Literature Review on Facebook Conformity

Literature Review on Facebook Conformity

Ozzane et al. (2017) conducted an investigation titled “An Investigation into Facebook Liking Behavior.” The study explored the motives that Facebook users pursue in using the ‘like’ button. The study established that there are three possible motives for using the like button. Of the three, liking as a tool for impression management comes out insightful regarding the current study. The current study looks at the essence of gender in Facebook user conformity. Azzane et al. (2017) found out that people use the like button for identity purposes. They held that liking the content with the motive to manage one’s impression comes with the attached concepts. On one occasion, the user wants to identify with whoever posted the comment either, culturally or politically. The opposite might occur, that the one liking only wants to identify with the ideology propagated by the post. As such, women may have different motives for liking as compared to men. The motive definitely affects the degree of conformity.

Like many other life institutions, social media usage comes with its share of stereotypes. This is evident in Oberst et al. (2016) study that evaluated gender stereotypes on Facebook. The study was guided by the assumption that different motives influence women and men in decisions of what profile picture to use on social media. The study emphasized on women. Generally, the author found that people and more so women present themselves in a less gender-stereotypical way. However, there is some degree of gendered presentation in which women would not want to appear feministic on social media.

The motive behind the altered self-presentation was to improve well-being on social media. The research, however, concluded that alteration of profiles on social media negatively affects personal well-being, although not as much as personality does. This study is also insightful to the current study since it already gives a picture of how women would wish to appear on Facebook and what factors affect their appearance as well as personal well-being. This, in turn, influences levels of conformity for women.

Conformity can be looked at, even beyond the bounds of social media. There are different online platforms where people can exhibit changed behavior with respect to universal expectations. A different study by Wijenayake et al. (2019) explored the effects of the group’s gender composition on social conformity in online settings. The study identifies majority size and self-confidence, gender, and gender cues as the main determinants of social conformity in a group setting. For the size of the majority and minority, the study held that the wider the gap between the higher the possibility of conforming, especially from the side of the minority. Self-confidence influences the rate of conformity. In essence, the confident ones are not like to conform. This limits the generalization of a gender-based hypothesis. As such, the current study should endeavor to establish an extreme case where gender does not play a role in conforming. With regard to gender and gender cues, the difference between men’s and women’s perceptions of gender stereotypes was insignificant. However, for the sake of the current study, it is worth noting that men are less likely to conform to stereotypical content than women.

Besides gender, peer pressure might influence conformity. Egebark & Ekström (2011) carried a study to establish if people ‘like’ what they like or what others ‘like.’ In essence, the question is, what makes one person like something posted on Facebook. This can be considered as a backward approach to conformity.  The study’s findings were analyzed based on the theory that conformity is when the status is relayed through public domains, with a significantly deep individual concern about social status. The study used two situations, where an unknown user likes a comment and where a peer does. In both cases, the likes are influenced by seeing more likes on the comment. As such, conformity is influential regardless of gender. This study is important in the current research as it evokes the urge to explore the degree of peer influence on both men and women.

Similarly, Rosander & Eriksson (2012) carried a different study comparing task difficulty and gender as conformity factors on the internet. The study explored conformity behavior when using the internet. In this study, rates of conformity are higher with task difficulty. The study went to establish the difference between men and women in conformity. There was no link established since the participants disqualified the argument that women would conform to a higher degree than men. Men exhibited as equally high degrees of conformity with task difficulty. Since the study established protection of self-esteem as one of the reasons for conformity, it then begs the question of gender, and the Ozzane et al. (2017) analysis of motives to like a Facebook comment. In essence, conformity is a tool for impression management. Then the current study hypothesizes that participants in the female condition will think Facebook user’s behavior more understandable than participants in the male condition. Hence, the question of social impression arises.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

References

Egebark, Johan & Ekström, Mathias. (2011). Like What You Like or Like What Others Like? Conformity and Peer Effects on Facebook. SSRN Electronic Journal. http://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1948802

Oberst, U., Renau, V., Chamarro, A., & Carbonell, X. (2016). Gender stereotypes in Facebook profiles: Are women more female online?. Computers in Human Behavior, 60, 559-564. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2016.02.085

Ozanne, M., Cueva Navas, A., Mattila, A. S., & Van Hoof, H. B. (2017). An Investigation Into Facebook “Liking” Behavior An Exploratory Study. Social Media + Society. https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305117706785

Rosander, Michael & Eriksson, Oskar. (2012). Conformity on the Internet – The role of task difficulty and gender differences. Computers in Human Behavior. 28. 1587–1595. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2012.03.023

Wijenayake, S., van Berkel, N., Kostakos, V., & Goncalves, J. (2019). Measuring the Effects of Gender on Online Social Conformity. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, 3(CSCW), 1-24. https://doi.org/10.1145/3359247