Using Social Psychology to Motivate Contributions to Online Communities

Ling, Kimberly; Beenen, Gerard; Ludford, Pamela; Wang, Xiaoqing; Chang, Klarissa; Li, Xin; Cosley, Dan; Frankowski, Dan; Terveen, Loren; Rashid, Al Mamunur; Resnick, Paul; Kraut, Robert E.

doi:10.1111/j.1083-6101.2005.tb00273.x

Cited by 365 publications

(253 citation statements)

References 43 publications

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“…This will help to identify the problems in designing social infrastructures motivating users to participate that are discussed in this section. More comprehensive reviews of theories of motivation and how they have been used in design of social systems can be found in (Ling et al 2005) and (Kraut and Resnick, forthcoming).…”

Section: Theories Inspire Design Approaches To Motivating User Particmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A number of theories of motivation exist in the literature, which could possibly inspire the design of incentive mechanisms for participation in online communities (Ling et al 2005). Apart from the Social Comparison Theory and Theory of Discrete Emotions, mentioned in the previous section, researchers have started exploring systematically approaches based on theories from the area of Organizational Behavior, e.g.…”

Section: Exploring Designs Of Mechanisms Inspired By Theories Of Motimentioning

confidence: 99%

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Motivating participation in social computing applications: a user modeling perspective

Vassileva

2012

User Model User-Adap Inter

185

112

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The explosive growth of Web-based social applications over the last 10 years has led people to engage in online communities for various purposes: to work, learn, play, share time and mementos with friends and family and engage in public action. Social Computing Applications (SCA) allow users to discuss various topics in online forums, share their thoughts in blogs, share photos, videos, bookmarks, and connect with friends through social networks. Yet, the design of successful social applications that attract and sustain active contribution by their users still remains more of an art than a science. My research over the last 10 years has been based on the hypothesis that it is possible to incorporate mechanisms and tools in the design of the social application that can motivate users to participate, and more generally, to change their behavior in a desirable way, which is beneficial for the community. Since different people are motivated by different things, it can be expected that personalizing the incentives and the way the rewards are presented to the individual, would be beneficial. Also since communities have different needs in different phases of their existence, it is necessary to model the changing needs of communities and adapt the incentive mechanisms accordingly, to attract the kind of contributions that are beneficial. Therefore User and Group (Community) Modeling is an important area in the design of incentive mechanisms. This paper presents an overview of different approaches to motivate users to participate. These approaches are based on various theories from the area of social psychology and behavioral economics and involve rewards mechanisms, reputation, open group user modeling, and social visualization. Future trends are outlined towards convergence with the areas of persuasive systems design, adaptive/personalized systems, and intelligent social learning environments.

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Section: Theories Inspire Design Approaches To Motivating User Particmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Exploring Designs Of Mechanisms Inspired By Theories Of Motimentioning

confidence: 99%

Motivating participation in social computing applications: a user modeling perspective

Vassileva

2012

User Model User-Adap Inter

185

112

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…For example, on movie ratings websites people are more likely to rate a movie when it is believed to be valuable to others who like the same movie genres as the rater (Rashid et al, 2006). Similarly, people are more likely to contribute to an online ratings system when their group identification with other contributors is made salient and they are under the impression that their contributions will benefit ingroup members (Ling et al, 2005). Team affiliation is also positively related to the level of contributions to SETI@home, a computing project where participants volunteer their computers' extra processing power (Nov, Anderson, & Arazy, 2010).…”

Section: Group Identification and Information Contributionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Connecting with the user-generated Web: how group identification impacts online information sharing and evaluation

Flanagin

Hocevar

Samahito³

2013

Information, Communication & Society

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Online information pools, such as user-generated encyclopedias and websites that aggregate users' ratings of various products and experiences, are increasingly popular venues where people seek out and share information. While cues about the identity of information sources may be limited in these venues, they may nonetheless incite a sense of shared group membership and social identity among users. This study applies Social Identity Theory and Self-Categorization Theory to examine the effects of group identification on people's information contribution and evaluation behaviors in online information pools. Experimental results indicate that shared group identification positively influences motivation, which in turn influences contribution to information pools. Additionally, people tend to find information contributed by similar others to be more credible and they are also more likely to indicate that they will act on this information. The implications of these findings on the sustenance of information pools, and for information sharing in the contemporary media environment more broadly, are discussed.

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“…Ames & Naaman (2007) found that users tagged more frequently to communicate extra context to their friends and families. The effect of social presence on tagging was supported by a study conducted by Ling et al (2005). In their study of how people tag in MovieLense, it was shown that users increased the quality of their tags when reminded of the value of their contribution and when they were given specific tagging goals.…”

Section: Reason For Performing Social Taggingmentioning

confidence: 93%

Social Tagging as a Knowledge Organization and Resource Discovery Tool

Allam¹

2010

DJIM

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Abstract:The purpose of this paper is to give an overview of the social tagging phenomenon, including how it evolved and the debate surrounding its benefits and limitations. Further, social tagging's potential as a new tool for knowledge organization and resources discovery will be considered. Finally, some questions concerning social tagging will be presented for future research. The paper reflects an interdisciplinary overview of the technical aspect of social tagging along with a behavioural look at why and how it is used as a tool to discover and organize knowledge.

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Using Social Psychology to Motivate Contributions to Online Communities

Cited by 365 publications

References 43 publications

Motivating participation in social computing applications: a user modeling perspective

Motivating participation in social computing applications: a user modeling perspective

Connecting with the user-generated Web: how group identification impacts online information sharing and evaluation

Social Tagging as a Knowledge Organization and Resource Discovery Tool

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