signal social-identity devaluation, eliciting negative affect (e.g., anger) and increasing the importance of the omitted identity to group members’ sense of self. Six preregistered experiments (N = 2,964 adults) sampling members of two minority-identity groups (i.e., gender minorities and members of a minority political party) support these predictions. Our findings document the existence of a subtle but likely pervasive form of social-identity threat.
This paper investigates the role of group identification in empathic emotion and its behavioral consequences. Our central idea is that group identification is the key to understanding the process in ...which empathic emotion causes helping behavior. Empathic emotion causes helping behavior because it involves group identification, which motivates helping behavior toward other members. This paper focuses on a hypothesis, which we call "self-other merging hypothesis (SMH)," according to which empathy-induced helping behavior is due to the "merging" between the helping agent and the helped agent. We argue that SMH should be interpreted in terms of group identification. The group identification interpretation of SMH is both behaviorally adequate (i.e., successfully predicts and explains the helping behavior in the experimental settings) and psychologically plausible (i.e., does not posit psychologically unrealistic beliefs, desires, etc.). Empathy-induced helping behavior, according to the group identification interpretation of the SMH, does not fit comfortably into the traditional egoism/altruism dichotomy. We thus propose a new taxonomy according to which empathy-induced helping behavior is both altruistic at the individual level and egoistic at the group level.
PDF
