Fear of Evaluation and Online Self-Disclosure on WeChat: Moderating Effects of Protective Face Orientation.

Runxi Zeng,Di Zhu

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.530722

Abstract

Fear of evaluation is a key factor that affects how social media users present themselves to others, but little is known about the effects and mechanisms involved, especially on the relationship between fear of positive evaluation and online self-disclosure. This study explores how fear of evaluation affects online self-disclosure and examines how this relationship is moderated by protective face orientation in the Chinese context. A total of 750 Chinese WeChat users constituted the sample for a questionnaire-based analysis and regression analysis. The results showed that both fear of positive evaluation and fear of negative evaluation had a significant negative effect on the amount of online self-disclosure and a significant positive effect on the depth of online self-disclosure. Protective face orientation had a moderating effect on the relationship between fear of evaluation and online self-disclosure for both the amount and depth of online self-disclosure. Our findings suggest that social network site (SNS) users' fear of evaluation can be attributed to their cognitive attitude toward the external environment, and the loss of face in the Chinese context can be included in the social context.

Highlights

Online self-disclosure refers to the behavior of disclosing personal and private thoughts or feelings in cyberspace in the hope of attracting others’ attention or obtaining positive feedback (Krasnova et al, 2010; Valkenburg and Peter, 2011; Chen et al, 2018)
The descriptive statistics and correlation analysis results for each study variable are shown in Table 2, including the mean (M), standard deviation (SD), fear of positive evaluation (FPE), fear of negative evaluation (FNE), protective face orientation (PFO), amount of online self-disclosure (AOSD), and depth of online self-disclosure (DOSD)
The control variables were included in the regression, and FPE and FNE were included in the regression model (Models 1 and 2)

Summary

Introduction

Online self-disclosure refers to the behavior of disclosing personal and private thoughts or feelings in cyberspace in the hope of attracting others’ attention or obtaining positive feedback (Krasnova et al, 2010; Valkenburg and Peter, 2011; Chen et al, 2018). Recent studies have observed the gradual emergence of social avoidance behaviors, such as individuals’ reluctance to disclose, non-disclosure or reduced frequency of online selfdisclosure (Ketay et al, 2018; Chen et al, 2019). Previous studies have indicated that self-esteem, adult attachment, social anxiety, social isolation, privacy concerns, role stress, and self-concealment may contribute to online self-disclosure avoidance behaviors (Gibbs et al, 2010; Rui and Stefanone, 2013; Hollenbaugh and Ferris, 2014; Lee and Cho, 2018; Chen et al, 2019; Kamalou et al, 2019; Zhang et al, 2019). Excessive attention to others’ opinions and evaluations has become a common factor

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