The Effects of Non-Cognitive Factors on Self-disclosure in Social Network Websites

This research project aims at examining the effect of non-cognitive factors on self-disclosure on social network (SN) websites. Many previous studies examine key factors that motivate or restrain self-disclosure on social network sites through the rational, cognitive lens such as social exchange theory. The cognitive perspective emphasizes utility maximization through benefits and costs analysis and suggests that people tend to disclose personal information when perceived benefits of disclosure such as reciprocity exceed the perceived costs of the behavior such as privacy risk. However, the predominant emphasis on cognitive driving forces of self-disclosure inevitably overlook the roles of non-cognitive factors which could influence self-disclosure behavior as well. Thus, this study specifically scrutinizes the mechanism of how non-cognitive factors jointly influence self-disclosure on a social network site. Especially, we focus on three representative non-cognitive factors identified by previous studies and examine their effects on self-disclosure: affect, habit, and trust. Affect indicates the specific feeling of goodness or badness a person experiences, whether consciously or unconsciously, toward a behavior, an object, or an event. Habit is defined as goal directed automatic behaviors that are mentally represented. In general, trust is defined as the expectation of ethical behavior. This study also examines the moderating effect of information sensitivity on the relationship between non-cognitive factors and self-disclosure. In addition, previous studies commonly assume that negative and positive aspect of a non-cognitive factor are at the opposite ends of the same continuum. Thus, an individual is assumed to exclusively hold either positive or negative aspect of a non-cognitive toward an object and exhibit a unidimensional response. However, ambivalence perspective suggests that people often experience multiple opposite states toward a stimulus simultaneously. For example, people can feel happiness and sad when people watch a sad but well-acted movie or they graduate. In this light, this study will distinguish between positive and negative non-cognitive factors and examine their respective effect to provide a better understanding of the effect of non-cognitive factors on self-disclosure. Finally, this study will examine the moderating effect of non-cognitive factors on the relationship between privacy concerns and self-disclosure to explain marginal effect of privacy concerns, which helps to reconcile the mixed findings of privacy concerns effect. The inhibitive effects privacy concerns have been commonly hypothesized in previous studies. However, the accumulated results seemingly suggest the effect of privacy concerns mixed, inconclusive. The analysis of moderating effect of non-cognitive factors on the relationship between privacy concerns and information disclosure would offer an explanation of the mix results of privacy concerns effect: non-cognitive factors weaken or override the effect of risk associated with information disclosure and thus encourage information disclosure even when the risk of disclosure is greater than benefits.