Anonymity, Intimacy and Self-disclosure in Social Media

Last registered on January 07, 2016

View Trial History

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title

Anonymity, Intimacy and Self-disclosure in Social Media

RCT ID

AEARCTR-0000840

Initial registration date

September 22, 2015

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published

September 22, 2015, 3:49 PM EDT

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Last updated

January 07, 2016, 2:47 PM EST

Last updated is the most recent time when changes to the trial's registration were published.

Locations

Country

United States of America

Region

Primary Investigator

Name

Xiao Ma

Affiliation

Cornell University

Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

Additional Trial Information

Status

Completed

Start date

2015-09-15

End date

2015-09-22

Keywords

Health

Additional Keywords

social media, communication

JEL code(s)

Secondary IDs

Abstract

The study is to test the hypothesis that anonymity will interact with context, resulting in different self-disclosure behaviors as regard to intimacy.

External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation

Ma, Xiao. 2016. "Anonymity, Intimacy and Self-disclosure in Social Media." AEA RCT Registry. January 07. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.840-4.0

Former Citation

Ma, Xiao. 2016. "Anonymity, Intimacy and Self-disclosure in Social Media." AEA RCT Registry. January 07. https://www.socialscienceregistry.org/trials/840/history/6503

Sponsors & Partners

Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)

Identity and context.

Intervention Start Date

2015-09-15

Intervention End Date

2015-09-22

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)

Disclosure Score

Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Item Intimacy Level Ratings

After agreeing to the consent form, the participants are shown 36 items in a shuffled order, and asked to rate the intimacy of these items on an 7-point scale, with endpoints defined as follows (from Rubin 1978) paper:

• 1 = Not intimate at all; i.e., the sort of thing one would freely talk about and disclose to almost anyone, or which is extremely impersonal in nature.
• 7 = Extremely intimate; i.e., the sort of thing one would talk about and disclose only with great difficulty, or which is extremely personal in nature.

Disclosure Score

We collect the intimacy rating and disclosure scores from the participants of 36 items.
For each item, the participants were asked to respond if they feel comfortable posting about this aspect of self to the plat- form they were just introduced. Options are defined as follows:

• Very uncomfortable: you will be extremely concerned about posting anything about this aspect of yourself.
• Somewhat uncomfortable: you have some concerns about posting about this aspect of yourself, but you might still do it with very little detail.
• Somewhat comfortable: you don’t mind posting something about this aspect of yourself, but probably won’t do so fully or in great detail.
• Very comfortable: you don’t mind posting fully or in great detail about this aspect of yourself.

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)

Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

We used a 2 × 2 between-subject factorial design. The two independent variables are: identity and context of the platform. There are two levels of identity, anonymous and real-name; and two levels of context, social connectivity and physical proximity. Participants will be randomly assigned to one of the four cells.

Experimental Design Details

Randomization Method

Randomization done by the "randomizer" by Qualtrics platform.

Randomization Unit

Individual

Was the treatment clustered?

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters

300 individuals

Sample size: planned number of observations

300 individuals

Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms

75 participants in each of the four cells

Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)

pwr.anova.test(k=4,f=.2,sig.level=.05,power=.8, n=NULL) Balanced one-way analysis of variance power calculation k = 4 n = 69.1257 f = 0.2 sig.level = 0.05 power = 0.8 NOTE: n is number in each group

Supporting Documents and Materials

IRB