Social Endorsement Research Articles

Reactance to Uncivil Disagreement?

Abstract: This study extends the psychological reactance theory by demonstrating that online political discussions, without explicit social influence attempts, can arouse psychological reactance by certain message features. Based on a 2 (stance: agreement vs. disagreement) × 2 (tone: civil vs. uncivil) × 2 (social endorsement: low vs. high) between-subjects online experiment in the United States ( N = 418), the present study found that both disagreement and uncivil comments led to psychological reactance directly and indirectly via perceived threat to freedom. Unexpectedly, uncivil disagreement had smaller effects on psychological reactance than civil disagreement. In addition, although social endorsement cues did not show any independent effects on psychological reactance, they were found to exacerbate the direct effect of uncivil disagreement on psychological reactance. Overall, our study develops important theoretical connections between political deliberation and psychological reactance literatures. It also yields practical implications for fostering an inclusive and healthy environment for online political discussion.

An Exploratory Content Analysis of the Use of Health Communication Strategies and Presence of Objectification in Fitness Influencer Social Media Posts

ABSTRACT Health and fitness content intended to inspire people to live healthy lives (e.g. “fitspiration”) has been linked to negative body image among girls and young women. Fitness influencers purport wanting to motivate healthy behaviors. This study seeks to examine the presence of strategies known to positively influence health behaviors (e.g. attitudes, self-efficacy) as well as of content known to have a negative influence (e.g. objectification) among fitness influencers. We conducted a content analysis (N = 441) of a random sample of one year of posts from four Instagram fitness influencers popular with girls and young women in the United States. The main analysis consisted of codes related to objectification, health promotion strategies, health-related content, and social engagement (i.e., likes). We found that fitness influencers included content that conveyed constructs previously found to positively influence health behaviors (e.g., attitudes and self-efficacy), but objectification was frequently present, in more than half of the posts. Additionally, we found that the presence of objectification in posts was negatively associated with likes, a form of social endorsement. We suggest health communicators aim to work in tandem with fitness influencers to include content that may motivate positive health behaviors and improve media literacy and that influencers aim to reduce the amount of objectifying content included in their posts. Our findings shed light on content being conveyed and possible insights into the negative effects associated with viewing such content.

Market Competition as a Moderator of the Effect of Social Signals on Viewership in Video-Sharing Platforms

In this paper, we use a panel dataset of 15988 videos from 6826 online video producers across 17 markets on a large video-sharing platform to examine the impact of social signals on video viewership, with a particular focus on investigating the moderating role of the market competition. This study reports that social presence and endorsement are critical social signals that viewers use to predict viewing experience and video content quality. Notably, the results find strong evidence that the effectiveness of these social signals on video viewership is substantially contingent on the platform's market competition conditions at the producer and product level. More specifically, in highly (+1SD) competitive markets at the product level, social presence and social endorsement have a 2.92% and 3.46% less positive impact on video viewership, respectively, compared to low (-1SD) competitive markets. On the other hand, markets with high (+1SD) concentration, where there is a lack of competition at the producer level, increase the impact of these signals on video viewership by 7.55% and 6.22%, respectively, compared to markets with low (-1SD) concentration.

Effects of fact‐checking warning labels and social endorsement cues on climate change fake news credibility and engagement on social media

AbstractOnline fake news can have noxious consequences. Social media platforms are experimenting with different interventions to curb fake news' spread, often employing them simultaneously. However, research investigating the interaction of these interventions is limited. Here, we use the heuristic‐systematic model of information processing (HSM) as a theoretical framework to jointly test two interventions against fake news that are implemented at scale by social media platforms: (1) adding warning labels from fact checkers to initiate systematic processing and (2) removing social endorsement cues (e.g., engagement counts) to reduce the influence of this heuristic cue. Moreover, we accounted for dispositions previously found to affect a person's response to fake news through motivated reasoning or cognitive style. An online experiment in Germany (N = 571) confirmed that warning labels reduced the perceived credibility of a fake news post exaggerating the consequences of climate change. Warning labels also lowered the (self‐reported) likelihood to amplify fake news. Removing social endorsement cues did not have an effect. In line with research on motivated reasoning, left‐leaning individuals perceived the climate fake news to be more credible and reported a higher likelihood to amplify it. Supporting research on cognitive style, participants with lower educational levels and a less analytic thinking style also reported a higher likelihood of amplification. Elaboration likelihood was associated only with age, involvement, and political leaning, but not affected by warning labels. Our findings contribute to the mounting evidence for the effectiveness of warning labels while questioning their relevance for systematic processing.

The Determinants of Fake News Adaptation during COVID-19 Pandemic: A Social Psychology Approach

Because of COVID-19, people have felt the social distance and have resorted to the internet for information needs. Hence, fake news has become prevalent as people rely on information explored online. This research aims to examine the social-cultural impacts of fake news adaptation behavior from the social psychological perspective by investigating the relationship between collectivism, social support, sense of belonging, social endorsement, fear of missing out, perceived credibility, issue involvement, and adaptation on fake news among young adults in Malaysia. A quantitative research approach with an online self-administered survey was conducted, and 451 responses were obtained through snowball sampling. In the data analysis, measurement and structural equation modeling were adopted. Findings showed that the relationships among adaptation behaviors on fake news were significantly supported. This research consummates the understanding of the influences of social-cultural (collectivism) on the judgment formation of adaptation among internet users on fake news.

The role of news media knowledge for how people use social media for news in five countries

Concern over misinformation on social media has amplified calls to improve the public’s knowledge about how news is produced, distributed and financed. This study investigates the relationship between people’s news media knowledge and the ways in which they use social media for news using online survey data in five countries: the United Kingdom, United States, Germany, Spain and Sweden ( N = 10,595). We find that people with higher news media knowledge are more likely to include social media in their news repertoire – but not as their main or only source of news. Second, we find that news media knowledge is positively associated with paying attention to source and editorial cues. When it comes to different social endorsement cues, news media knowledge is positively associated with paying attention to the person who shared the news, but negatively associated with paying attention to the number of likes, comments and shares.

Shouldering Death: Moral Tensions, Ambiguity, and the Unintended Ramifications of State-sanctioned Second-trimester Selective Abortion in Denmark.

This article is based on an ethnographic study of pregnant couples' embodied, emotional, and moral experiences of second-trimester selective abortion in Denmark. Drawing on 16 selective abortion stories, I unpack the intense, often highly accelerated, days that follow from the moment a fetal aberration is detected to the moment of fetal disposal or burial. I show that although prenatal screening and diagnostics have come to occupy a routinized part of pregnancy in Denmark, when women and their partners opt for termination, they are faced with a series of bodily events and actions they are entirely unprepared for while at the same time feeling essentially alone in grappling with the moral confusion that ensues. I argue that despite widespread medico-legal sanctioning and social endorsement of selective abortion, the specificities of how such terminations are done in Denmark in ambiguous, and conflicted, ways situate women and their partners in a series of moral tensions around how to relate to the abortion, the dead fetus, their grief, and their entitlement to such mourning. By chronicling the core struggles that the process of termination catalyzes, I point to the social and moral ramifications of the embodied practices and medico-legal choreographing of selective abortion in Denmark. [selective abortion, moral tensions, embodied practices, responsibility, death].

We “like” to value the brand: a mixed-method study

PurposeFrom the perspectives of service-dominant logic and social identity theory, this study aims to assess social networking site (SNS) users’ likes as a form of social endorsement as well as its effects on like-clicking behavior, perceived brand value, customer-brand identification and purchase intention. Furthermore, the different effects of social endorsement on the perceived functional, hedonic, social and monetary brand value were investigated so as to support SNS users’ role as value cocreators.Design/methodology/approachAn online survey was administered as a pretest of customer perceptions regarding brands that are liked on SNSs. Next, an experiment was conducted to verify the effects of social endorsement. A mixed-method approach including partial least squares (PLS) and fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) was adopted for the data analysis.FindingsThe results revealed that like-clicking behavior could be contagious because SNS users exposed to others’ likes were more likely to click the like button themselves. Like-clicking behavior positively influenced the perceived functional, hedonic, social and monetary value of the liked brand. Perceived brand value strengthened customer-brand identification, thereby increasing purchase intention.Originality/valueLike-based social endorsements were confirmed as a type of value cocreation behavior that benefits the endorsed brand by spreading brand awareness, and increasing customer acquisition and retention. An fsQCA approach was developed to measure the moderating effect of users’ propensity to click the like button on perceived brand value, thus contributing to the advancement of fsQCA.

The science of YouTube: What factors influence user engagement with online science videos?

As the reach of science content in traditional media declines, many institutions and scientists are turning to YouTube as a powerful tool for communicating directly with non-expert publics. They do so with little empirical social science research guiding their efforts. This study explores how video characteristics and social endorsement cues provided by audience members might influence user engagement with online science videos. Shorter videos are more likely to be viewed. Social endorsement cues significantly relate to variations in user engagement, with likes having a consistent positive association with all types of engagement. Implications for science communication through YouTube are discussed.

Signaling innovativeness in crowdfunding entrepreneurial narratives: the moderating roles of entrepreneurial passion and social endorsement

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of the innovativeness-related language of crowdfunding pitches on funding outcomes under different boundary conditions specified by two context-relevant signals, entrepreneurial passion and social endorsement.Design/methodology/approachThis study develops six hypotheses about the focal impacts of innovativeness-related language (i.e. incremental and radical) and the moderating effects of entrepreneurial passion and social endorsement. The hypotheses are tested with a sample of 1,057 real projects collected from a typical platform with a computer-aided content analysis method.FindingsThis study finds that pitches containing more incremental innovativeness language can generate more funds and that those containing more radical innovativeness language can lead to less favorable funding outcomes. While incremental innovativeness language interacts with entrepreneurial passion language to positively affect funding outcomes, radical innovativeness language requires social endorsement to diminish its negative effect on funding outcomes.Research limitations/implicationsThis study demonstrates that the content of messages of entrepreneurial narratives does indeed drive funding success in the context of reward-based crowdfunding and confirms the relevance of the consumer perspective of reward-based crowdfunding by using a real dataset.Originality/valueThis work joins a number of entrepreneurial narrative studies investigating the impacts of the innovativeness-related language of pitches (issue-relevant content) and their interactions with informational signals (i.e. entrepreneurial passion and social endorsement) on funding outcomes in the context of reward-based crowdfunding.

The effects of emotions, individual attitudes towards vaccination, and social endorsements on perceived fake news credibility and sharing motivations

In recent times, the spread of false or “fake” anti-vaccination news and information on social media has been linked to the global rise of vaccine hesitancy, resulting in increased vaccine-preventable disease outbreaks. As such, the current study employed the Heuristic Systematic Model (HSM) to elucidate the effect of certain cognitive heuristics on the perceived credibility and sharing motivations of fake anti-vaccination news on social media. The study used a 3 (emotion: anger vs. fear vs. neutral) × 3 (attitude: pro-vaccine vs. anti-vaccine vs. neutral) × 2 (social endorsements: low vs. high) between-subjects factorial design (N = 656). Two-way interaction effects were found between emotion and attitude on both perceived credibility of fake news and self-expression motivation to share the news. A three-way interaction effect was also found between emotion, attitude, and social endorsements on status-seeking motivation to share the news. These findings reveal consistent evidence that fear motivates anti-vaccine individuals to believe in and share fake news, while anger motivates people who are neutral towards vaccines to do so. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

The COVID-19 Vaccine: Trust, doubt, and hope for a future beyond the pandemic in Germany

Public perceptions of COVID-19 vaccines are critical in reaching protective levels of herd immunity. Vaccine skepticism has always been relatively high in Germany, and surveys suggest that over the course of the pandemic, enthusiasm for the COVID-19 vaccine has dropped. Looking at the period just prior to the approval of the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines in Germany in the latter half of 2020, this paper aims to assess the reasons for and against COVID-19 vaccine uptake among residents of Germany, and to provide in-depth qualitative data to better understand and address concerns surrounding the safety and efficacy of a COVID-19 vaccine. Our findings indicate that there is widespread trust in German institutions and health experts to provide a safe vaccine for those who need it most. However, interviewees also point to the need for more information and the centrality of support from trusted medical authorities in making individual vaccination decisions. We also present the complexity of individual positions on vaccination, and suggest that vaccine hesitancy in relation to COVID-19 needs to be understood as a nuanced, and socially malleable, territory. This indicates that the goal of a vaccination campaign is not only achieving ‘herd immunity,’ but also a social endorsement of the collaborative effort that is required for a vaccine to be successful.

An Online Experiment Evaluating the Effects of Social Endorsement Cues, Message Source, and Responsibility Attribution on Young Adults’ COVID-19 Vaccination Intentions

Adopting the theory of planned behavior framework, this online experiment investigated the effects of social endorsement cues, message source, and responsibility attribution on young adults’ perceptions of COVID-19 vaccination and intentions to get vaccinated. Four major findings were identified. First, social endorsement cues positively affect attitude, subjective norms, and vaccination intentions. Second, individuals perceive an expert source as the most credible, but a media outlet source results in the most positive subjective norms. Third, responsibility attributions do not generate significant effects on the dependent variables. Finally, social endorsement cues and message source both have some interaction effects with perceived susceptibility to COVID-19 on message outcomes.

Health pandemic in the era of (mis)information: examining the utility of using victim narrative and social endorsement of user-generated content to reduce panic buying in the U.S.

ABSTRACT Panic buying frequently occurs in health pandemics, disturbing both the market and people’s lives. The situation is exacerbated by the easy spread of misinformation online. With a web-based experiment, the present study examined how user-generated anti-panic buying messages online could be leveraged to combat panic buying. It was found that user comments discussing how panic buying affects the lives of less advantaged social groups on social media, as well as high social endorsement of the comment, significantly reduced readers’ derogation of the comment, thereby increasing negative attitudes toward panic buying and lowering intention to engage in it. The message format (narrative vs. non-narrative), however, did not influence the amount of impact it had on participants’ attitude and purchase intentions. The findings contribute to research on message-based and heuristic-based persuasion processes in reading reactance-inducing messages online and guide the design of persuasive messages to reduce panic buying during health pandemics.

Investigating effects of social endorsements on exposure to and engagement with political disagreement on social networking sites*

AbstractObjectiveSocial networking sites (SNSs) provide users with a variety of opportunities to encounter political disagreement. One important factor of the encounters with disagreement could be social endorsements because SNS users can easily engage with other people's posts via functions, such as liking and retweeting. The goal of this study is to test the hypothesis by examining the relationship between social endorsements, exposure to political disagreement (XPD), and information seeking.MethodsWe use a national survey conducted during the 2016 U.S. presidential election campaign. Ordinary least squares regression models are specified for analysis.ResultsWe find that SNS users who prefer reading political information endorsed by others are more likely to encounter political disagreement. We also find that XPD on SNSs encourages people to search for more information about the counter‐attitudinal posts, especially when the encountered disagreement is perceived to have good arguments and rationales.ConclusionOverall, social endorsement enhances the probability of XPD on SNSs. This in turn facilitates individuals’ search for more information, an important feature in democracy.

How do I chase away this man? From Bosco to Dismas, unpacking the situated knowledges of MTN Uganda’s adverts

ABSTRACT Much of the appeal of advertisements or adverts derives from a capacity to satisfy a primordial wish for pleasurable looking. An advert essentially sets out to impress on its audience a sign with easily readable mythic meaning. The unconscious of society, however, structures materiality of adverts in such a way that recognition could quite easily be overlaid with misrecognition. This paper uses semiotics to discover where and how the visual presence of adverts works against their intended hegemonic positions. Drawing upon a poststructuralist theoretical framework, the paper’s findings depart from claims to comprehensiveness and instead show a deferral of meaning. They also embrace plurality whilst questioning the validity of authorial authority. Results indicate that the alienated subject – MTN Uganda’s TV adverts – gave rise to other identification tags because its target audience knowingly and willingly wanted to have agency over their stories. The counternarrative that this paper unearths in part owes its existence to social media’s calling card, social endorsements or affordances, which trigger several decision heuristics. The poststructuralist situated knowledges in this case open themselves for new, unthought-of, and, perhaps, unexpected forms of knowledge production, unfolding from interrelated material-semiotic nodes.

News Engagement: The Roles of Technological Affordance, Emotion, and Social Endorsement

The ways in which audiences engage and interact with news has flourished thanks to the proliferation of digital platforms (Park, Fisher, Lee, et al. 2020). Our ever-changing media environment has l...

Social influence on endorsement in social Q&A community: Moderating effects of temporal and spatial factors

This study examines the impacts of social influence, which are manifested by popularity and source credibility, on social endorsement in social Q&A community; and how the relationship is impacted by temporal-spatial factors. By collecting panel data from a large platform, the results of an econometric model demonstrate that popularity and source credibility are positively associated with social endorsement. With respect to the moderation effects, the results further show that time distance strengthens the effect of popularity on the social endorsement, but undermines the effect of source credibility; while crowdedness plays the role that strengthens the impact of popularity on the social endorsement, it has no significant moderating effect on the relationship between source credibility and social endorsement. Both theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Fake news on Facebook: examining the impact of heuristic cues on perceived credibility and sharing intention

PurposeAs the epidemic of online fake news is causing major concerns in contexts such as politics and public health, the current study aimed to elucidate the effect of certain “heuristic cues,” or key contextual features, which may increase belief in the credibility and the subsequent sharing of online fake news.Design/methodology/approachThis study employed a 2 (news veracity: real vs fake) × 2 (social endorsements: low Facebook “likes” vs high Facebook “likes”) between-subjects experimental design (N = 239).FindingsThe analysis revealed that a high number of Facebook “likes” accompanying fake news increased the perceived credibility of the material compared to a low number of “likes.” In addition, the mediation results indicated that increased perceptions of news credibility may create a situation in which readers feel that it is necessary to cognitively elaborate on the information present in the news, and this active processing finally leads to sharing.Practical implicationsThe results from this study help explicate what drives increased belief and sharing of fake news and can aid in refining interventions aimed at combating fake news for both communities and organizations.Originality/valueThe current study expands upon existing literature, linking the use of social endorsements to perceived credibility of fake news and information, and sheds light on the causal mechanisms through which people make the decision to share news articles on social media.

Debunking Misinformation About Genetically Modified Food Safety on Social Media: Can Heuristic Cues Mitigate Biased Assimilation?

Focusing on debunking misinformation about genetically modified (GM) food safety in a social media context, this study examines whether source cues and social endorsement cues interact with individuals’ preexisting beliefs about GM food safety in influencing misinformation correction effectiveness. Using an experimental design, this study finds that providing corrective messages can effectively counteract the influence of misinformation, especially when the message is from an expert source and receives high social endorsements. Participants evaluate misinformation and corrective messages in a biased way that confirms their preexisting beliefs about GM food safety. However, their initial misperceptions can be reduced when receiving corrective messages.