IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/jamist/v64y2013i5p1001-1015.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The effects of perceived anonymity and anonymity states on conformity and groupthink in online communities: A Wikipedia study

Author

Listed:
  • Michail Tsikerdekis

Abstract

Groupthink behavior is always a risk in online groups and group decision support systems (GDSS), especially when not all potential alternatives for problem resolution are considered. It becomes a reality when individuals simply conform to the majority opinion and hesitate to suggest their own solutions to a problem. Anonymity has long been established to have an effect on conformity, but no previous research has explored the effects of different anonymity states in relation to an individual's likelihood to conform. Through a survey of randomly chosen participants from the English‐language Wikipedia community, I explored the effects of anonymity on the likelihood of conforming to group opinion. In addition, I differentiated between actual states of anonymity and individuals' perceptions of anonymity. His findings indicate that although people perceive anonymity differently depending on their anonymity state, different states of anonymity do not have a strong effect on the likelihood of conforming to group opinion. Based on this evidence, I make recommendations for software engineers who have a direct hand in the design of online community platforms.

Suggested Citation

  • Michail Tsikerdekis, 2013. "The effects of perceived anonymity and anonymity states on conformity and groupthink in online communities: A Wikipedia study," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 64(5), pages 1001-1015, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:jamist:v:64:y:2013:i:5:p:1001-1015
    DOI: 10.1002/asi.22795
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.22795
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/asi.22795?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Danielle Caled & Mário J. Silva, 2022. "Digital media and misinformation: An outlook on multidisciplinary strategies against manipulation," Journal of Computational Social Science, Springer, vol. 5(1), pages 123-159, May.
    2. Adam Worrall & Alicia Cappello & Rachel Osolen, 2021. "The importance of socio‐emotional considerations in online communities, social informatics, and information science," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 72(10), pages 1247-1260, October.
    3. Merfeld, Katrin & Wilhelms, Mark-Philipp & Henkel, Sven & Kreutzer, Karin, 2019. "Carsharing with shared autonomous vehicles: Uncovering drivers, barriers and future developments – A four-stage Delphi study," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 144(C), pages 66-81.
    4. Folco Panizza & Piero Ronzani & Tiffany Morisseau & Simone Mattavelli & Carlo Martini, 2023. "How do online users respond to crowdsourced fact-checking?," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(1), pages 1-11, December.
    5. Winkler, Jens & Moser, Roger, 2016. "Biases in future-oriented Delphi studies: A cognitive perspective," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 63-76.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:jamist:v:64:y:2013:i:5:p:1001-1015. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.asis.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.