Journal
COMPUTERS IN HUMAN BEHAVIOR
Volume 50, Issue -, Pages 211-220Publisher
PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.chb.2015.03.067
Keywords
Online discussion forum; Well-being; Civic engagement; Activism; Social identity; Stigmatised group membership
Funding
- Economic and Social Research Council [RES-000-22-3800]
- ESRC [ES/H021531/1] Funding Source: UKRI
- Economic and Social Research Council [ES/H021531/1] Funding Source: researchfish
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There has been much debate surrounding the potential benefits and costs of online interaction. The present research argues that engagement with online discussion forums can have underappreciated benefits for users' well-being and engagement in offline civic action, and that identification with other online forum users plays a key role in this regard. Users of a variety of online discussion forums participated in this study. We hypothesized and found that participants who felt their expectations had been exceeded by the forum reported higher levels of forum identification. Identification, in turn, predicted their satisfaction with life and involvement in offline civic activities. Formal analyses confirmed that identification served as a mediator for both of these outcomes. Importantly, whether the forum concerned a stigmatized topic moderated certain of these relationships. Findings are discussed in the context of theoretical and applied implications. (C) 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
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