Supportive communication on social networking sites: The impact of post valence and relational closeness on support provision

摘要

This project adopted a mixed-method approach to examine relational and contextual factors that influence people's intention to provide support on SNSs. A pilot survey examined people's use of SNSs for supportive exchange. Facebook was found to be the most used SNS for support seeking. People responded more often to a close friend's support-seeking post than to an acquaintance's post. Building on the findings in the pilot study, a main experiment was conducted to examine the impact of valence of a support seeker's previous posts and relational closeness on viewers' perceptions of the support seeker and their intention to provide support. Findings showed that valence of a support seeker's previous posts affects viewers' liking and perceived need for support in opposite directions, which in turn influences viewers' intended support provision. In addition, relational closeness positively affects viewers' liking of a support seeker and thus their intention to provide support.