Social psychology of online groups

Groups ranging in size from a few people to thousands and millions within a “community” are forming within cyberspace. Many of the classic social-psychological principles of group dynamics can be applied in understanding and improving the functioning of these groups - such as issues concerning leadership, communication patterns, group boundaries, cohesion, alliances and subgroupings.

However, given the special psychological features of cyberspace, online groups also can be quite different than in-person groups. Text-only communications, equalization of status, and the opportunity for altering or hiding one's identity are all unique monkey wrenches tossed into the online group process. The stretching of temporal boundaries also makes Usenet Newsgroups and mailing lists rather unique not only as compared to in-person groups, but in relation to online chat sessions as well.

New social-psychological principles may be needed to account for these varied and unusual group dynamics in cyberspace. Designing and improving online communities will require a synergistic blend of traditional and innovative psychological theory. Also, perhaps for the first time in history, social psychology will need to merge with computer technology and know-how.

Developmental stages of mailing lists

Every list seems to go through the same cycle:

1. Initial enthusiasm (people introduce themselves, and gush a lot about how wonderful it is to find kindred souls).

2. Evangelism (people moan about how few folks are posting to the list, and brainstorm recruitment strategies).

3. Growth (more and more people join, more and more lengthy threads develop, occasional off-topic threads pop up).

4. Community (lots of threads, some more relevant than others; lots of information and advice is exchanged; experts help other experts as well as less experienced colleagues; friendships develop; people tease each other; newcomers are welcomed with generosity and patience; everyone -- newbie and expert alike -- feels comfortable asking questions, suggesting answers, and sharing opinions).

5. Discomfort with diversity (the number of messages increases dramatically; not every thread is fascinating to every reader; people start complaining about the signal-to-noise ratio; person 1 threatens to quit if *other* people don't limit discussion to person 1's pet topic; person 2 agrees with person 1; person 3 tells 1 & 2 to lighten up; more bandwidth is wasted complaining about off-topic threads than is used for the threads themselves; everyone gets annoyed).

6a. Smug complacency and stagnation (the purists flame everyone who asks an 'old' question or responds with humor to a serious post; newbies are rebuffed; traffic drops to a doze-producing level of a few minor issues; all interesting discussions happen by private email and are limited to a few participants; the purists spend lots of time self-righteously congratulating each other on keeping off-topic threads off the list).

OR

6b. Maturity (a few people quit in a huff; the rest of the participants stay near stage 4, with stage 5 popping up briefly every few weeks; many people wear out their second or third 'delete' key, but the list lives contentedly ever after).

Making Virtual Communities Work

Entering a virtual community can be confusing for a new user. In his article “Nine Principles for Making Virtual Communities Work”, Mike Godwin suggests “it's a bit like being dropped in the middle of Manhattan without a map or a guide and trying to find a place you want to live.” The nine principles he outlines for maxmizing the possibility that a virtual community will survive are:

Use software that promotes good discussions
Don't impose a length limitation on postings
Front-load your system with talkative, diverse people
Let the users resolve their own disputes
Provide institutional memory
Promote continuity
Be host to a particular interest group
Provide places for children
Confront the users with a crisis

Godwin's suggestions seem to focus on the use of newsgroup style postings as a means to communicate, rather than chat areas or mailing lists. Some of his ideas do apply to real-time online discussion groups. However, other principles could be suggested that pertain specifically to chat groups and mailing lists. For example, some guidelines for chat groups might include:

- make it easy to locate other users when they are online

- make it easy to locate groups that are in progress

- provide the option for users to save discussions

- provide the option for private messages among users in a group, and consider the pros and cons of enabling users to know that others are communicating privately - as, during in-person meetings, when people whisper to each other

- provide public meeting areas as well as private rooms that users can create themselves and perhaps even “lock” the door to prevent uninvited intrusions (what, in group dynamics terms, amounts to maintaining group “boundaries”)

- encourage continuity through ongoing (weekly, or even daily) groups - including both topical discussion groups and especially groups devoted to self-help, personal support, and discussions concerning the welfare and development of the online community

- encourage the forming of new ongoing groups and the communication among different groups, especially communication among the founders or “facilitators” of the groups.

- don't try to over-control the community with too many regulations or imposed structures. Give it some space to develop spontaneously into what it needs to be.

Drawing on her own experience as well as interviews with several pioneers in building online worlds, Amy Jo Kim (www.naima.com) concluded that there are nine basic principles for creating a community:

1. Define the purpose of the community

2. Create distinct gathering places

3. Create member profiles that evolve over time

4. Promote effective leadership

5. Define a clear-yet-flexible code of conduct

6. Organize and promote cyclic events

7. Provide a range of roles that couple power with responsibility

8. Facilitate member-created subgroups

9. Integrate the online environment with the “real” world

I've highlighted principle #9 for a reason. I like to call this the “integration principle.” For a community to be healthy and productive - for it to have “staying” power - its members must integrate their online lives with their in-person lives. What does that mean? On the simplest level, it means they talk about their online experiences with the people they know offline, which will give them a clearer understanding of those experiences - especially if the online world is an ambiguous text-only or fantasy/avatar environment, where it's very easy to misinterpret other people's moods and intentions. Without the reality testing offered by one's friends and family, it's too easy to loose perspective, act out, and find oneself in a hurtful rather than enjoyable situation. When that happens too often to many people, the community can be destroyed. “Integration” also means the members of a community contact each other offline, by telephone or meeting in-person. Face-to-face, they become familiar with each other's lives. Again, more reality testing and less acting out. As strong as online relationships can be, they are always made stronger when people meet in-person, when they commit to the intimacy of face-to-face encounters. While not everyone in the community can meet everyone else in-person, it is extremely helpful when there is a critical mass of people who have solidified their relationships offline. These people often become the stable, enduring core that hold the community together.

As a clinical psychologist who creates, facilitates, and consults to various online communities, I have my own Top Ten list of issues for understanding such communities. You can find that list in the article entitled “Maximizing the well-being of online groups.”

Tags: Internet Psychology

About the Author

John Suler, Ph.D. is Professor of Psychology at Rider University. This article comes from his online hypertext book The Psychology of Cyberspace which describes his ongoing research on how individuals and groups behave in cyberspace. His work has been reported by national and international media, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, the BBC, and CNN. www.rider.edu/~suler/psycyber/ More