Building Loyalty to Online Communities through Bond and Identity-based Attachment to Sub-Groups Yla R. Tausczik Laura A. Dabbish Robert E. Kraut Carnegie Mellon University

Sustaining Online Communities

“Wikipedia is not a social networking service like Facebook or Twitter.” - Wikipedia Guidelines

Social Design Features

Social Attachment

Community Loyalty

Bond- based Identity-based Interpersonal Attraction Group Identification

Bond- basedIdentity-based

Small Group Attachment Sassenberg (2002) – IRC channels Farzan et al. (2011) – Groups of Tetris players Ren et al. (2012) – MovieLens users

Goals 1.Show compelling evidence that attachment to subgroups underlies the effect of social design features on site loyalty 2.To evaluate whether there are two distinct types of attachment

Study 1

Study 1 - Hypotheses Hypothesis 1: Assigning Turkers to communicating groups will increase their loyalty to Mechanical Turk and their employer by increasing feelings of attachment to work groups. Hypothesis 2: Structuring group work and communication in pairs or as a group as a whole will differentially create bond or identity-based attachment respectively.

Study 1 - Method Participants – 606 participants – 52% female – 18 to 68 years old (M = 31.5) – 76% US, 19% India, 5% Other 85.0% completion rate

Study 1 - Method Procedure HIT Group Assignment TaskQuestionnaires

Study 1 - Method

Independent Variables – Level of Interaction (Independent, Awareness, Communication) – Work Group Type (Dyadic, Group) Dependent Variables – Community Loyalty – Self-Reported Attachment (Bond, Identity)

Study 1 - Community Loyalty Log likelihood ratio test = 12.4, p = 0.002, N = 369, Groups = 123 **

Study 1 – Mediation Analysis Employer Commitmen t Level of Interaction t(105) = 2.91, p < Subgroup Attachment

Study 1 – Mediation Analysis Subgroup Attachment Employer Commitmen t Level of Interaction t(105) = 9.06, p <0.001 t(212) = 9.78, p < t(105) = -1.44, p = 0.15

Study 1 – Attachment Type t(135) = 2.38, p = 0.02, d = 0.41, N = 137, Groups = 46

Study 1 - Summary Hypothesis 1: Attachment to one’s work group helps explain why allowing communication results in greater community loyalty Hypothesis 2: The type of communication allowed differentially creates identity- attachment, but not bond-attachment to work groups

Bond- based Identity-based Interpersonal Attraction Group Identification

Study 2 - Hypotheses Hypothesis 3: Bond and identity attachment should have different observable downstream consequences.

Study 2 - Hypotheses Hypothesis 3a: Identity attachment will lead Turkers to remain in the group when another group member leaves. Hypothesis 3b: Continue Relationship Hypothesis 3c: Equal Bonus Hypothesis 3d: Disagreement

Study 2 - Method Participants – 801 participants – 47% female – 18 to 74 years old (M = 32.0) – 74% US, 23% India, 2% Other 85.0% completion rate

Study 2 - Method Procedure HIT Group Assignment TaskQuestionnaires 1 person forced to drop

Study 2 - Method

Independent Variables – Work Group Type (Dyadic, Group) Dependent Variables – 4 Downstream Outcomes (Dropout, Equal Bonus, Disagreement, Continue Relationship)

Study 2 – Downstream Consequences Downstream Consequence DyadsGroupStatistical Test Dropout6.5%5.6%X 2 (3) = 2.75, p = 0.43

Study 2 – Downstream Consequences Downstream Consequence DyadsGroupStatistical Test Dropout6.5%5.6%X 2 (3) = 2.75, p = 0.43 Continue Relationship 21%35%X 2 (3) = 3.43, p = 0.33

Study 2 – Downstream Consequences Downstream Consequence DyadsGroupStatistical Test Dropout6.5%5.6%X 2 (3) = 2.75, p = 0.43 Continue Relationship 21%35%X 2 (3) = 3.43, p = 0.33 Equal Bonus71%83%X 2 (3) = 4.93, p = 0.18

Study 2 – Downstream Consequences Downstream Consequence DyadsGroupStatistical Test Dropout6.5%5.6%X 2 (3) = 2.75, p = 0.43 Continue Relationship 21%35%X 2 (3) = 3.43, p = 0.33 Equal Bonus71%83%X 2 (3) = 4.93, p = 0.18 Disagreement0.57 (0.43)0.50 (0.31)L ratio = 1.40, p = 0.71

Study 2 - Summary Hypothesis 3: There were no downstream consequences of the different attachment types.

General Discussion 1.Show compelling evidence that attachment to subgroups underlies the effect of social design features on site loyalty Strong Evidence 1.To evaluate whether there are two distinct types of attachment Weak Evidence

Are bond- and identity- attachment distinct? Strongly Overlapping? Differentiate over time?

Design Implications 1.Incorporate social design features a.As long as they encourage attachment 2.Encourage whatever attachment is easiest a.Often identity attachment

Questions? Yla Tausczik Thanks to NSF for funding (grant OCI ) and to Tom Postmes for his advice.