(An item from the ISHN Member information service) An article in February 2014 Issue of Cyberpsychology, Behavior, Social Networking reports on a study that suggests that Facebook promote self-interest through its enactment of indiscriminate one-to-many communication. The authors report that "In this article, we show that this kind of indiscriminate one-to-many (i.e., monologue) communication, in which the diverse interests of recipients are not considered, may induce a tendency toward egocentrism that interferes with other-oriented concerns, resulting in a reduced inclination to display prosocial behavior. In Experiment 1, participants induced to post a public communication subsequently allocated less money to anonymous strangers in the dictator game than did control participants. In Experiment 2, participants directing a post about participation in an experiment to their Facebook friends volunteered to help code fewer data sheets than did controls. Moreover, an egocentric state was shown to mediate the relationship between indiscriminate one-to-many communication and helping behavior" Read more>>
RSS Feed