"Welcome!": social and psychological predictors of volunteer socializers in online communities

Authors:
Gary Hsieh;Youyang Hou;Ian Chen;Khai N. Truong
Affiliations:
Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, USA;Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, USA;Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, USA;University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Venue:
Proceedings of the 2013 conference on Computer supported cooperative work
Year:
2013

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Abstract

Volunteer socializers are members of a community who voluntarily help newcomers become familiar with the popular practices and attitudes of the community. In this paper, we explore the social and psychological predictors of volunteer socializers on reddit, an online social news-sharing community. Through a survey of over 1000 reddit users, we found that social identity, prosocial-orientation and generalized reciprocity are all predictors of socializers in the community. Interestingly, a user's tenure with the online community has a quadratic effect on volunteer socialization behaviors -- new and long-time members are both more likely to help newcomers than those in between. We conclude with design implications for motivating users to help newcomers.