The Effects of Feedback Comments and Reactions on Rebuilding Interpersonal Trust on Facebook

Transcription

1 How to Rebuild Your Public Image on Facebook? The Effects of Feedback Comments and Reactions on Rebuilding Interpersonal Trust on Facebook Ruoyun Lin August 2013

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3 How to Rebuild Your Public Image on Facebook? The Effects of Feedback Comments and Reactions on Rebuilding Interpersonal Trust on Facebook August 2013 Ruoyun Lin Supervisors Dr. Uwe Matzat Prof. Dr. Chris Snijders Innovation Sciences Industrial Engineering & Innovation Sciences Eindhoven University of Technology

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5 Preface Two years ago, my curiosity brought me here, the Netherlands, five thousand miles away from my home country. Back to that time, I was such a shy and quiet Chinese girl who could not even speak English fluently. Nevertheless, I believed that I should experience something different when I was young. So I moved to another country, changed my major, and started traveling around and talking with people all over the world. I am so grateful to get a chance of studying at the Eindhoven University of Technology. I also love my new major Innovation Sciences : Going to classes feels like listening to TED talks; Dutch students are friendly and open minded; Teachers here are willing to listen to the opinions of students and to give insightful suggestions, etc. After half year s study in Innovation Sciences, I decided to learn more about quantitative research as I am fascinated by the data analysis. I also felt that investigating cyberpsychology would be a good start: As a heavy Internet user, I would like to research how Internet could change our way of thinking and behaving. After several talks with my mentor Uwe Matzat, I knew that there was a research opportunity on the topic of trust rebuilding, and I felt that it would be interesting if I could do a research that involved with Facebook that s how I get my research topic, and I really appreciate the time when I can study whatever I am interested in. It is always easy to be curious about something, but trying to find the answer is not a easy job. I read a lot of literatures, tried to find useful theories and materials, integrated all the relevant previous research together, and compared different aspects across the studies. I talked to a lot of friends, colleagues and even passers-by about my research, and consulted their opinions on every single detail of my research or experimental design. I also asked a lot of strangers to help me with the pretest and the scenario design, with a big bag of chocolate bars in my hand and a big smile on my face. Therefore, I want to thank everyone who has helped me with my graduation project. In particular, I would like to thank the following people who have devoted a lot of time and effort to my graduation project: special thanks to my first supervisor Uwe Matzat for his guidance, showing me how to do a decent research step by step and giving me useful suggestions and resources for the research; my second supervisor Chris Snijders for his help, insights, teaching me how to do data analysis and being available for questions all the time; Jan Roelof de Pijper, the administrator of the participants panel, for helping me to get 200 participants within one week; and my dear friends, Chao Zhang, Heather Posey and Yuqing Jiao, for their enthusiasm in my research, helping me with the experimental design, finding more participants, and proof reading. Lastly, I would like to thank my parents for their love and caring throughout my life, my boyfriend for his love and support, and my dear colleagues and friends for spending nice time together. My life is so colourful and lovely because of you. i Ruoyun Lin Eindhoven, August 2013

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7 Abstract Previous research in traditional offline settings revealed that an apology is more effective than a denial in repairing trust after a competence-based, whereas a denial repairs trust more successfully than an apology after an integrity-based. Nevertheless, in online marketplaces, prior research showed that apologies are always superior to denials in trust rebuilding, independent of the type of. In order to find a potential explanation for the divergent prior findings, this study investigates the trust rebuilding model on Facebook. The effects of feedback comments and reactions on rebuilding interpersonal trust were examined after a competence- vs. integrity-based of trust violations on Facebook. For each type of (competence vs. integrity), five types of comments/reactions were compared: an apology with an internal attribution, an apology with an external attribution, a denial, offering no response (reticence), and a deletion. Based on a sample of 459 Facebook users, the results showed that the believability of the reactions explained the difference in previous online and offline findings: if a denial is highly believable, a denial repairs trust more successfully than an apology following an integrity-based, which is in line with the offline findings; if a denial is not highly believable, apologies are always superior to denials in trust rebuilding, which is similar to the findings in the online marketplaces. In addition, the results showed that both a reasonable denial and an apology are effective ways to repair trust compared with offering no response, while deleting the is detrimental for trust rebuilding when the has been observed. To the author s knowledge, this study is the first one that focuses on the trust rebuilding model on Facebook. By investigating this topic, this study contributes not only to shedding light on the divergent findings of previous studies, but also to giving practical suggestions on interpersonal trust rebuilding on Facebook. iii

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9 Contents Preface... i Abstract... iii 1. Introduction Theory Facebook research Interpersonal conflicts and impression formation online Trust rebuilding offline Trust rebuilding online Hypotheses Apology (with an internal attribution) vs. denial Internal vs. external apologies No response Deletion Method Participants Design and procedure Materials Independent variables Dependent variables Moderator and control variables Results Descriptive results Hypothesis Hypothesis Hypothesis 3 and some explorations Hypothesis Summary Discussion and conclusion Implications for research on trust rebuilding Implications for practice Limitations and future research References v

10 Appendix A Appendix B Appendix C Appendix D Appendix E vi

11 1. Introduction Facebook is one of the most popular social networking sites (SNSs) of the world. By September 2012, Facebook had over one billion monthly active users (Facebook, 2013). Besides the positive experiences on Facebook, there is a notable proportion of negative outcomes being experienced by users, 1 such as being accused of misbehaving by ones (known or unknown) Facebook friends in public spaces ( Wall postings ) online (Rainie, Lenhart, & Smith, 2012). Research has shown that people make judgements about an individual based on the comments left by the individual s Facebook friends, and negative comments reduce the attractiveness and credibility of the profile owner in the eyes of observers who are not in a close relationship with the profile owner (Walther, Van der Heide, Kim, Westerman, & Tong, 2008). That means trust, which is the willingness to be vulnerable to the profile owner, has decreased. It is important for Facebook users to know how to deal with s on Facebook, in order to save one s image in public. As such, the first research question is: How to rebuild one s public image after an on Facebook with regard to the ego s misbehaviour? This thesis is an investigation of the effects of five potential reaction strategies on trust rebuilding, following a certain type of of one s misbehaviour / trust violation on Facebook. Two types of s were defined in previous research: a competence-based and an integrity-based. The first one concerns misbehaviours mainly because of a lack of competence (technical or interpersonal skills), while the latter one concerns matters involved with integrity, such as the accused party intentionally did not adhere to a set of principles that are generally acceptable (Mayer, Davis, & Schoorman, 1995). Similar to previous research, the interpersonal trust in the newly formed, rather than long term, relationship will be investigated. There are some controversial findings when it comes to the models of interpersonal trust rebuilding online and offline (Kim, Ferrin, Cooper, & Dirks, 2004; Matzat & Snijders, 2012; Utz, Matzat, & Snijders, 2009). In offline settings, an apology was found to be more effective than a denial after a competence-based, whereas a denial is more effective than an apology after an integrity-based. In online marketplaces, apologies repair trust more successfully than denials regardless of the type of. By investigating the trust rebuilding model on Facebook. this study also aims to resolve the contradiction between prior findings. The believability of the reactions, instead of the initial level of trust, was found to play a significant role in this study. More explanations will be given after a thorough look at the trust rebuilding model on Facebook. Section 2 involves four parts of literature study, announcing both the theoretical and practical relevance of this study: Section 2.1 will address that there is a research gap in the Facebook research. More literatures in section 2.2 will show the practical relevance of this research on trust rebuilding on Facebook. More importantly, the section 2.3 and 2.4 will introduce previous online and offline literatures in detail and try to find a potential explanation. The 1 It is also tested in this study (see section 4.1). About 32.90% of respondents have personally had an argument with others on Facebook, and 86.93% of respondents have witnessed an argument on Facebook. 1

12 main argument to resolve the prior divergent findings is not difficult to understand, but it was hidden in the previous offline research and shadowed by the context of online marketplaces: A denial should be highly believable before we discuss the effectiveness of a denial in trust rebuilding. Furthermore, new hypotheses, concerning the relative value of all potential reactions to an on Facebook, will be developed at the end of the theory section. Section 3, together with four appendices, will present the details on this experimental design. Scenarios that fit with the context of Facebook, within the realm of friendship, were created in this study. The data will be analysed by using several multi-level linear regressions (see Section 4). Most of the hypotheses were supported, showing that the believability of a response is an important moderator in explaining the prior divergent findings. It was assumed that Facebook offers a space where a denial could be either highly believable or unconvincing. Thus, by controlling the believability of a denial, both two patterns in previous online and offline research would be represented in this study. In addition, a deletion of the original, as a special type of response in online space, was found to be least effective in repairing trust on Facebook, while a reasonable denial or apology helps to rebuild trust. In section 5, more discussions and conclusions can be found at the last section of this report. 2

13 2. Theory In section 2, an overview of the research on Facebook will be provided, and the research gap in the trust rebuilding issues on Facebook will be identified (see section 2.1), followed by the evidence of interpersonal conflicts on Facebook and why this research matters (see section 2.2). Several key concepts of this research will be (re)introduced in the section of trust rebuilding offline (section 2.3). In section 2.4, more studies on trust rebuilding models in online marketplaces will be presented and analysed, shedding light on the issue of trust rebuilding on Facebook. Hypotheses, focusing on resolving the prior divergent findings and exploring the trust rebuilding model on Facebook, will be developed in section 2.5, together with some detailed assumptions of this study. 2.1 Facebook research Social networking sites are defined as web-based services that allow users to (1) construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, (2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and (3) view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system (Boyd & Ellison, 2007). With over one billion monthly active users by the end of 2012 (Facebook, 2013), Facebook is currently the most popular social networking site in the world. Facebook was founded in 2004, the mission of which was to make the world more open and connected (Facebook, 2013). It has changed the way millions of people share information and connect to one another. A rapid growing body of research has focused on Facebook not only in the realm of law, economics, marketing, and information technology, but also in the realm of social science. Wilson, Gosling, and Graham (2012) grouped Facebook research literature in the discipline of social science into five categories: descriptive analyses of users, motivations for using Facebook, privacy and information disclosure, identity presentation, and the role of Facebook in social interactions. Of course, it is common that a single article covers multiple categories. The first category of Facebook research (descriptive analyses of user) is mainly about who is using Facebook and how subpopulations (e.g., based on demographic information like: age, gender, race, country, etc.) within Facebook behave differently (see e.g., Ryan & Xenos, 2011; Subrahmanyam, Reich, Waechter, & Espinoza, 2008). For detailed demographic information of American Facebook users, please refer to Figure 1 (Duggan & Brenner, 2013). This Pew Internet Report showed that Facebook is more appealing to younger adults aged and women. In addition, college students are more likely to use Facebook than high school or less than high school graduates (Duggan & Brenner, 2013). The second category involves the question of why do people use Facebook. There are mainly three motivations for Facebook users: to keep in touch with friends, to minimize loneliness and to relieve boredom (Wilson et al., 2012). Firstly, the concept of social capital was used to describe the benefits of establishing and maintaining interpersonal relationships people gain from using Facebook (Ellison, Steinfield, & Lampe, 2007; Lin, 1999). Strong and weak ties among Facebook friends were distinguished (Ellison, Steinfield, & Lampe, 2011; 3

14 Granovetter, 1973). Secondly, the complex association between the feeling of loneliness and the use of Facebook was intensively discussed (Burke, Marlow, & Lento, 2010; Kalpidou, Costin, & Morris, 2011). Thirdly, the function of relieving boredom was not as intensively researched as the two previous reasons, but was still frequently mentioned in many articles (Lampe, Ellison, & Steinfield, 2008; Pempek, Yermolayeva, & Calvert, 2009). Figure 1 Demographic information of Facebook users (source: Pew Internet, 2013). The third category discusses the problem of privacy and information disclosure on Facebook. Researchers have claimed that there is a phenomenon of privacy paradox in SNSs: users, on one hand, want to present themselves online by disclosing self-information excessively, while on the other hand want to maintain their privacy (Barnes, 2006). Although it is supported by several empirical studies that a discrepancy exists between the reported privacy concerns and the behaviour of self-disclosure on Facebook (Acquisti & Gross, 2006), users sensitivity to privacy issues seems to have increased in recent years (Utz & Krämer, 2009). 4

15 The fourth area of research is on the identity presentation how people are presenting themselves on Facebook. The user profile is not only deliberately constructed by the profile owner but also filled with content from other users via wall posts, comments and photo tags. The literatures on identity presentation on Facebook are twofold: whether Facebook profiles convey accurate impressions of the profile owners (see e.g.,gosling, Gaddis, & Vazire, 2007), and how other users can influence the impression formation of the profile owners (see e.g., Walther et al., 2008). However, little is known about how the interactions between the profile owner and other users on a Facebook page could influence the impression formation of the profile owner. The fifth category addresses how Facebook is affecting relationships among groups and individuals (e.g., students-faculty, businesses-customers, doctors-patients, employeesemployers, and between romantic partners). Nevertheless, little attention has been paid to the realm of friendship and the interpersonal trust between friends. In addition, there are tensions across social spheres (e.g. an overlap of social groups of family, friends and colleges on Facebook) (Wilson et al., 2012). According to Lampinen, Tamminen, and Oulasvirta (2009), Facebook users tried to cope with these tensions by dividing the platform into separate spaces, choosing more private communication channels, and self-censoring potentially problematic content. From a systematic review of previous literature on Facebook, no research has been found on how to rebuild interpersonal trust on Facebook, and it is a novel idea to explore how to rebuild personal image after being publicly accused of misbehaviour on Facebook. For identity presentation, it is well known that Facebook is becoming increasingly recognized as a place through which individuals can investigate other s activity (Darvell, Walsh, & White, 2011). It is used as a tool of individual impression formation and self-identity presentation (Weisbuch, Ivcevic, & Ambady, 2009). One interesting feature of Facebook is that the contents of a profile can not only be constructed by the profile owner as a selfrepresentation, but can also be contributed by others via wall posts, comments, and photo tags (Wilson et al., 2012). As might be expected, some of the postings/comments allude to the of misbehaviour of the profile owner by his/her Facebook friends. It will debase the profile owner s public image online and diminish the trust of other Facebook friends (e.g., acquaintances, employers) towards the profile owner. In these cases, the profile owner s reaction has the potential to rebuild trust and enhance his/her public image (Walther, Van Der Heide, Hamel, & Shulman, 2009). Moreover, interpersonal trust is vital for the development of friendship and romantic relationships. When the large size of one s online social network is taken into consideration, an unproven allegation of misbehaving that is shown publicly on Facebook can intriguer worse influence on the interpersonal trust than one can expect. The onus is therefore placed on the profile owner to respond to the of alleged or actual violation to rebuild his/her image (Ferrin, Kim, Cooper, & Dirks, 2007). 5

16 By investigating the most efficient trust repairing strategies to an on Facebook, this study will not only enrich the fourth category of identity presentation, but also contribute to a better understanding of friendship development within the fifth category of interpersonal relationship development. 2.2 Interpersonal conflicts and impression formation online It is of practical relevance to know how to react to an on Facebook in terms of trust repairing and saving your image in public. On one hand, both online and offline interpersonal conflicts and trust violations are commonly seen. Trust violation is hard to avoid, and even an unsubstantiated allegation of trust violation can damage trust. Although 85% of the adults who use social media reported that people are usually nice on the sites, there are still five percent of SNS-using adults who say that the people they observe are mostly unkind (Rainie et al., 2012). 2 People can never expect and control what their friends will say about them on their profile page. What s more, interpersonal conflicts happen online: 49% of SNS-using adults said they have seen mean or cruel behaviour displayed by others at least occasionally (Rainie et al., 2012). Even worse, because of the absence of visual and auditory cues, conflicts may be heightened online (Munro, 2002). On the other hand, the on one s Facebook profile page, if not dealt with carefully, may cause an even worse effect than an offline or other private s. As already stated in the previous subsection, a Facebook profile is often used as a stage on which a user can make public or semi-public presentations of him/herself. There are hundreds of audiences on Facebook (Wilson et al., 2012). It is a regular practice to explore an individual s Facebook page in the early process of getting to know him/her. People judge others via their Facebook profiles and use Facebook profiles to assess who they should befriend (Walther et al., 2008; Weisbuch et al., 2009). Sometimes, they even use Facebook profiles to check their future housemates ( Moreover, research often shows that in the process of impression formation, negative information is weighed more heavily than positive information (Ito, Larsen, Smith, & Cacioppo, 1998; Kellermann, 1984). Once other Facebook users have perceived the negative information about the profile owner, it is a hint for the perceiver to judge the target person s persona and later influence his/her willingness to befriend with the target person. In the public space on Facebook, s are public attributions. Therefore, regaining the trust of hundreds of other Facebook friends is as important as regaining the trust of the disappointed party. Furthermore, when an of trust violation occurs, the onus is often placed on the accused person to remove the shadow of suspicion (Hendry, Shaffer, & Peacock, 1989). Despite the importance of these issues, no study has directly examined how trust could be effectively repaired after an on Facebook. Thus, this research is aimed to explore such a question with high practical relevance. 2 Another 5% said their answer depends on the situation, 4% said don t know and 1% refused to answer. 6

17 2.3 Trust rebuilding offline To resolve this research question of trust rebuilding, some basic definitions and concepts such as the definitions of trust and trust violation will first be described, as well as the dimensions of trust and trust violation. Next, several trust repairing strategies and their rationales of rebuilding trust in the offline situations will be introduced. There are a lot of different definitions of trust around. As briefly introduced before, trust is the willingness to be vulnerable to another party (Lewicki, McAllister, & Bies, 1998; Schoorman, Mayer, & Davis, 2007). Similarly, Rousseau, Sitkin, Burt, and Camerer (1998) define trust as a psychological state comprising the intention to accept vulnerability based upon positive expectations of the intentions or behaviour of another. Interpersonal trust means the trust between people, i.e., the willingness to be vulnerable to another person. It is the foundation of developing friendships and other interpersonal relationships. Trust is a multifaceted and complex construct (see Figure 2). There are two key concepts within the concept of trust: trusting intentions (i.e., a willingness to make oneself vulnerable to another party in the presence of risk) and trusting beliefs (i.e., perceived trust-relevant qualities). Trusting intentions are jointly determined by trusting beliefs and individual s dispositional trust (Kim, Dirks, & Cooper, 2009; Ridings, Gefen, & Arinze, 2002). Further more, trusting beliefs are multidimensional, consisting of three distinct factors: ability, benevolence, and integrity (Mayer et al., 1995). The dimension of ability refers to the competencies or skills that the trusted party be qualified with; the benevolence dimension refers to the trusted party s willingness to do good to others; and the dimension of integrity refers to the expectation that trusted party will act in accordance with accepted social standards. Although there were three separate dimensions of trust beliefs in the early literature, later studies roughly adjusted it into two dimensions: the perceived competence (ability) and the perceived integrity (benevolence and integrity) (Kim et al., 2004; Matzat & Snijders, 2012; Utz et al., 2009). The term integrity is sometimes replaced by morality in online situations. Furthermore, it should be noticed that trusting intentions and trusting beliefs, instead of behavioural trust (i.e., the actual taking of risk), will be measured in this study. Behavioural trust can be influenced by both trusting intentions and situational circumstances (Utz et al., 2009). Figure 2 shows the relationships between different concepts within the concept of trust. Behavioral Trust Situational Circumstances Trusting Intentions (Williness to risk) Trusting Beliefs (Perceived Trustworthiness) Dispositional Trust Perceived Competence Perceived Integrity Figure 2 Relationships between different concepts within trust. 7

18 For clarity, in this study, the term trustee (the one who will be trusted) will be used to refer to the individual who was accused of trust-violation, the term accuser to refer to the person who s trust seems to have been violated by the trustee and thus accused the trustee. The term trustor refers to someone who judges the trustee s trustworthiness, after perceiving an unproven of trust violation. Trust violations mean incidents that lower trusting beliefs in and trusting intentions towards a trustee (Kim et al., 2009). An incident of trust violation can be described/accused in different ways that decrease the trustor s trusting beliefs in the trustee, therefore there are competence-based s of trust violations and integrity-based s of trust violations accordingly (Kim et al., 2009). The first one concerns misbehaviours mainly because of a lack of competence (technical or interpersonal skills), while the latter one concerns matters involved with integrity, such as the accused party intentionally did not adhere to a set of principles that are generally acceptable. Trust rebuilding concerns improving the trusting beliefs and trusting intentions that have been lowered by the trust violations (Kim et al., 2009), and the common trust rebuilding responses include offering an apology, a denial and no response. As the importance of trust and the negative effect of trust violation has been clearly stated in a large number of literatures, some researchers started to investigate the model of effective trust repairing strategies in different types of contingencies (Ferrin et al., 2007; Kim et al., 2009; Kim, Dirks, Cooper, & Ferrin, 2006; Kim et al., 2004; Schweitzer, Hershey, & Bradlow, 2006). One of the classical papers on trust rebuilding was written by Kim et al. (2004). They examined the difference in trust after an apology and a denial in response to an of misbehaving, and proposed that an apology would repair trust better for the competencebased violations while a denial would repair trust better for the integrity-based violations. They first discussed the advantages and disadvantages of an apology and a denial in rebuilding trust: an apology confirms the guilt of trust violation but expresses the intention of avoiding similar violations again; a denial, although shows no regret of the trustee, may throw the accuser into doubt. They further suggested that, based on Reeder and Brewer s (1979) study on hierarchicallyrestrictive schemas, individuals are more impressed by the negative behaviour than the positive behaviour concerning matters of integrity, whereas individuals are more impressed by the positive behaviour than the negative behaviour when concerning matters of competence. Hierarchically-restrictive schemas assume that persons at the low end of the attribute continuum are limited to behaviours in the correspondent range, while persons at the high end are capable of behaving across the full range (see Figure 3). For example, a moral person will be moral in all circumstances, but an immoral person can perform both moral and immoral behaviours. Individuals assume that immoral behaviour is only committed by immoral people, therefore the negative behaviour concerning matters of integrity is more informative than the moral behaviour. The hierarchically-restrictive schema is also applicable to the dispositional inference with regard to the competence: Individuals tend to assume that 8

19 an individual with low level of competence can only perform poorly, while an individual with high level of competence can perform both perfectly and poorly. Therefore a poor performance with regard to competence is less informative than a good performance. Figure 3 Examples for the hierarchically restrictive schema. Kim et al. (2004) therefore inferred that, following a competence-based trust violation, the advantage of an apology (signalling of a determination to prevent further violations) is more significant than disadvantage of it (admission of the guilt with regard to competence). Hence, for a competence-based of trust violation, an apology is more effective than a denial (signalling no intent to improve future behaviour) in repairing interpersonal trust (Kim et al., 2004). In contrast, violations concerning matters of integrity are more diagnostic, because people believe that only those with a lack of integrity can commit to such behaviours. Therefore, the negative effect of an apology (admission of guilt with regard to integrity) is more significant than the positive effect of an apology (since people do not believe that one who lacks integrity can do something nice in the future); while the positive effect of a denial outweighs its negative effect. In such cases of unproven s of integrity-based trust violations, denials can repair trust better than apologies (Kim et al., 2004). In Kim et al. s experimental study, 137 graduate business students and 63 undergraduate students were recruited. Participants were asked to assume the role of a manager who was in charge of hiring. They were later presented with a video of job interview, in which the applicant either denies or apologizes for a certain type of trust violation (integrity-based or competence-based) after an from his ex-employer. Participants trust beliefs and trust intentions towards the job applicant were measured by the questionnaire. Results showed that, in terms of trust rebuilding, it is more effective to deny an integrity-based trust violation while apologize for a competence-based trust violation. We should note that Kim et al. s (2004) conclusion was drawn on the assumptions that perceivers exhibit at least some initial trust in the accused parties (trustee) with whom they 9

20 had no history of interaction, and that the allegation from accuser has not yet been proven. However, it is only an experimental setting. In a real-life situation, the trustee (the accused party) knows about his or her actual guilt or innocence. In the case of a valid violation, it is not only unethical but also strategically risky to suggest the trustee to deny the commitment (Kim et al., 2006; Kim et al., 2004). An apology is more appropriate after a valid trust violation. Furthermore, Kim et al. (2006) proposed two ways to apologize: an apology with an internal attribution (internal apology) and an apology with an external attribution (external apology). They suggested that it is not always beneficial to take the full responsibility of violation (i.e., internal attribution) when apologizing, as the trustee can also explain the external inducements, such as the influence of situation that caused their misbehaviours (i.e., external attribution). However, the choice between an internal or external apology depends on the nature of violation type (competence-based vs. integrity-based), since individuals weigh the positive and negative information differently for different types of trust violations. The authors offered two mechanisms that lead to two potential consequences. However, the two consequences are opposite to each other. The first mechanism is based on the necessity of blame mitigation, which was later supported by the results of their experiment (Kim et al., 2006). Similar to the way of reasoning in Kim et al. s (2004) study, they explained that an internal attribution signals the intent of redemption, while an external attribution mitigates the blame. For an with regard to a competence-based trust violation, an apology with an internal attribution is more effective for trust rebuilding as the advantage of internal attribution (deep intent of redemption) outweighs the disadvantage (guilt of committing a competence-based violation). Nevertheless, for an regarding an integrity-based trust violation, an external attribution is favourable because the advantage of an external attribution (mitigating the blame for an integrity-based trust violation) outweighs the disadvantage (confirming guilt of committing an integrity-based violation). Thus, it is recommended to apologize with an external attribution in response to an integrity-based of trust violation, and use an internal attribution following a competence-based of trust violation. The second mechanism is based on the acceptance of blame mitigation, which would lead to a different trust-rebuilding model. Based on the same rationale of hierarchically-restrictive schemas (Reeder & Brewer, 1979), it can also be argued that people are less likely to believe external attributions for integrity-based trust violations (immoral people are always immoral once they have committed an integrity-based trust violation, no other excuses should be claimed), while people are more likely to accept external attributions for competence-based trust violations (even people with high competence can make some mistakes, and it is understandable for the trustee to argue that there were external reasons). Thus, an internal apology is more acceptable within cases of integrity-based trust violations and an external apology is more acceptable within cases of competence-based trust violations. However, it is another way of deduction which was rejected by the experiment that is shown below (Kim et al., 2006). An experiment with a sample of 189 undergraduate students revealed that trust was repaired more successfully when the mistrusted party apologized with an internal attribution for a 10

21 competence-based trust violation and apologized with an external attribution for an integritybased trust violation. Thus, the first mechanism is supported: Trustors, in that context, would believe the trustee s external attribution instead of considering the acceptance of the external attribution. In addition to the research that focused on the trust rebuilding effectiveness of a denial and an apology, Ferrin et al. (2007) investigated the effect of reticence as a response to s of trust violations. However, the results showed that, independent of the type of trust violation, reticence does not repair trust as successfully as an apology or a denial, as reticence neither denies the culpability nor shows the intent of avoiding future violations. The degree of trust Competence-based Integrity-based No response Internal apology External apology Denial Figure 4 Sketch for the effectiveness of different trust repairing strategies in the offline findings. The studies accomplished by Kim et al. (2004), Kim et al. (2006) and Ferrin et al. (2007) are in the same vein: They each addressed the importance of interpersonal and organizational trust, and their aims were to research the trust repairing models, especially from the perspective of a future trustor (not only the accuser); they all held similar assumptions for the experiments, and the contexts of the experiments were nearly identical. In short, they compared the effectiveness of four types of trust rebuilding strategies (denial, apology with an internal attribution, apology with an external attribution, and reticence) in the offline settings. Kim et al. (2004) proposed that, in the case of an unproven allegation, it is better for trust rebuilding if the trustee denies the violation following an integrity-based of trust violation and apologizes following a competence-based. They investigated the trust repairing issue from the perspective of the trustor, who was confronted with an unproven allegation and showed an initial level of trust towards the trustee. However, from the stance of trustee, who was aware of the actual commitment of trust violation, Kim et al. (2006) suggested that it is risky to deny a committed trust-violation. For an integrity-based of trust violation, the trustee would be better to reply with an apology with an external attribution; nevertheless, for a competence-based of trust violation, the 11

22 trustee should apologise with an internal attribution. Reticence, which neither denies the culpability nor shows regrets, works poorly in trust rebuilding (Ferrin et al., 2007). As a summary, the relative effectiveness of different trust repairing strategies in offline situations is described in Figure Trust rebuilding online As stated before, there is not yet an empirical study directly focused on trust rebuilding on SNSs. Nevertheless, the literatures on trust rebuilding in the context of online marketplaces (Matzat & Snijders, 2012; Utz, 2009; Utz et al., 2009) will be presented, in order to further explore this research question. Trust is emerging as an essential element of business success in online marketplaces. As reputation systems could help to offer more information about the anonymous person behind the screen, buyers in online marketplaces often rely on the reputation systems and recommender systems to make a decision. Besides the quantitative feedbacks in recommender systems, the qualitative feedbacks, such as text comments and recommendations by others, are also available. Research has already shown that recommendations for a product and a good reputation of the seller can promote sales and lead to a (small) price-premium (Pavlou & Dimoka, 2006; Senecal & Nantel, 2004). However, what if someone gives negative feedback towards a certain product or seller which leads to a bad reputation for the seller? How can trust be rebuilt once the negative feedback is given? Utz et al. (2009) examined the trust-rebuilding model in the context of online auctions by focusing on the functions of short text comments which are given as a reply to the negative qualitative feedbacks on ebay. Based on previous studies on offline trust rebuilding, Utz et al. also defined two types of trust violations: the competence-based trust violation and the morality-based trust violation. Therefore, there are two types of s: ones concerning matters of a competence-based trust violation and ones concerning a morality-based trust violation. The effects of an apology and a denial, as two common feedback comments, on trust rebuilding were investigated. They developed the hypotheses based on Kim et al. s (2004) study, expecting a denial would work better when involved with an integrity-based, and an apology would be better in response to a morality-based. However, the results did not support these hypotheses. Their experimental design is similar to Kim et al. s (2004) research design, but with a different story that better fits the context of ebay. One thousand and one hundred forty-one Dutch ebay users participated in their experiment. Participants were asked to imagine bidding for a digital camera during an auction. Two scenarios were mocked-up one was about a previous buyer who complained about a delivery delay of four weeks, and the other was about a complaint of a broken product. In each scenario, participants were confronted with a mocked-up webpage of ebay bidding, with an alleged type of trust violation and one type of seller reaction. After taking the severity of the incident (two incidents), the type of trust violation (competence vs. morality), the type of reaction (denial vs. apology) and participants trust disposition into consideration, they checked the interaction effect of the type of trust violation and the type of reaction on the seller s perceived trustworthiness. The 12

23 results showed that, independent of the type of, plain apologies were consistently more effective than denials in repairing trust. This was not in accordance with their hypotheses. Utz et al. (2009) offered one potential explanation ebay users are usually suspicious about ebay sellers, and therefore the unproven trust violations were treated as established in the context of ebay. As the participants did not treat the denials as believable, denials would be less effective in trust repairing. However, in this study, Utz et al. mixed the initial level of trust towards the trustee up with the believability of the reactions, which may lead to some detour in later research when testing this post-hoc explanation. Faced with the divergent findings between online and offline situations, Matzat and Snijders (2012) investigated how the reputation of an online shop can mitigate the suspicions from ebay buyers and thus rebuild trust effectively in the online marketplace. Five types of reactions were investigated in their study: plain apology, extended apology, no reaction, plain denial, and extended denial. As suggested in Utz s et al. s (2009) study, Matzat and Snijders tried to explain the discrepancy between online and offline findings with the trustors initial level of trust towards the trustee. They proposed that a denial to a morality-based of trust violation could repair customers trust more successfully for a web shop with high reputation than it does for a web shop with low reputation. However, based on the perceptions of 322 Dutch Internet users, the results showed that this moderating effect of the initial level of trust towards the sellers does not exist. It was shown that, after an, offering an apology (either plain or extended) could rebuild the customer s trust towards the web shop, while offering a (plain) denial even decreased the trust compared with no reaction. In addition to the perceived trustworthiness of a web shop, they also measured the perceived believability of the reactions. Matzat and Snijders (2012) experiment revealed that, regardless of the type of, customers believe an apology by the web shop more than a denial; and in the cases of morality-based s, the believability of a denial is not influenced by the reputation of web shop. They then offered a post hoc explanation for the divergent findings the presumption of established guilt will undermine a denial s effectiveness in traditional offline settings. Furthermore, they suggested there is a possibility that customers equate believability with showing responsibility. In a customers perspective, the burden of responsibility belongs entirely to the web shop. Hence a denial of responsibility would be less effective in rebuilding customers trust towards the shop. This post-hoc explanation of Matzat and Snijders (2012) may explain why the findings in online marketplaces differ from the offline findings, but it is too specific. The present study aims to find a general explanation that could be applied in multiple contexts. In sum, Utz et al. (2009) found a surprising divergence of findings between online and offline. They offered a post-hoc explanation, saying that it is because of the low level of initial trust towards the trustee (as the denials is not believed by the participants) that makes the findings deviated from Kim et al. s (2004) findings. In 2012, Matzat & Snijders tried to test this post-hoc explanation by using the predictor of initial level of trust in the context of online marketplaces. However, the findings did not support this explanation of initial level of trust. 13

24 Therefore they offer another post-hoc explanation, suggesting that the believability may be mixed up with the web shop's responsibility taking. The second explanation again focused on the issue of the believability of the reactions, yet lacking an empirical support. This study will explore the role of believability of the reactions in the context of Facebook, to see if the explanation of the believability of the reactions could resolve the previous divergent findings and be used to predict the trust rebuilding models in other environments. The degree of trust Competence-based Integrity-based No response Apology Denial Figure 5 Sketch for the effectiveness of different trust repairing strategies in the online marketplaces. Another worth-noting phenomenon is that a denial was not only less successful than an apology in online marketplaces, but was also worse than the baseline of no reaction (Utz et al., 2009). In the offline conditions, however, both a denial and an apology repair trust better than no reaction (reticence) (Ferrin et al., 2007; Kim et al., 2004). The schema for the relative effectiveness of different trust repairing strategies in online marketplaces is presented in Figure 5. The schemas for the online and offline findings may seem different, but perhaps the difference can be explained away by taking the believability of the reactions into account. 2.5 Hypotheses The literature review in the two previous subsections shows that trust-rebuilding models differ between online markets and offline settings. In offline situations, where people have some initial trust towards the trustee, a denial repairs trust better than an apology for an integrity-based of trust violation, and an apology repairs trust more successfully than a denial for a competence-based of trust violation (Kim et al., 2004). However, in online marketplaces, apologizing has been shown to be the best strategy to rebuild customers trust in the context of online marketplaces, independent of the type of trust violation. It is still unclear which response strategy would be the most efficient in trust rebuilding in the context of Facebook. To be specific, this study analyses how effective the various feedback 14

25 reactions could be in repairing trust for a competence- or integrity- based of trust violation. A denial and an apology are both common reactions to an of trust violation. In addition, this study will also investigate the effectiveness of reticence (no reaction) and deletion of the text of in repairing interpersonal trust. As 53% of American teenage Facebook users have deleted other s comment (Madden et al., 2013), and even more people have ignored other s comments for various reasons, it is of high practical relevance to investigate these two types of reactions on Facebook. Besides the type of and the type of response, many other factors could also influence the effectiveness of a trust repairing strategy, e.g., whether the targeted individual committed the trust violation, whether guilt can be easily proven, and whether the target individual is an active Facebook user. This study focuses on a situation in which an unsubstantiated allegation of untrustworthy behaviour has been posted on one s Facebook Wall and the interpersonal trust is perceived to have been violated. In response, the trustee offered a certain type of reaction to the of trust violation. A third party perceived this and his/her trust towards the profile owner (trustee) would be evaluated. This research focuses on the trust rebuilding from the view of the third party (trustor), who has little history of interaction with the trustee. In addition, the trustee is assumed to be an active Facebook user. There are four parts of the hypotheses in the following section. Firstly, the effect of a denial and an apology on repairing trust will be investigated following an unproven allegation of untrustworthy behaviour. As suggested in the previous section, the believability of a denial is assumed to play an important role in explaining the divergent findings in online markets and offline situations, with a presumption that an internal apology is relatively highly believable. Secondly, it is also of practical relevance to investigate how internal apologies and external apologies will work on Facebook. This is due to the fact that when the trustee is aware of his/her guilt, denying the culpability would be a less effective and non-moral choice. The believability of an external apology was also supposed to play an important role in explaining the effectiveness of an external apology. Thirdly, it is also possible for the trustee to simply ignore the text of. Offering no response will be treated as a baseline in this hypotheses, compared with either a reasonable or an unconvincing responses. Finally, the effect of a deletion on trust rebuilding on Facebook will be investigated. A summary of all hypotheses can be found in Table 7 (at the end of the results section) Apology (with an internal attribution) vs. denial From previous studies, it is known that an apology is more effective than a denial in rebuilding trust after a competence-based of trust violation, while for an integritybased of trust violation, divergent findings emerge. Both Utz. et al. (2009) and Matzat and Snijders (2012) suggested that the believability of the reactions may play a role in explaining the difference, however, no empirical test has been done for it. This study will test this explanation in the context of Facebook. Based on their post hoc explanation, it is worthwhile to assume that an important presumption was overlooked in previous offline 15