Expectancy violation in a Facebook group: What is your response?
基于期望违背理论，研究Facebook群组成员在遭遇期望违背时的反应，发现个人特征、关系特征和群组特征共同影响回应方式。
Purpose Facebook groups provide a forum for members to post content and engage with others through comments. Sometimes members behave poorly and violate the expectations of group members. In this study, the authors build a research framework based on expectancy violation theory (EVT) to predict and better understand the behaviour and responses of members when faced with violations in their groups. Design/methodology/approach Facebook group members completed surveys regarding their interactions in social media groups. The independent variable predictors in the study were categorized by personal characteristics, relationship characteristics and group characteristics. Participants also identified expectancy violations they had encountered (either severe or mild) and identified how they would react to the two types of violations. Regression models were developed for severe and mild violations. Findings The regression models show that personal characteristics such as age, gender and marital status; relationship characteristics such as their social media usage frequency and their social media engagement level; group characteristics such as anonymity of users and purpose of the group as well as the perceived severity of the violation influence how a member will respond to the expectancy violation. Originality/value The research study extends the existing expectancy violation literature by providing a comprehensive framework to predict how users will react to negative expectancy violations. This study also has practical implications for how group administrators might manage expectancy violations.