Neben et al.
Breaking the Norm
Breaking the Norm –
On the Determinants of Informational Nonconformity
in Online Social Networks
Research-in-Progress
Tillmann Neben
University of Mannheim
[email protected]
Dennis Lips
University of Mannheim
[email protected]
ABSTRACT
Behavior in social groups follows unwritten codes, with the social group one is embedded in defining what behavior is
acceptable and what is not. Prior research has found strong tendencies toward informational isomorphism in groups in online
social networks, as social peers seem to establish a shared understanding of what behavior is acceptable and what
informational content is okay to share. However, these isomorphic tendencies have disadvantages, in that not all the available
and potentially useful information is shared within the social group. Peers who actively introduce new and potentially
controversial information are key in overcoming this problem, but this bears the risk of violating social norms. We seek to
identify the determinants that explain why individuals decide to take the risk, and derive an explanatory model from theory.
This research-in-progress paper describes the theoretical reasoning behind our model, and introduces our measurement
strategy.
Keywords
Online social networks, sharing, personality, self-construal, Facebook
INTRODUCTION
Online social networks (OSNs) allow users to maintain personal profiles and to connect to others (Boyd and Ellison 2010).
The people one is connected to are referred to as friends (Krasnova et al. 2010). Users and their friends form a social
subgroup within the OSN that serves as the user’s social context. In recent years, OSNs have become sophisticated platforms
that offer functionality far beyond mere connection building (Rhue 2012). Besides allowing people to connect, modern OSNs
allow all kinds of entities to participate in the network. The semantic meaning of being connected has thus broadened from
that of simple friendship to include notions such as endorsement, liking, or many other attributes. The dominant OSN
provider at this time, Facebook, allows IS developers and marketers to define such relationships. Its database contains all
kinds of entities that may, for example, be liked, hated, purchased, returned, recommended, or recommended against.
Previous research has looked at the determinants of affiliation behavior in OSNs (de Vries et al. 2012), with affiliation
referring to willfull connection of one’s own profile to an entity, as for example through “Like” buttons. Entities in most
online social networks are represented through the concept of pages. A page functions as an entity’s virtual presence in the
OSN, and may be about a brand, person of interest, cause, or anything else. Pages often represent things of current societal
interest or cultural items of the zeitgeist. Past research has identified three motivators for affiliating with pages (Lewis et al.
2008; de Vries et al. 2012).
First, individuals affiliate with pages to maintain access to the information that the owners of the pages issue. Owing to the
design of most OSNs, affiliating with a page subscribes one to whatever information the page’s webmasters produce.
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Second, individuals may affiliate with a page to convey a message to their social peers. Being connected to a page also
connects one to whatever the page stands for or symbolizes. For example, connecting to an environmental cause signals a
certain self-image.
Third, and related to the second motivator, individuals affiliate with pages to allow the respective information to diffuse into
their personal networks. Since OSN users know that most networking platforms make one’s behavior visible to others,
affiliating with a page makes one’s social peers aware of its existence and likely its content.
Although three motivators for affiliation behavior in OSNs have been reported, past research has also identified two
mitigating factors that discourage users from light-heartedly affiliating with pages. On the one hand, social norms seem to
regulate many behavior in the OSNs, since the information that can or cannot be brought into one’s social context depends on
these norms (Karl et al. 2010). On the other hand, the users’ personalities and personal characteristics influence their
willingness to challenge these social norms for the sake of one of the three motivators introduced above. Arguably, the
establishment of social norms in a setting of human coexistence is as unavoidable as it is necessary. However, prior research
has shown that restraining the sharing of diverse information leads to the impoverishment of informational exchange – the socalled filter bubble effects (Pariser 2011). The stricter the norms of a social context, the fewer the information-sharing
behaviors that are deemed appropriate, and the fewer the behaviors available to the members of the social context. As less
information is brought into the social context, users are exposed to less potentially new and valuable information.
We argue that impoverishment of information exchange and reduced diversity of shared content can be a negative feature of
OSNs. In contrast, we see users who actively contribute new and likely edgy or controversial information as key players in
maintaining a worthwhile informational environment. This research-in-progress paper proposes a model for the determinants
of such break-out behavior.
We formalize our research questions as follows
a) What prerequisites stand in a relationship with respect to sharing content that is unusual for one’s social context?
(b) What factors exist that amplify these preconditions?
(c) What factors exist that mitigate these preconditions?
Before we derive our explanatory model from theory, we review the related academic work. Behavior in online social
networks is attracting increasing scholarly attention, and researchers have made significant advances with respect to
uncovering the motivators and psychological mechanisms behind much online behavior. The following summarizes this
progress in a structured way.
PRIOR WORK
Various scientific communities are researching online social networks. OSNs in their simplest form are characterized by the
ability to maintain one’s own profile and to connect to others (Boyd and Ellison 2010). These connections build through the
voluntary act of establishing friend relationships with other people (Krasnova et al. 2010). The reasons for using OSNs are
manifold, and concepts such as the need to belong, self-representation, and informational utility have been discussed as
strong motivators (Cheung et al. 2011; Gangadharbatla 2008; Nadkarni and Hofmann 2011). Additionally, self-perceptions
may serve as predictors of OSN use and satisfaction (Kim et al. 2010), as a high interdependent self-perception correlates
with high degrees of use and satisfaction. Further, OSNs may serve the purpose of identity claiming (Zhao et al. 2008), which
refers to how individuals construct and manage their identities. In online environments, the claiming of an identity depends
on whether the social environment is anonymous (Zhao et al. 2008).
Modern OSNs have become social platforms offering diverse functionalities (Gangadharbatla 2008), providing users the
freedom to decide what activities they want to engage in and at what level of intensity. Prior research has been interested in
the determinants of this decision. The personal characteristics of the user seem to play a significant role in explaining
variations in behavior, as demographic factors and personality have repeatedly been found to predict certain manifestations of
behavior in OSNs (Amichai-Hamburger and Vinitzky 2010; Bachrach et al. 2012; Karl et al. 2010; Lu and Hsiao 2010;
Muscanell and Guadagno 2011; Ross et al. 2009; Saleem et al. 2011). Further, the influence of the users’ social peers seems
to explain variations in behavior. Social influence and social pressure have been discussed as important forces in shaping
human behavior in the context of information systems (e.g., Shen et al. 2011), and in the specific context of OSNs social
influence is an important determinant of behavior (Back et al. 2010; Bakshy et al. 2012; Cheung and Lee 2010). Besides
offering individuals the opportunity to connect and communicate, OSNs are increasingly allowing brands to play an
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important role. Brands aim at enhancing their visibility by letting their informational content diffuse into the online social
network as far as possible (Cvijikj 2011; Hollenbeck and Kaikati 2012). For information to diffuse virally, users must
actively share and re-share it in the form of electronic word-of-mouth (Chang et al. 2010; Cheung et al. 2008). Much of what
brands anticipate as the positive outcome of their OSN activities has to do with information being shared voluntarily, and
more importantly, free of additional costs. The conflict between marketers’ interests and users’ rights for informational selfdetermination has increased scholarly interest in the issues of privacy and self-disclosure in OSNs (Krasnova and Günther
2009; Krasnova 2010; Yang and Tan 2013).
THEORETICAL BACKGROUND AND DEDUCTION
We seek to explain why most users of online social networks conform to their social circles’ norms. In particular, we want to
explain why some users break out of these norms and introduce uncommon information into their social contexts. We have
motivated this research-in-progress paper by initially defining break-out behavior as the act of introducing new information
and taking the risk of violating the social norms of one’s social context to do so. This break-out behavior is our dependent
variable. In the following a more precise definition and a deduction of its causes from theory are presented. The identified
theoretical concepts and their interrelationships result in a set of hypotheses and a preliminary explanatory model.
Conformity and break-out behavior
A social norm (Cialdini and Goldstein 2004; Cialdini and Trost 1998) is an accepted rule of behavior, and individuals who
break the rule are likely to be punished with social sanctions (Horne 2001). Social norms are propagated through a
communicative process. They function as decision-making heuristics. In situations of high uncertainty, individuals can shortcut the identification of appropriate behaviors by simply following the majority’s opinion (Lapinski and Rimal 2005). On the
down side, this often leads to undesired outcomes. The discussion of norms and conformity is hence characterized by the
balance between the need for social order and individual’s right to disagree. The philosophical concept of a norm has been
separated into the collective and the perceived norm (Lapinski and Rimal 2005; Rimal and Lapinski 2005). Collective norms
relate to macro-level social constructs, such as groups, firms, or societies, and define what members of the collective can or
cannot do (Lapinski and Rimal 2005, p. 129). Perceived norms are individuals’ understanding and interpretation of the
collective norms. Therefore, discrepancies between the collective norms and the perceived norms may exist.
Theory has further distinguished between injunctive and descriptive norms (Lapinski and Rimal 2005). Injunctive norms
motivate behavior through the assumption that not following the norm leads to social sanctions. Descriptive norms shape
behavior through the observation that most others behave in that way (Lapinski and Rimal 2005, p. 130). In the context of
OSNs, a reasonable assumption is that both injunctive and descriptive norms are relevant. Individuals may fear social
sanctions if they do not conform to the norms (injunctive). Individuals may also observe their peers’ behavior and derive
normative assumptions from it and behave accordingly (descriptive). The effects of descriptive norms on behavior have been
studied in the light of several additional moderators (Lapinski and Rimal 2005; Rimal and Lapinski 2005), including selfidentification with the reference group, expected outcome benefits, and social approval, and preliminary evidence supports
the notion that outcome benefits have an influence (Rimal and Lapinski 2005).
The degree to which an individual assimilates to a group’s normative pressure is referred to as conformity. People conform to
social norms because they seek harmony with their social peers (Cialdini and Trost 1998). Previous studies found a positive
relationship between the number of friends individuals have in online social networks and their conformity to social norms
(Brandtzæg et al. 2010). In sociology, not conforming to a social norm is referred to as breaching (Coser 1962), which can be
intentional or unintentional. Further, an individual may not be aiming for, but may be willing to risk, breaching a norm.
Hence, break-out behavior can be understood as performing an action that entails the risk of violating a social norm. It does
not specifically entail deliberate norm violation for its own sake (rebellious behavior), but rather includes behaviors that the
actors anticipate to be atypical or uncommon for the particular social context yet deem necessary or otherwise valuable to
their peers. The actors anticipate that their uncommon behavior may breach a social norm, and they take this risk because the
behavior seems necessary or valuable.
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Personality
The Big-Five personality inventory (McCrae and Costa 2002) consists of the dimensions openness, conscientiousness,
extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. Openness refers to an individual’s willingness to engage in new experiences
and process new information. Conscientiousness refers to an individual’s tendency to be organized, disciplined, and dutiful.
Extraversion describes an individual’s propensity to engage in risky and stimulating behavior, as well as to be sociable,
talkative, and energetic. Agreeableness refers to an individual’s tendency to seek harmony with others and to want to be
liked, as well as the inclination to be friendly and cooperative. Neuroticism refers to an individual’s proneness for being
emotionally unstable, nervous, and insecure (Barrick and Mount 2006; Gosling et al. 2003; Hayes and Joseph 2003; John and
Srivastava 1999; John et al. 2008; Judge and Higgins 2006).
Since personality has been identified as affecting conformity behavior (Cialdini and Trost 1998), the effects of personality are
of interest to the research questions at hand. In particular, the dimensions of openness, extraversion, and agreeableness seem
to be of interest in the context of norms and norm-breaking behavior. First, this research-in-progress investigates why some
users of OSNs share information that is uncommon for their social contexts, even though sharing carries the risk of
potentially breaking a social norm. To encounter new and uncommon information, and to become passionate enough about it
to want to share it, one needs to have an open personality. Second, because sharing uncommon information risks breaking a
social norm, one needs to be willing to take risks and to perceive communication and information sharing as rewarding
activities, as is typical for personalities high in extraversion. Third, since sharing uncommon information may result in the
unwitting breaking of a social norm and being the recipient of social sanctions, one needs to be able to endure and get
through episodes of social disharmony. However, people high in agreeableness seek to be liked and feel uncomfortable in
situations of social disharmony.
Exploratory tendencies and curiosity
Humans vary in their interest in new things and in their willingness to invest time and effort to process the new information.
The concept of curiosity refers to the individual’s propensity to pursue new avenues of knowledge and actively collect new
informational sources (Loewenstein 1994). People high in exploratory tendencies and curiosity tend to pursue new
information and acquire deep knowledge on the subject. Further, they tend to branch out into related or parallel streams of
knowledge or fields related to the initial subject (Loewenstein 1994). This behavior is associated with high degrees of
information encountering.
This work investigates the determinants of sharing information that are uncommon for one’s social context. A reasonable
assumption is that to encounter such information, one needs to be a curious person and high in exploratory tendencies. Thus,
it is argued, these concepts represent important prerequisites for break-out behavior.
Self-construal
Self-construal refers to an individual’s self-perception and interpretation. Theory distinguishes between independent and
interdependent self-construal. Individuals perceiving themselves primarily as being part of a collective are referred to as
interdependent, while individuals perceiving themselves primarily as single, autonomous actors are referred to as independent
(Markus and Kitayama 1991).
Kim et al. (2010) find support for their assumption that interdependent OSN users are predominantly socially motivated.
They do not, however, find evidence that independent OSN users are non-socially motivated. Seemingly relevant, however,
is that on the basis of self-construal, individuals can be categorized as an individual or as part of a collective. This distinction
arguably implies differences in behaviors toward social norms and their breaching.
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HYPOTHESES AND MODEL
The above discussion has introduced the theoretical background on the social construction of social norms as well as the
breaking of norms and the personal characteristics that stand in relationship to it. On the basis of the theoretical knowledge,
we formulate a set of six hypotheses about the preconditions, amplifiers, and mitigators of break-out behavior. Our
hypotheses and subsequent explanatory model are built on a set of boundary conditions. First, our model is concerned with
the factors influencing break-out behavior. It presumes that a person is in the situation of having encountered a new piece of
information. Second, we build on the boundary condition that the person perceives this new information to be valuable to
his/her social context, but anticipates the information to be unconventional or even edgy, and is hence uncertain about how
social peers will receive it. On the basis of theory, we hypothesize what factors influence the likelihood that the individual
will take the risk (break out) and share the information.
Openness and exploratory tendencies are a necessary precondition for encountering new information. Further, people high in
exploratory tendencies and openness have been shown to be more likely to perceive such information as worth being shared.
We therefore see these two factors as prerequisites for break-out behavior and propose:
H1a: The higher an individual’s openness, the more likely it is that break-out behavior will occur.
H1b: The higher an individual’s exploratory tendencies, the more likely it is that break-out behavior will occur.
The above discussion has suggested that extraversion is related to risk taking, stimuli searching, and communication
behavior. Introducing uncommon information in one’s social context involves risks. We hence see high levels of extraversion
as an activator of break-out behavior, and hypothesize:
H2: High degrees of extraversion amplify the effect of openness and exploratory tendencies on the likelihood of
break-out behavior.
Independent self-construal has been introduced as perceiving oneself as being autonomous and independent and is associated
with being less affected by how others perceive oneself. Interdependent self-construal has been introduced as perceiving
oneself mainly as being part of some collective and is associated with seeking acceptance and assimilating into one’s social
context. We therefore hypothesize that independent self-construal amplifies the likelihood of break-out behavior, as it is
associated with feeling less dependent on the peer group’s reaction.
H3: Independent self-construal amplifies the effect of openness and exploratory tendencies on the likelihood of
break-out behavior.
The personality trait of agreeableness has been associated with pro-social behavior and a strong propensity toward personal
interdependence (Caprara 2012). We therefore hypothesize that agreeable people seek harmony with and acceptance by their
social contexts. When in doubt about the social acceptability of a piece of information, people high in agreeableness will
decide against sharing the information. We therefore see agreeableness as a mitigator of break-out behavior and hypothesize:
H4: High degrees of agreeableness decrease the effect of openness and exploratory tendencies on the likelihood of
break-out behavior.
Break-out behavior was defined as the act of sharing information that is atypical for a social context. With sharing atypical
information comes the risk of violating a social norm. On the basis of theory, we assume that individuals have a natural
tendency to avoid violating norms (Cialdini and Trost 1998), and we argue that the motivators for break-out behavior must
counterbalance the risk of violating a social norm. One’s audience on the OSN increases with the size of one’s social context
(number of friends), correspondingly increasing the number of social peers who can potentially witness a breach of a social
norm (Brandtzæg et al. 2010). Further, if a social cluster consists of logical subgroups (e.g., family, coworkers, sports mates),
then each of these subgroups will have a specific set of social norms. Because a person’s social context manifests the union
of these subgroups, it also manifests the union of these social norm sets. We therefore believe that the complexity and density
of the social norm system increases with increases in social context size, making the violation of a social norm less
predictable for the individual and more likely overall. We hypothesize that in these situations, a decrease in break-out
likelihood will be observable. We formalize this hypothesis as follows:
H5: The size of one’s social context (number of friends) decreases the effect of openness and exploratory tendencies
on the likelihood of break-out behavior.
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The hypotheses are unified in an explanatory model shown in figure 1. The model remains untested, as the aim of this
research-in-progress paper is to provide a context of justification by describing the theoretical reasoning behind the model.
Mitigators!
Agreeableness!
Size of social
context!
H4 (-)!
Prerequisites!
H5 (-)!
Openness!
H1a, H1b (+)!
Break-out
behavior!
Exploratory
tendencies!
H3 (+)!
H2 (+)!
Amplifiers!
Self-construal!
Extraversion!
Figure 1. Preliminary explanatory model
As derived from theory and described above, we hypothesize the personal factors of openness and exploratory tendencies to
be prerequisites for encountering new and potentially controversial information, and hence for engaging in break-out
behavior. We assume a positive relationship between them and the likelihood of break-out behavior. The model further
includes amplifiers and mitigators, both modeled as moderators. The amplifiers are independent self-construal and
extraversion. We reason that given the prerequisites for encountering new information (openness and exploratory tendencies),
high levels of extraversion and an independent self-construal help to overcome the fear of social sanctions in case the
information is perceived as breaking a norm. The factors agreeableness and size of one’s social context are hypothesized to
be mitigators of the likelihood of break-out behavior. Agreeableness stands in a relationship with seeking consensus and
harmony. Breaking a social norm includes diverging from consensus and (potentially) disturbing harmony. We hence assume
increased levels of agreeableness to mitigate the likelihood of break-out behavior. One’s social context is one’s audience. The
larger one’s audience, the more severe the consequences of norm breaching. We hence reason that larger social contexts
mitigate one’s willingness to share potentially controversial information (Brandtzæg et al. 2010). Limiting one’s audience to
reduce this risk – as for example through addressing subgroups only – is considered to be a form of conformity.
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DATA, MEASUREMENT, AND ANALYSIS
Our theoretical model contains characteristics of the individual (openness, extraversion, agreeableness, self-construal, and
exploratory tendencies). The psychology discipline developed a series of questionnaires to assess these constructs. We use a
Facebook application (henceforth “app”) to serve these questionnaires to participants. The Big-Five personality scale consists
of 41 self-rating questions that place the participants on the dimensions of openness, conscientiousness, extraversion,
agreeableness, and neuroticism (McCrae and Costa 2002). The independent self-construal is assessed using the questionnaire
by Markus and Kitayama (1991). The scale by Grande (2005) is used to assess the exploratory tendencies. Participants use
the app voluntarily. They receive benefit from receiving their personality score after completing the questionnaires. During
the process, we inform them about the study’s purpose, and we ask for informed consent. Participants can decline to take part
in the study but still receive their personality scores. The app further asks for permission to access their social networking
data through the Facebook API. This data is necessary to determine the size of the participants’ social contexts and the
participants’ past OSN behavior. The dependent variable break-out behavior is operationalized as a count variable, indicating
how often an individual violates a social norm prevalent in his/her social context. In order to derive this measure we analyze
all liked pages and their respective categories in a social context. We propose this measure to establish what informational
content is “okay” to share and affiliate with in a given social context. Break-out behavior is thus defined as a deviation from
this accepted range of informational content. It is quantified as a count variable, which increases by one for each deviation.
Two independent human raters perform the assessment (and counting) of deviations. For testing and refining this
measurement approach, an initial dataset has been collected. It consists of 5,312 individuals (3,213 female; 2073 male).
Because our dependent variable is operationalized as a count variable, we seek to employ Poisson regression for testing our
hypotheses.
CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORK
This research-in-progress paper described the deduction of, and the theoretical reasoning behind, our model of the
determinants of sharing new and atypical information in OSNs. We argue that people’s personal online networks (friends)
constantly increase in size, and that this increase results in uncertainty about what information is permissible to share. This
uncertainty in turn leads to informational and behavioral mimicry and an impoverishment of information in the OSNs. Our
model is built on the theoretical strains of social norms and conformity. It operates on the personal level and entails the
personal characteristics of the individual. To acquire the necessary data for testing our model, we have developed a Facebook
application. We motivated our measurement approach and the operationalization of our construct.
The contribution of this paper is the derivation of a clear theoretical context of justification for studying social norms, norm
breaking, and social conformity in online social network settings.
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