Keep Logging In! Experimental Evidence Showing the Relation of Affiliation Needs to the Idea of Online Social Networking

Introduction

Before the Internet became ubiquitous, social interaction was usually costly. Social networking sites (SNS) such as Facebook and MySpace are low cost tools that promote the creation and maintenance of social ties by overcoming physical distance,^1,2 reaching large audiences, ¹ and increasing the frequency of communication.^2,3 Such benefits are reinforced when online social interactions supplement existing offline relationships.^4,5 SNS potentially provide a low cost, supplemental means of establishing and maintaining social connections. Substantial research has been conducted on the predictors, correlates, and outcomes of SNS use.^6–11 However, no study has experimentally addressed the extent to which SNS plays a crucial role in meeting affiliation needs in the 21st century. This article provides the first experimental evidence that the idea of online social networking is now closely associated with the regulation of affiliation needs.

The desire to form and maintain social bonds has an evolutionary basis due to the importance of those bonds to survival.^12–14 Just as a fuel gauge provides information about the amount of gas in a car, online social networking may provide data about the status of a person's social connections. If we consider SNS as a source of social connections used to fulfill affiliation needs, it is reasonable to suppose that thoughts of SNS are likely to arise in response to affiliation motivation. The existence of such a link is pertinent to understanding how strongly SNS affects modern social life. We contend that people are primed to think about SNS when affiliation motivation is evoked. Moreover, to examine the robustness of the association between thoughts of social connection and ideas about SNS, we should also examine the role of avoidance-based affiliation motivation (i.e., social exclusion). The social reconnection hypothesis suggests that experiences of social exclusion may serve as signals that needs for social connection are not satisfied. ¹⁵ Excluded individuals may feel an especially strong desire to form bonds with others to satisfy these needs. Prior research has shown that ostracized individuals are likely to increase the attention paid to potential sources of connection.^14,16 Hence, our research tested whether social exclusion would also prime thoughts about SNS.

In sum, we conducted a lab experiment to test whether SNS may be perceived as a primary source of social connection. Specifically, the current research tested the hypothesis that affiliation motivation (via affiliation arousal or social exclusion) would elicit the idea of online social networking. We employed the Stroop color word paradigm to measure the accessibility of online social networking when affiliation motivation is evoked. In the typical Stroop task, ¹⁷ a color word is displayed in a font color that is either congruent (e.g., the word “green” in green font) or incongruent (e.g., the word “green” in red font). When responding to the font color, attention to the semantic meaning of a color word may interfere with naming its color, resulting in a longer reaction time (i.e., Stroop interference) as the semantic processing disrupts the color-naming task. In a similar vein, when the usual color words are replaced with SNS-related words, slowed reaction times (RTs) for color naming would be expected for respondents who are thinking about online social networking. Attentional bias toward SNS-related terms would draw attention away from the color naming task, leading to an increase in RT for naming the font color. Given that online social networking provides easy and efficient access to social connections, we hypothesized that participants primed with affiliation motives would have such an attentional bias.

Methods

Ninety-six undergraduates (47 females, 49 males; mean age=20.7 years, SD=1.5) attending a public university in southern Taiwan were tested in a between-subjects experiment. They received partial course credit for participation.

Participants were told that they would be working on a test of visual acuity. The instructions were as follows: “You are engaging in a test of visual acuity. This test is conducted on a desktop computer. It will take me about 10 minutes to set up and check the materials in the neighboring room. I will notify you when it is all set.” Participants were then asked to complete a pretest for another experiment while they waited. This pretest was actually the affiliation prime manipulation. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three prime manipulations: affiliative, exclusionary, or neutral. In each condition, participants were asked to unscramble a series of words to form sentences or phrases that contained affiliative (e.g., “I want good relationships with others”; “I want to get along with others”), exclusionary (e.g., “Someone does not like me”; “I notice rejection from others”), or neutral (e.g., “He hung up the curtains”; “She picked up a plastic bag”) sentiments. The instructions and the basic format of the task were constructed based on the guidelines outlined by Bargh and Chartrand. ¹⁸ In the two priming conditions, participants generated six sentences involving affiliation-related concepts and six involving neutral attitudes. In the neutral condition, all 12 sentences reflected neutral sentiments. The scrambled sentence task developed by Srull and Wyer ¹⁹ to prime particular concepts has been widely adopted in behavioral priming studies.^20–22

After the priming task, participants completed a Modified Stroop Task ²³ in which the usual color words were replaced with terms related to the priming topic. If access to SNS is a primary way of meeting affiliation needs, participants should be thinking about SNS-related terms after affiliation priming. Participants were presented with words printed in either blue or red, and were asked to press the key corresponding to the correct color. At the same time, they were asked to remember a six-digit number, creating a cognitive load. The color naming task included seven target words related to SNS (Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Internet, computer, wall, and networking) and 14 unrelated words (including seven global brands—Amazon, Apple, Coke, Disney, McDonald's, Nike, and Sony—selected from the Best Global Brands 2011 report, ²⁴ and seven general words—telephone, book, building, office, television, space, and industry—which were matched for frequency to the target words). Each term appeared twice for a total of 42 trials in random order. No explicit reference to the types of words included in the Stroop was made elsewhere in the instructions or stimuli. Increased RT during the color naming task was used as the dependent measure. None of the participants expressed any suspicion or accurately guessed how the tasks were related.

Results

We found no sex differences in Stroop interference under any of the conditions, t<1.62, p>0.12. Paired within-subjects t tests were conducted on color naming RTs to SNS-related and general words after the affiliation prime manipulation (Table 1). Stroop interference was observed in the neutral condition, indicating that SNS-related words interfered somewhat more (M=716 ms) than general words (M=677 ms; t[31]=2.68, p=0.012, Cohen's d=0.18) with color naming. In the affiliation arousal condition, RTs were significantly longer for SNS-related words (M=841 ms) than for general words (M=694 ms; t[31]=7.17, p<0.001, Cohen's d=0.71). SNS-related terms also interfered somewhat more with color naming (M=853 ms) than general terms (M=694 ms, SD=209; t[31]=6.85, p<0.001, Cohen's d=0.68) after priming with exclusionary manipulation. These findings indicate that participants in the affiliation motivation condition appeared to think more about SNS, which led to interference in naming the color of SNS-related terms.

A repeated-measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) of specific SNS (Facebook, Google+, and Twitter) versus global brand terms revealed an interaction with priming condition, F(2, 93)=22.16, p<0.001, η² _p =0.322, such that SNS names following both affiliation arousal and social exclusion primes created more interference than global brand names (see Fig. 1). Simple effects tests showed that the interaction was driven by significant increases in RT to SNS names after the affiliation arousal prime (SNS names: M=853 ms, SD=242; global brand names: M=720 ms, SD=218; t[31]=7.596, p<0.001, Cohen's d=0.57) and the social- exclusion prime (SNS names: M=876 ms, SD=318; global brand names: M=702 ms, SD=235; t[31]=7.503, p<0.001, Cohen's d=0.62). No differences in Stroop interference were found between the two affiliation need conditions (affiliation arousal: M=133 ms, SD=97; social exclusion: M=174 ms, SD=131; t[62]=–1.42, p>0.16).

OPEN IN VIEWER

FIG. 1.

Accessibility of SNS and global brand names (as measured by color naming reaction time) as a function of prime condition (neutral, affiliation arousal, social exclusion). Error bars, mean±SEM.

The results supported our predictions. SNS terms were more accessible than general terms, and priming with affiliation motivation (via either affiliation arousal or social exclusion) created more Stroop interference for SNS names than global brand names, suggesting that people are more likely to think about SNS when affiliation needs are activated.

Discussion

We investigated the degree to which social networking has become a primary way to meet affiliation needs. We demonstrated that affiliation motivation, induced by affiliation and exclusion priming, was associated with more Stroop interference for SNS-related terms, suggesting that affiliation motivation primes the idea of online social networking. Our results are congruent with prior work on the social benefits of online social networking^2,8,25,26 and the prevalent use of SNS among college and university students.^27,28 In line with previous studies demonstrating, via self-report measures, that a need to belong is a predictor of SNS use,^6,25 we provide the first experimental evidence showing that online social networking is related to the regulation of both approach-based and avoidance-based affiliation motivations. The present findings advance SNS research by showing that the idea of online social networking is more closely associated with meeting affiliation needs than was previously believed.

SNS provides a convenient platform for establishing immediately accessible social connections. We found an increased tendency to rely on online social networking, and its potential social resources, to meet affiliation needs. The results of this experiment indicate that people quickly think about SNS as a way to seek and maintain social connections. It seems that when affiliation motivation is evoked, we are primed to turn to online social networking to rectify the situation. The present study suggests that human social practices are adapting to online social networking, which appears to play a crucial role in the regulation of modern social life. The demonstrated mental association between affiliation motivation and online social networking also suggests that we are becoming dependent on online socializing to satisfy a need to belong. Moreover, this connection also implies that engagement in offline social life may yield primacy to use of SNS.

We acknowledge the use of a college student sample as a limitation. Caution should be exercised when generalizing to other populations. Future study should examine the boundaries of the observed connection between affiliation motivation and the idea of online social networking. For example, if affiliation motivation can prime thoughts about SNS, then such effects should be more prominent for those who use SNS more (i.e., intensity of SNS use) or for those who lack offline social links (i.e., social capital ⁵ ). Further, if people perceive SNS as a source of social connection, thoughts of SNS should influence perceptions of social exclusion. It would be interesting to explore whether SNS primes would alleviate social distress by generating a sense of available connectedness. Additionally, our modified Stroop task may be useful as a clinical assessment tool for pathological use of SNS. Specifically, the SNS Stroop may allow researchers to assess unobtrusively and reliably the extent and nature of the association between addictive SNS use and Stroop interference. Therapy that reduces compulsive use of SNS should reduce or remove Stroop interference in naming the color of SNS-related terms. We hope the SNS Stroop paradigm will become a promising approach for testing the effects of psychological interventions related to control over SNS use.

Online social networking is widely believed to have changed communication patterns among members of the Net Generation. ²⁹ SNS platforms are extremely popular and are increasing in global popularity. Indeed, we are developing symbiotic relationships with online social networking by relying on SNS platforms that offer access to many social links. However, Kraut et al. ³⁰ have argued that Internet use takes time away from face to face contacts and decreases involvement in offline communities. As our findings suggest that logging into SNS can fulfill affiliation needs, it may be crucial to think critically about what online social networking provides and what it takes away.