Abstract
Political disagreements in social media can result in removing (i.e., "unfriending") a person from one's online network. Given that such actions could lead to the (ideological) homogenization of networks, it is pivotal to understand the psychological processes intertwined in unfriending decisions. This requires not only addressing different types of disagreements but also analyzing them in the relational context they occur. This article proposes that political disagreements leading to drastic measures such as unfriending are attributable to more deeply rooted moral dissents. Based on moral foundations theory and relationship regulation research, this work presents empirical evidence from two experiments. In both studies, subjects rated political statements (that violated different moral foundations) with regard to perceived reprehensibility and the likelihood of unfriending the source. Study 1 (N = 721) revealed that moral judgments of a political statement are moderately related to the unfriending decision. Study 2 (N = 822) replicated this finding but indicated that unfriending is less likely when the source of the morally reprehensible statement is relationally close to the unfriender and provides emotional support. This research extends unfriending literature by pointing to morality as a new dimension of analysis and offers initial evidence uncovering the psychological trade-off behind the decision of terminating digital ties. Drawing on this, our findings inform research on the homogenization of online networks by indicating that selective avoidance (in the form of politically motivated unfriending) is conditional upon the relational context and the interpersonal benefits individuals receive therein.
Highlights
Social networking sites (SNS) are typically used to stay in contact with friends or to gather new acquaintances, it may happen that some of these connections are terminated by the users
Studies found that especially those who have greater political interest, are ideologically extreme, and less supportive of free speech tend to terminate digital connections because of political disagreements [4, 5, 7, 23]. While these findings clearly suggest that any form of political involvement predicts the post hoc filtration of one’s network, it seems that political orientation has no clear predictive value: There is evidence for both, left-leaning [4, 27] and right-leaning [5] users being susceptible to unfriend others due to political dissents
Study 1 is the first one to offer a link between political statements on social networking sites (SNS) and potential unfriending behavior by indicating that moral judgment of this statement is a driver of the unfriending decision
Summary
Social networking sites (SNS) are typically used to stay in contact with friends or to gather new acquaintances, it may happen that some of these connections are terminated by the users. This so-called “unfriending” can occur for many reasons such as avoiding uninteresting, unimportant or inappropriate content posted by the unfriended person [e.g., 1–3]. Since SNS have become venues of politically and civically relevant debates, research has started to focus on reasons for dissolving online ties, showing that 10–18% of users unfriended or unfollowed someone because of political disagreements [4,5,6,7,8].
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