The role of identification in soliciting social support in online communities

Computers in Human Behavior 104 (2020) 106181

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The role of identification in soliciting social support in online communities Zheng An a, *, Jingbo Meng b, Luana Mendiola-Smith a a b

Department of Communication, University of Hawaii at Hilo, United States Department of Communication, Michigan State University, United States

A R T I C L E I N F O

A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Support-seeking Narrative persuasion Identification Attribution Interpersonal conflict

Narrative sharing is a common strategy for soliciting social support in online communities. Identification is a form of audience involvement and describes how individuals respond to mediated texts. In two online surveys, this study tested the effects of identification in the context of support-seeking. In Study 1 (N ¼ 268), participants read a first-person support soliciting narrative that described emotional distress caused by an interpersonal conflict. Results showed that identification with the support seeker increased social support intention and behavior. In Study 2 (N ¼ 131), identification was manipulated by randomly assigning participants to read a narrative from the perspective of either the support seeker or the opposing character. When the narrative was told from the perspective of the opposing character, identification with the support seeker decreased signifi­ cantly, and the opposing character was blamed less for causing the conflict. Implications for narrative persuasion in the context of support solicitation are discussed.

1. Introduction

helping others. The reception of online support generally reduces emotional distress and enhances well-being (Han et al., 2011; Rains & Wright, 2016). Text-based narrative is a commonly used strategy for soliciting social support in online communities (Eichhorn, 2008; Wang, Kraut, & Levine, 2015). However, a large number of support requests go unanswered or do not elicit the expected amount of support (Stefanone, Kwon, & Lackaff, 2012). The extent to which members successfully ac­ quire and benefit from online support may depend largely on the way they solicit support. We view support eliciting narrative as a social in­ fluence message and argue that identification with support seekers in­ creases social support intention and behavior.

Narrative persuasion has received growing attention in media effects research. An underlying mechanism for narrative persuasion is identi­ fication with a character (de Graaf, Hoeken, Sanders, & Beentjes, 2012; Hoeken & Sinkeldam, 2014). Identification is a narrative-induced mental state that involves a temporary loss of self-awareness (Cohen, 2001). The audience members are immersed into the story from the character’s point of view. With an immersive mindset, the audience members allocate their cognitive resources to the storyline and have less ability to counterargue story claims (Green & Brock, 2000). The merging of the self and other identity allows the audience members to internalize the character’s goals (Klimmt, Hefner, & Vorderer, 2009). Accumulating evidence suggests that narrative is a promising persuasion strategy. For example, identification with specific characters has been found to in­ crease favorable attitude toward cancer screening testing (Murphy, Frank, Chatterjee, & Baezconde-Garbanati, 2013), intention to quit smoking (Kim, Bigman, Leader, Lerman, & Cappella, 2012), and social acceptance of members of stigmatized groups (Chung & Slater, 2013). The present study extends this line of research with a particular focus on social support solicitation. Online communities have become an important source of computer-mediated social support to cope with emotional distress (for a review, see Rains & Wright, 2016). Supportive interactions are expressed messages produced with the intention of

2. Literature review 2.1. Identification A set of similar but distinct concepts has been used to describe narrative experiences, such as transportation, identification, immersion, and involvement. These concepts describe a mental state where a person is temporarily released from the self and highly involved with a narra­ tive (Cohen, 2001; Green & Brock, 2000; Lombard & Ditton, 2006). When media users are transported into a narrative, they are less aware of real-world facts and experience emotions conveyed by the storyline (Green & Brock, 2000). Identification is induced by attraction to specific

* Corresponding author. 200 W. Kawili St., Hilo, HI, 96720, United States. E-mail address: [email protected] (Z. An). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2019.106181 Received 11 May 2019; Received in revised form 21 October 2019; Accepted 24 October 2019 Available online 31 October 2019 0747-5632/© 2019 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

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narrative characters (Cohen, 2001; Klimmt et al., 2009). Cohen (2001) conceptualized identification as “a process that consists of increasing loss of self-awareness and its temporary replacement with heightened emotional and cognitive connections with a character” (p.251). Klimmt et al. (2009) followed Cohen’s definition and further explicated identi­ fication using an identity-based approach. According to Klimmt et al. media users temporarily shift their self-concepts through adopting character attributes. Salient properties of media characters are used to reconstruct momentary self-perception. Both definitions highlight the idea that identification temporarily releases the boundaries between the self and other and allows the merging of the self and other identity. When identification occurs, media users experience events through the eyes of the character and internalize the character’s goals and emotions (Cohen, 2001; de Graaf et al., 2012; Hoeken & Sinkeldam, 2014). Narrative sharing is a predominant strategy for soliciting social support among online community members coping with emotional distress (Eichhorn, 2008; Wang et al., 2015). Examples include cancer patients disclosing emotional upheavals (Shim, Cappella, & Han, 2011), expectant mothers describing uncertainty during pregnancy (Song, West, Lundy, & Dahmen, 2012), and new mothers recounting conflict episodes over childcare with mothers-in-law (An, 2014). What these disclosive posts have in common is that they involve a sequence of concrete events, characters, and settings which supply others with enough information to understand the problem (Wright, 2009). Eich­ horn (2008) coded 273 posts of online eating disorder support groups and found that experience sharing was the most frequently used strategy to solicit social support. Members first described what had occurred to them (e.g., throwing up and going to therapy) and asked if other members had similar experiences. Wang et al. (2015) machine coded more than 58 thousand discussion threads from a breast cancer support community and found that members used self-disclosure to elicit emotional support. Members described their symptoms, diagnosis, treatments, and emotional reactions to breast cancer with the hope of receiving understanding, validation, caring, and encouragement from other members. It is reasonable to derive the claim that support soliciting narratives in online communities can induce identification. Although there are few studies that report levels of identification with characters in the context of support-seeking, relevant research on online support communities provide some evidence for the prevalence of this narrative-induced mental state. Evans, Donelle, and Hume-Loveland (2012) analyzed supportive messages of online postpartum depression discussion groups and showed statements that responded to support requests, such as “My heart breaks for you. I see my own self in that fog” (p. 407). Similar statements were reported in other content analysis studies, such as “Katie you have no idea how much I worry about you and how sad I would be if something happened to you” (Eichhorn, 2008, p. 4), and “Having read your account of your body rejecting its regimen, I am moved - simply, energetically, moved” (Mo & Coulson, 2008, p. 373). These statements suggest that the audience members shared feelings with the support seeker and internalized the support seeker’s goals.

Perceived oneness blurs the self-other distinction and facilitates the symbolic merging of the self into the other. The self-other merging en­ ables the self to see events through the eyes of the other. Helping others is fundamentally helping the self. It is evident in the literature that perceived oneness increases helping behavior. Maner et al. (2002) manipulated perceived oneness by telling participants whether they had similar or dissimilar thinking styles with the person in need of help. Participants were asked to listen to an interview in which a female college student was raising money after a family tragedy. Participants who thought they had similar thinking styles with this student donated more than those who thought they had dissimilar thinking styles. Ahn, Le, and Bailenson (2013) manipulated perceived oneness by using immersive technology and examined helping behavior among in­ dividuals with two levels of perceived oneness. One group of partici­ pants embodied the perceptual experiences of a colorblind person using immersive virtual environment technology and showed high levels of perceived oneness. The other group of participants were asked to ima­ gine being colorblind and had low levels of perceived oneness. It was shown that the embodied experience group invested more time helping the colorblind person than did the imagination group. The evidence for the relationship between shared identity and helping behavior can also be found in the in-group favoritism effect; that is, individuals are more likely to allocate resources to in-group members than they are to out-group members (Tajfel, Billig, Bundy, & Flament, 1971). For example, Levine et al. (2005) conducted a series of experi­ ments to examine how shared identity shaped helping behavior. They found that when team membership was activated prior to experiments, soccer fans were more likely to offer help to injured strangers who wore an in-group team shirt than to injured strangers who wore a rival team shirt. When a broader identity - soccer fans - was primed, participants offered more help to injured strangers who wore a team shirt (either in-group or rival) than to those who did not show signs of a team membership. Li and Zhang (2018) conducted an experiment that examined how group identification, manifested in user avatars, affected the provision of supportive comments in an online forum. It was found that participants were more likely to respond to support-seeking mes­ sages posted by in-group members than by out-group members. Second, when audience members are absorbed into the narrative, they are likely to act out their support intention. Writing supportive comments in online communities requires focused attention and mental effort. A person’s ability to focus is a limited mental resource (Miller, 1951). Absorption requires a continual outlay of cognitive resources and thus leaves sparse resources for distractions (Bishop, 2007). Information about issues mentioned in the narrative is temporarily stored and pro­ cessed during absorption (Green & Brock, 2000). Individuals who are equipped with issue-relevant information in their working memory are able to translate their thoughts into sentences (Kellogg, 1996). Research on online communities shows that members are likely to take a partic­ ipatory action when they absorb themselves in the online environment (Bishop, 2007). For example, individuals who are in the state of ab­ sorption are likely to share information and write product reviews (Bishop, 2007; Lin, 2009; Zhang, Lu, Gupta, & Zhao, 2014).

2.2. Identification and social support

3. Study 1

Identification with a character is characterized by (1) the sharing of the character’s emotions, perspective, and goals, and (2) the loss of selfawareness (Cohen, 2001). In the following section, we will show how these characteristics of identification can increase the audience’s moti­ vation and readiness to provide support. First, a number of studies have examined motivations for helping and have shown that individuals intend to help because of shared identity (Cialdini, Brown, Lewis, Luce, & Neuberg, 1997; Levine, Prosser, Evans, & Reicher, 2005; Maner et al., 2002). Cialdini et al. (1997) termed the sense of shared identity as oneness. The self is assumed to be dynamic, malleable, and fluid (Cialdini et al., 1997). Perceived oneness is “a sense of shared, merged, or interconnected personal identities (p.483)”.

We focus our study on the context of interpersonal conflicts. Inter­ personal conflict is a common source of emotional distress (Tang, Zhu, & Zhang, 2016). Interpersonal conflict involves at least two persons and occurs when a person’s effort to achieve his or her goal is interrupted by another person. This opens opportunities for identification with either the support seeker or the opposing character (the person the main character has conflict with). When identification with the support seeker occurs, the reader may take the perspective of the support seeker and vicariously experience the misfortunes. Interpersonal conflict represents situations in which a part of the self is being threatened (Zhang, Ting-Toomey, & Oetzel, 2014). 2

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The merging of the self and other identity may make the reader feel like his or her own identity is being threatened in a conflict situation. When the self is threatened, individuals have the desire to restore self-worth and preserve positive identities (Steele, 1988). Responses to identity threats, such as affirming self-attributes, are transferred onto supportive behaviors (Sherman & Cohen, 2006). In addition, identification can also occur with the opposing character. It may be less likely to occur than identification with the support seeker, because support-seeking posts are often narrated from the point-of-view of the support seeker. When a reader identifies with the opposing character in a conflict situation, identity denial may trigger defensive responses such as expressing crit­ icisms and behaving aggressively towards the support seeker (Chen, 2013). We propose the following hypotheses:

the emotions the girl (who posted the narrative) portrayed” and “At key moments in the narrative, I felt I knew exactly what her roommate was going through.” Cronbach’s alpha was .90 for identification with the support seeker (M ¼ 5.28, SD ¼ 0.98) and 0.91 for identification with her roommate (M ¼ 3.37, SD ¼ 1.32). To measure support intention, Participants were asked to respond to the following question “How willing are you to help the girl who posted the narrative?” on a 5-point Likert scale (1 ¼ definitely won’t, 5 ¼ definitely will; M ¼ 3.45, SD ¼ 1.12). Since almost all participants’ comments (98%) provided informa­ tional support (i.e., telling the support seeker what to do) to a certain degree, we focused our attention on emotional support, a form of social support that validates the support seeker’s feelings. According to Bur­ leson (2009), effective messages of advice are those that explicitly recognize, validate, and elaborate the other’s emotions. Emotion-focused advice provides the recipient with a sense of accep­ tance and builds a supportive context in which other forms of social support (e.g., information about conflict resolution) may reach maximum effect (Feng, 2009). Advice that ignores and criticizes the recipient’s feelings may increase emotional distress and message resis­ tance (Burleson, 2009). Emotional support (Meng, Chung, & Cox, 2016) includes comments that validate the poster’s feelings or actions (e.g., “The situation seems very unfair and also unpleasant … Having roommates can be very stressful.” “This is a struggle for sure.” “If I was in the same position as you, I would react the same way you are as well.“), comments that ex­ press understanding/empathy (e.g., “I have dealt with roommates that are exactly like this.” “I know the feeling.” “I can relate 100%.“), com­ ments that express sympathy (e.g., “I am so sorry to hear that:(.” “I’m sorry you are having so much difficulty.“), or comments that provide encouragement (e.g., “It is important to be the bigger person in this situation.” “You will make it!“). Comments that expressed emotional support were coded as 1 and comments that expressed no emotional support were coded as 0. Two coders independently coded all comments and obtained satisfactory intercoder reliability (Kappa ¼ .94). Out of 268 comments, 76 (28%) comments conveyed emotional support. Control variables included age, gender (1 ¼ male, 2 ¼ female), ethnicity (1 ¼ white, 2 ¼ non-white), year in college (1 ¼ freshman to 4 ¼ senior and beyond), annual household income (1 ¼ less than $20,000, to 6 ¼ 100,000 or more), time spent on reading the narrative, and Reddit.com membership (1 ¼ yes, 2 ¼ no). Participants were also asked to rate “how important is cleanliness to you” (1 ¼ not important, to 5 ¼ very important), and whether they currently have or have had a roommate (1 ¼ yes, 2 ¼ no). Finally, participants were asked to indicate how frequently they posted a question/a story and how frequently they commented on other users’ posts in online discussion forums respec­ tively (1 ¼ never, to 6 ¼ more than 2 times a day).

H1. Identification with the support seeker will be positively associated with support intention (H1a) and support behavior (H1b). H2. Identification with the opposing character will be negatively associated with support intention (H2a) and support behavior (H2b). 3.1. Method 3.1.1. Participants A total of 268 college students were recruited from communication courses from a large midwestern university in 2017. The average age of the participants was 20.02 (SD ¼ 1.69). The sample contained 46% males and 54% females. The ethnicities were 69% Caucasian or NonHispanic White, 11% Asian/Pacific Islander, 10% African American, 7% Others, and 3% Latino or Hispanic. The median annual household income was $60,000 to $79,999. 3.1.2. Materials, procedure, and measures The stimulus situation material used in this study was an adapted post about roommate conflict experiences from Reddit.com. Reddit is essentially a bulletin board system. Registered members post supportseeking messages in various contexts (e.g., postpartum depression, roommate conflicts, romantic relationship problems, mother-in-law conflicts, and parenting) to the community at large. The post (732 words) was written from the first-person viewpoint and described epi­ sodes of conflicts over cleanliness with the support seeker’s roommate. Research shows that cleanliness is one of the most frequent roommate conflict topics among college students (McCorkle & Mason, 2009). In the post, the support seeker narrated her stressful experiences because her roommate left unwashed dishes in the kitchen, left food in the refrig­ erator for weeks, and had no intention of taking trash out. She tried several strategies for conflict resolution but had no success of bringing her roommate up to her cleanliness standards. In the end of the narra­ tive, the support seeker asked if anyone else had experienced similar situations and what she should do to make her roommate clean up. Participants were instructed to read the support-seeking narrative on a Reddit mock-up web page and respond to a series of questions on Qualtrics. A timing question was hidden on the narrative page to track the time each respondent spent on reading the narrative. On the following page, participants were instructed to leave a comment in a comment box just like what they would normally do in an online dis­ cussion forum. Participants were later asked to respond to a series of questions on identification, support intention, cleanliness, roommate experiences, Reddit membership, general online discussion forum ac­ tivities, and demographics. To measure identification, participants were asked to indicate the extent to which they identified with each character (i.e., support seeker and her roommate). Eight 7-point Likert scale items were adapted from Cohen’s (2001) identification scale (1 ¼ strongly disagree, to 7 ¼ strongly agree). Two items that did not measure identification with a specific character were excluded from the original scale. Examples of the remaining eight items included “While reading the narrative I could feel

3.2. Results Two hierarchical regression models were constructed to test the hypotheses using R 3.5.1. In each model, control variables were entered in the first block, including age, gender, ethnicity, year in school, in­ come, time spent on the narrative page, general online discussion ac­ tivities, Reddit membership, perceived importance of cleanliness, and previous experience of having a roommate. Identification variables were entered in the second block, including identification with the poster and identification with the opposing character. The dependent variable was support intention for the first regression model. Since emotional support is a binary variable, logistic regression was used for the second model. Table 1 presents the correlations of the variables. H1 predicted that identification with the support seeker would be positively associated with support intention (H1a) and support behavior (H1b). The results showed that identification with the support seeker positively predicted support intention (β ¼ 0.25, p < .001), with higher levels of identification with the support seeker associated with higher 3

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0.02 0.19*** 0.16* 0.18*** 0.03 0.13* 0.14* 0.06 0.04 0.04 0.20*** 0.09 0.11 0.21*** 0.13* 0.01 0.01 0.00 0.01 0.68*** 0.19*** 0.02 0.05 0.02 0.13* 0.04 0.03 0.08 0.14* 0.12 0.16* 0.04 0.18*** 0.16** 0.03 0.04 0.06 0.23***

0.27*** 0.09 0.01 0.13* 0.08 0.07 0.00

0.12 0.09 0.01 0.08 0.08 0.05

0.65*** 0.30*** 0.03 0.16* 0.19***

0.35*** 0.02 0.07 0.16*

0.09 0.01 0.09

0.02 0.07

0.01

levels of support intention. H1a was supported. Identification with the support seeker also positively predicted emotional support (β ¼ 1.59, p < .001). Participants were almost two times (e.72) more likely to pro­ vide emotional support with 1 unit increase in identification with the support seeker. H1b was supported. Table 2 presents the regression coefficients and effect sizes. H2 predicted that identification with the opposing character would be negatively associated with support intention (H2a) and support behavior (H2b). The results showed that identification with the opposing character did not predict support intention (β ¼ 0.08, p ¼ n.s.) or emotional support (β ¼ 0.19, p ¼ n.s.). H2 was not supported. In addition, the results showed that females had more intention to offer help than did males (b ¼ 0.43, p < .01). Post hoc observations revealed that females were marginally more likely to identify with the poster (b ¼ 0.22, p ¼ .07, Mmale ¼ 5.1, SDmale ¼ 0.94, Mfemale ¼ 5.4, SDfe­ male ¼ 1.01) and less likely to identify with the opposing character (b ¼ 0.42, p < .05, Mmale ¼ 3.60, SDmale ¼ 1.30, Mfemale ¼ 3.20, SDfe­ male ¼ 1.40), holding control variables constant. Lastly, we created a dummy variable termed Female (1 ¼ female, 0 ¼ male) to examine whether the relationships between identification scores and support intention was a function of gender. The dummy variable Female, the product of Female and identification with poster, and the product of Female and identification with roommate were entered in the regression equation along with control variables. The results showed that the slopes for females did not differ significantly from that for males, indicating that the predictive power of identification with poster (b ¼ 0.05, p ¼ n. s.) and the predictive power of identification with roommate (b ¼ .10, p ¼ n.s.) on support intention was not a function of gender. The same procedure was used to examine whether the relationships between identification scores and emotional support was a function of gender. The predictive power of identification with poster (b ¼ .45, p ¼ n.s.) and the predictive power of identification with roommate (b ¼ .01, p ¼ n.s.) on emotional support was not a function of gender. 3.3. Discussion The results of this study indicated that individuals who identified more with the support seeker had more intention to offer help and provided more emotional support. This result is consistent with previous research that the self-other overlap is positively associated with support intention and behavior (Ahn et al., 2013; Cialdini et al., 1997; Levine et al., 2005; Maner et al., 2002). Among participants who provided Table 2 Regression coefficients predicting social support intention and behavior.

0.09 0.03 0.12* 0.16* 0.04 0.01 0.16* 0.04 0.01 0.19*** 0.13* 0.26***

7 6 5

0.27*** 0.07 0.06 0.14* 0.07 0.13* 0.04 0.19*** 0.22*** 0.05 0.18*** 0.12 0.06

Block 1 - Control variables Age Gender (1 ¼ male, 2 ¼ female) Ethnicity Year in school Income Post Comment Reddit Membership Importance of cleanliness Have/had a roommate Time spent on narrative page ΔR2 (%) Block 2 - Identification Identification with poster Identification with roommate ΔR2 2 R /Pseudo-R2

*p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001.

1 0.00 0.31*** 0.12 0.06 0.09 0.06 0.09 0.08 0.07 0.01 0.03 0.07 0.05 0.15* 1.Emotional Support 2.Intention 3.Identification with poster 4.Identification with roommate 5.Age 6.Gender 7.Ethnicity 8.Year in School 9.Income 10.Post 11.Comment 12.Reddit Membership 13.Importance of cleanliness 14.Have/Had a roommate 15.Time spent on narrative page

1

Table 1 Zero-order correlations among variables.

2

3

4

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

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Intention

Emotional support

.05 .19** .03 -.17* .10 .14 .17* -.03 .18** .08 .13* .17***

.04 .39 -.31 .31 -.24 -.45 .39 -.27 .43 -.25 .71* .08

.25*** .08 .05*** .22***

1.59*** -.19 .09*** .17***

Note. Entries are standardized regression coefficients. For the model predicting emotional support, the null deviance was 310.58. The residual deviance for the full model was 277.18. Nagelkerke R2 was reported as Pseudo-R2. *p<.05, **p<.01, **p<.001. 4

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perspective taking and test its effects on conflict attribution. Perspective was manipulated by describing the narrative as experienced by the support seeker or her roommate. de Graaf et al. (2012) presented the same narrative from perspectives of two persons who had opposing goals and found that participants identified more with the perspectiv­ izing character than did participants who were told the same story from another person’s perspective. Since we use mock-up pages to replicate the real-world online community, the nature of the design does not allow us to directly compare the provision of support to the same character when the narrative is told from opposing perspectives. In other words, when the narrative is told from the support seeker’s perspective, the support seeker is the person asking for help; whereas the roommate is the person asking for help when the narrative is told from the room­ mate’s perspective. In Study 2, we add attribution as the outcome var­ iable, which gives us information on both characters regardless of perspectives, so that we can directly compare changes in attribution scores for the same characters when the narrative perspective shifts from one person to another. We hypothesize that when the narrative is told from the perspectivizing character, external attribution will increase. Specifically,

emotional support, some resonated with the feelings of the support seeker and expressed disappointment with her roommate’s behavior. Others indicated that they had been in a similar situation before and fully understood what she was going through. These comments sug­ gested that the support soliciting narrative triggered participants’ memories of past events and made a particular aspect of the self-concept salient. Narratives seem to exert priming effects in a similar way as other techniques such as goal priming (Kim, Sherman, Ko, & Taylor, 2006). Identification with the opposing character was not associated with any of the social support indicators. The non-significant result might be due to lack of power. It was not surprising that there was only a small number of participants who identified with the opposing character. Although roommate conflicts over cleanliness could go both ways (obsessive cleaning vs. laziness), individuals who held high standards of cleanliness might be placed on the moral high ground. In addition, counterarguing requires an evaluative mindset (Green & Jenkins, 2014). Individuals need to allocate extra cognitive resources to critically eval­ uate conflict episodes. When participants were absorbed into the narrative, it might have been difficult to argue against the poster’s point of view due to insufficient cognitive resources. In addition, participants who were females, spent less time in school, commented more frequently in online discussion forums, perceived cleanliness as more important, and spent more time viewing the narra­ tive page were more likely to offer help. As shown in Table 2, partici­ pants who considered cleanliness more important and spent more time viewing the narrative page were more likely to relate to the support seeker, thus, were more likely to offer help. It is possible that active posters felt more comfortable expressing their help in online communities.

H4. When the narrative is told from the support seeker’s perspective, participants will be more likely to attribute the conflict to the opposing character. H5. When the narrative is told from the opposing character’s perspective, participants will be more likely to attribute the conflict to the support seeker. 4.1. Method

4. Study 2

4.1.1. Participants A total of 131 college students were recruited from communication courses from a large Midwestern university in 2018. The average age of the participants was 20.27 (SD ¼ 1.88). The sample contained 13% males and 86% females. The ethnicities were 81% Caucasian or NonHispanic White, 8% Asian/Pacific Islander, 5% African American, 3% Latino or Hispanic, and 2% Other. The median annual household income was $60,000 to $79,999.

Attribution may be useful in explaining the mechanism in which identification exerts effects on persuasion outcomes (Walter, Murphy, & Gillig, 2017). Attribution is the process in which individuals explain the causes of events (Heider, 1958). Explanations are grouped into two categories, including dispositional (internal) and situational (external) attributions (Heider, 1958). When a person encounters an interpersonal conflict, dispositional attribution explains the cause of the conflict as the characteristics of the person himself or herself. Situational attribution explains the cause of conflict as outside forces, such as being inconsid­ erate and disrespectful of another person he or she has conflict with. Research has consistently found an attribution bias, that is, individuals are more likely to attribute the negative outcomes of in-group members to situational factors, whereas they are more likely to attribute the negative outcomes of out-group members to dispositional factors (Pet­ tigrew, 1979; Walter et al., 2017). Under the circumstance of identification, attribution may resemble the in-group bias. For example, Walter et al. (2017) conducted a series of experiments and consistently found that individuals who identified with the story character were more likely to attribute the character’s negative actions to external factors, which, in turn, are associated with story-consistent beliefs. Therefore, readers who identify with the story character may defend self-worth by negatively evaluating the behavior of the opposing character and assigning the cause of the conflict to the opposing character. Readers who identify with the opposing character may attribute the cause of the conflict to the main character and do not exhibit supportive intention to the main character. Therefore, the first goal of Study 2 was to test the mediation effect of external attribution on the relationship between identification and support intention. We hy­ pothesize that:

4.1.2. Materials, procedure, and measures Participants were randomly assigned to read one of the two supportseeking narratives depicting episodes of conflicts over cleanliness be­ tween two roommates (see Appendix A). The first group read the narrative from the support seeker’s perspective, which complained about her roommate being a slob. The second group read the same narrative from the roommate’s perspective, which complained about the support seeker being a clean-freak. To prevent confusion, we used “support seeker” to denote the perspectivizing character in the first narrative and “roommate” to denote the perspectivizing character in the second narrative, despite that the roommate was actually the support seeker in the second narrative. Both versions of the narrative had 301 words and the same level of readability (Gunning Fog Index is 9.00 for both versions). Procedure and measures of identification were identical to Study 1. In addition, participants were asked to write the cause of the conflict over cleanliness between the support seeker and her roommate (i.e., the opposing character). Two binary variables were created to reflect par­ ticipants’ perception of conflict attribution. Two coders independently coded whether the support seeker was blamed for causing the conflict (1 ¼ Yes, 0 ¼ No) and whether the roommate was blamed for causing the conflict (1 ¼ Yes, 0 ¼ No). Discrepancies were discussed until consensus was reached. External attribution was 1 if participants blamed the roommate for causing the conflict when the narrative was told from the support seeker’s perspective (42%). External attribution was 1 if the participant blamed the support seeker for causing the conflict when the

H3. Identification with the perspectivizing character will positively predict external attribution, which in turn will increase support intention. The second goal of Study 2 was to manipulate identification by 5

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narrative was told from the roommate’s perspective (23%).

Mmale ¼ 3.8, SDmale ¼ 0.93, Mfemale ¼ 3.5, SDfemale ¼ 1.06), holding con­ trol variables constant. For condition 2 (roommate complaining “sup­ port seeker” is a clean-freak), males (M ¼ 4.6, SD ¼ 0.97) were less likely to identify with the poster than females (M ¼ 5.2, SD ¼ 0.95), with b ¼ 0.90, p < .05. No gender difference was found in identification with roommate (b ¼ 0.24, p ¼ .66, Mmale ¼ 5.0, SDmale ¼ 1.4, Mfemale ¼ 4.4, SDfemale ¼ 1.3), holding control variables constant.

4.2. Results Manipulation check was conducted to examine whether identifica­ tion with characters differed when narratives were told from opposing perspectives. A two sample t-test showed that participants identified more with the support seeker when the narrative was told from the support seeker’s perspective (M ¼ 5.40, SD ¼ 0.91), compared to that from the opposing character’s perspective (M ¼ 4.49, SD ¼ 1.29), t (115) ¼ 4.65, p < .001, Cohen’s d ¼ 0.82. A second t-test showed that participants identified less with the opposing character when the narrative was told from the support seeker’s perspective (M ¼ 3.49, SD ¼ 1.05), compared to that from the perspective of the opposing character (M ¼ 5.08, SD ¼ 0.96), t (129) ¼ 9.03, p < .001, Cohen’s d ¼ 1.58. H3 predicted that external attribution would mediate the relation­ ship between identification with the perspectivizing character and support intention. The mediation effect was tested using the lavaan package. The indirect effect of identification on support intention through external attribution was not significant (b ¼ .001, 10,000 bootstrap SE ¼ .014). The same procedure was performed on two sub­ samples, in which the narrative was told from the perspective of the support seeker and the perspective of the roommate respectively. We did not find any mediation effect in the support seeker’s condition (b ¼ 0.001, 10,000 bootstrap SE ¼ .023) or the roommate’s condition (b ¼ 0.013, 10,000 bootstrap SE ¼ .025). H3 was not supported. Two chi-square tests of independence were performed to examine whether conflict attributions differed when the narrative was told from opposing perspectives. The results showed that more participants attributed the conflict to the roommate when the narrative was told from the support seeker’s perspective, compared to when the narrative was told from the roommate’s perspective, λ2 ¼ 5.56, p < .05, φ ¼ 0.49. H4 was supported. Participants did not differ in their attribution to the support seeker when narratives were told from opposing perspectives, λ2 ¼ 1.95, p ¼ .16, φ ¼ 0.17. H5 was not supported. Fig. 1 presents dif­ ferences in conflict attributions when narratives were told from opposing perspectives. Post hoc analyses explored gender differences in identification scores. For condition 1 (support seeker complaining her roommate is a slob), we did not find gender differences in identification with poster (b ¼ 0.52, p ¼ .24, Mmale ¼ 4.9, SDmale ¼ 1.0, Mfemale ¼ 5.5, SDfe­ male ¼ 0.89) or identification with roommate (b ¼ 0.02, p ¼ .96,

4.3. Discussion The results of this study provided partial support for the effect of identification on attribution. When the narrative was told from the support seeker’s perspective, more than half of the participants blamed the roommate for causing the conflict. When the narrative was told from the roommate’s perspective, the number of participants who attributed the conflict to the roommate significantly declined. Although not reaching statistical significance, there was a trend (see Fig. 1) that an increasing number of participants attributed the conflict to the support seeker when the narrative was told from the roommate’s perspective, compared to when the narrative was told from the support seeker’s perspective. The results are consistent with research on in-group attri­ butional bias (Pettigrew, 1979; Walter et al., 2017), that is, participants who identified with the character were less likely to attribute the con­ flict to internal characteristics of the character. We did not find evidence supporting the mediation effect of external attribution on the relationship between identification with the per­ spectivizing character and support intention. Consistent with Study 1, we found a direct effect of identification on support intention, that is, identification with the perspectivizing character significantly predicted support intention when the narrative was told from the support seeker’s perspective (β ¼ 0.33, p < .05) and the same result was found when the narrative was told from the roommate’s perspective (β ¼ 0.34, p < .05). These findings suggested that participants were willing to help the perspectivizing person regardless of their perception of who was to blame. Even when participants blamed the perspectivizing person for the conflict, they might be willing to help correct the mistake. It may be that the nature of support-seeking posts put the perspectivizing person in a vulnerable position, which motivated participants to offer help. Post-hoc analyses also revealed that when the narrative was told from the roommate’s perspective, more participants identified with the non-perspectivizing character (M ¼ 4.49, SD ¼ 1.29) compared to when the narrative was told from the support seeker’s perspective (M ¼ 3.49, SD ¼ 1.05), with t (123) ¼ 4.85, p < .001. This finding was consistent

Fig. 1. Comparison of frequency in attributions when narratives were told from opposing perspectives. 6

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with that from Study 1 that very few participants identified with the roommate who was complained about for being a slob. This finding suggested a limitation of this study, that is, identification with narrative characters might be influenced by moral principles regarding the goodness and badness of human behavior. Future studies could include diverse conflict scenarios to control the possible normative influence on identification.

a strong determinant of support provision and reception (Cialdini et al., 1997; Rains & Wright, 2016). This assumption may not be followed when support is requested in unspecified and generic online commu­ nities, where members hold contrasting self-concepts one way or another. Interpersonal conflicts complicate social support processes because community members may take different sides and adopt opposing goals. Assuming shared identity may contribute to inflated expectations of assistance from online communities and aggravate distress when expectations are not met. The present study took this complexity into consideration and measured the extent to which par­ ticipants internalized characters’ goals. Second, this study viewed support provision as a situational response to a persuasive act, highlighting the momentary nature of the narrativeinduced mental state. Existing literature focuses on relatively “static” motivations for helping others, such as general reciprocity, selfenhancement, prosocial behavior, and perceived similarity (Shumaker & Brownell, 1984). The focus on the situational nature might open up opportunities for maximizing resources acquired from online commu­ nities, such as getting lurkers to write supportive comments and winning over members who hold contrasting views. Third, this study examined social support processes from the perspective of the support provider, who processes resources needed for the support seekers to cope with emotional distress. Support seekers’ ability to solicit resources from the online community is a critical step in the social support process. Support seekers would benefit from knowing who are likely to provide support and thus improve their support so­ licitation skills. Fourth, we observed gender differences in identification scores and participants’ intention to provide support. Despite that both males and females were more likely to identify with the perspectivizing character than the opposing character in the support-seeking narrative, we observed a convergence effect for the male participants. That is, males were less likely to identify with the perpectivizing character than the females, and males were more likely to identify with the opposing character than females in the context of interpersonal conflict. One possible explanation is that previous research on gender differences in empathy shows that females are more likely to understand and share the feelings of another (Toussaint & Webb, 2005). Therefore, narrative persuasion might be more effective among females than males. It is also possible that we used female characters to describe the conflict situa­ tions, which might better enable female participants to empathize with the perspectivizing characters and increase their intention to offer help. The results of this study also have practical implications that center around improving chances of obtaining support from online commu­ nities. Support seekers should find the right online community to post their support soliciting narratives. A key feature of online support communities is the diverse backgrounds and perspectives of their members (Wright, 2009). Diversity has been framed as a positive char­ acteristic of health-related online support groups because people with diverse backgrounds may bring in novel information that would other­ wise be impossible to disseminate within strong ties. The benefits of diversity are premised on the fact that members share a sense of identity by combating the same disease such as depression and breast cancer. However, diversity may create potential issues when support soliciting narratives about interpersonal conflicts are written for a broader read­ ership. Support seekers may fail to solicit support from other members who are unable to identify with them. Support seekers may even receive hostile responses from members who identify with the opposing character. Another implication is that support seekers may increase their chances of being helped by improving their solicitation skills. A compelling narrative may increase online community members’ likeli­ hood of identifying with the support seeker, which, in turn, induces helping behavior. Support seekers may present the narrative using a first-person perspective; give a descriptive, graphical, and detailed ac­ count of stressful episodes; and express what they feel.

5. General discussion This study applied the concept of identification to social support research and tested whether identification with characters was associ­ ated with social support in the context of interpersonal conflict. The results indicated that identification with the support seeker increased the intention and provision of social support. When the narrative was told from the perspective of the person the support seeker had conflict with, identification with the support seeker decreased and the support seeker was blamed more for causing the conflict. 5.1. Implications for theory and practice This study has important implications for research on narrative persuasion. In particular, this study extended previous work on identi­ fication with specific characters by demonstrating its existence and ef­ fects in the context of soliciting computer-mediated social support. Identification is a process of social influence (Cohen, 2001). The persuasive effect of identification with narrative characters has received substantial empirical support from media effect research, with a particular focus on attitude change (de Graaf et al., 2012; Hoeken & Sinkeldam, 2014). Recent research expands narrative persuasion to health communication, focusing on crafting compelling narratives that convey important life-saving information (Murphy et al., 2013). This study explored the effect of narrative persuasion in the context of sup­ port solicitation - another important area of health communication. Specifically, this study conceptualized support soliciting narrative as a persuasion strategy, which was the act of influencing online community members to allocate their resources (e.g., time and information) to support seekers. The results of this study showed that support soliciting narratives could induce a mental state in which participants temporarily lose self-awareness and internalize the support seeker’s perspective, goals, and emotions. In addition, this study provided some preliminary support for the persuasive effect of narratives in the context of support solicitation; that is, identification with the support seeker was linked to social support intention and the provision of high-quality social support. This study is one of the few that test the impact of support-seeking strategies on support provision outcomes in online communities (Feng, Li, & Li, 2016; Rui & Li, 2018). These recent studies examine factors, such as identity cues of support seekers (Feng et al., 2016) and antici­ pated future interaction (Rui & Li, 2018), that increase the likelihood and quality of support provision from weak ties who have no obligation of complying with help requests. Weak ties are viewed as potential support providers behind support-seeking texts. Findings of these studies highlight the importance of relationship factors (e.g., trust and self-presentation concerns) that convince weak ties to comply with help requests. The current study followed a similar direction but differed in a way that focused on imagining being the character in the text and sharing the feelings of the character. The social influence process engaged self-identity, which was a product of involvement with char­ acters presented within mediated texts. This study has several implications for advancing research on computer-mediated social support. First, the application of identifica­ tion to social support solicitation addressed an important limitation of current research on online support communities: it is overly focused on health settings (Rains & Wright, 2016). A hidden assumption is that members possess a sense of shared identity because they share similar health concerns and emotional trajectories. Perceived shared identity is 7

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5.2. Limitations and suggestions for future research

investigate gender differences in identification, which might provide insights into gender differences in the amount and type of social support exchanged in online communities. Finally, a number of studies have examined the impact of narrative features on audience involvement, such as modes (Ahn et al., 2013), interactivity (Green & Jenkins, 2014), and emotional disclosure (Wang et al., 2015) in various contexts. Future research should examine how these features affect identification levels in the context of support soliciting narratives. For example, online communities are characterized by a high degree of interactivity (McMillan, 2002). It is very common for support seekers to interact with other users in subsequent replies. Sup­ port seekers may use subsequent replies to clarify details, show appre­ ciation, address opposing views, or express sympathy to other users who disclose similar situations. Support soliciting narratives are not static but interactive. This interactive process reveals more information about the support seeker, which may facilitate or hinder the identification with the support seeker.

The present study provided a starting point for examining identifi­ cation in the context of support soliciting narratives. There are several limitations. First, the self-concept is multifaceted and consists of various domains, such as belief systems, values, roles, goals, and group mem­ berships. Hypotheses were tested in the cleanliness context that threatened a particular aspect of the self. Although some of the results look promising, the ability to generalize these results to different conflict contexts is unknown. More work needs to be done to test these hy­ potheses in contexts that threaten various aspects of the personal or social identity. On a related note, future studies could examine how identification elicits social support from outgroup members or people who hold opposing beliefs. Second, normative influences shape helping behavior (Greenslade & White, 2005). In online contexts, user-generated content signals com­ munity norms, which, in turn, affect user participation (Zhou, 2011). This study attempted to control normative influences by eliminating user-generated comments. In real-life situations, it is likely that most online community members read others’ comments before posting their own, and their subsequent comments may be influenced by previous comments. Future research should investigate how normative influences interact with identification to produce effects on social support behavior in online communities.] Third, we consistently found that identification with the opposing character did not lead to expected outcomes. Specifically, in Study 1, identification with the opposing character was not associated with social support intention or behavior. In Study 2, when the narrative was told from the perspective of the opposing character, despite that participants identified more with the opposing character, no significant difference was found in terms of their attribution. These findings may suggest a limited persuasion effect, that is, identification with story characters might not change participants’ perception of who was responsible for the conflict and subsequent supportive behavior. Future research could examine conditions in which identification exerts strong or weak effects. Fourth, the sample of Study 2 contained predominantly female participants, which might overestimate the persuasive effect of the support-seeking narrative, given that female participants might be bet­ ter able to relate to the female characters in the narrative. Future research could randomize the characters’ gender or use gender neutral names. It is still unknown whether females are more likely than males to lose themselves in a story or vice versa. Future research could

6. Conclusion The two studies brought together two areas of research in an inves­ tigation of identification and social support. The results showed that support soliciting narratives could induce identification with support seekers, which was a mental state in which online community members temporarily lost self-awareness and internalized the support seekers’ perspective, goals, and emotions. Furthermore, the results indicated that identification with the support seeker was associated with external attribution, support intention, and the provision of high-quality support. This study extended research on narrative persuasion to support solici­ tation and provided some preliminary evidence for the persuasive effect of support soliciting narratives. Future research could examine charac­ teristics of support soliciting narratives and their effects on inducing identification with support seekers. Funding The authors received no specific funding for this work. Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.

Appendix A My roommate is a slob. What can I do?

My roommate is a neat freak. What can I do?

I live in an apartment with another girl and we each have our own bedroom, but we share a bathroom, kitchen, and living room. We get along really well, but I have a problem with her being such a slob. The kitchen sink is always stacked with dishes. I want to live in a clean house so when I dirty the dishes, I wash them right away, even though I’m very busy with school and work. She’s always ignoring what I say and she makes me feel like I am hounding her like a child. Another problem area is the trash. She wants to let it pile up and won’t take it out everyday. Trash shouldn’t sit there for days and I think it’s worth the money to throw it out and put a new bag in. I take my old food out of the fridge every week so it doesn’t have time to go rotten. She doesn’t take my advice when I warn her about putting marinated meat in with the vegetables. She makes me worry about food poisoning and bacteria. I always have to tell her what to do and she makes me feel like I’m her mother. It’s so frustrating to live with someone who lacks self-discipline and doesn’t care about cleanliness. She is always so careless that it makes me feel overworked and I have to constantly make sure she is doing her part. She makes me feel unhappy in my own home. We still have 6 more months on our lease so I can’t just leave, but I can’t imagine putting up with this for six more months. This is making my living situation really stressful and I

I live in an apartment with another girl and we each have our own bedroom, but we share a bathroom, kitchen, and living room. We get along really well, but I have a problem with her being such a clean-freak. The kitchen sink sometimes gets stacked with dishes. I go to school all day and then I work nights so I don’t have the time or energy to wash the dishes right away, but I try to get it done within two days. She is always complaining to me and she makes me feel like a pig. Another problem area is the trash. She wants to take it out everyday, even if it isn’t full. Trash doesn’t need to be taken out everyday and there’s no point in wasting more money on trash bags. I take my old food out of the fridge every two weeks, but it’s not like it’s rotten or anything. She nags me when I put marinated meat in with the vegetables if I’m going to cook them that night. She makes me feel like I’m ignorant about food safety. She is always complaining about what I do and makes me feel like a bad person. It’s so frustrating to live with someone who is so controlling and is obsessed with cleaning. She is always so demanding that it makes me feel pressured and I have to worry about making her happy every minute. She makes me feel unhappy in my own home. We still have 6 more months on our lease so I can’t just leave, but I can’t imagine putting up with this for six more months. This is making my living situation really stressful and I (continued on next page)

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(continued ) My roommate is a slob. What can I do?

My roommate is a neat freak. What can I do?

need advice on how to make things better. Can anyone help? Have you ever been in this situation?

need advice on how to make things better. Can anyone help? Have you ever been in this situation?

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