College students use their social media profiles to create and (normally) maintain a positive presentation of their self-identities in an expansive online social network. According to the social identity model of deindividuation effects (SIDE) model, when students identify strongly as a member of a group, they may craft posts that reflect this group identity, which may or may not be seen as acceptable to others in their social network. In a one-to-many form of communication like a social media website, a person may have many small groups of people in their social network, but their audience is their entire network as a whole. This study analyzes how group identity shapes the way people post updates. Students from a large Mid-Atlantic university were surveyed about their group identity and their own social media posts. By analyzing and comparing their actual Facebook posts to their survey responses, a direct relationship between strength of group identity and group-conforming Facebook posts was expected.

1. Mountaineers Are Always Free (To Post Online):
Facebook and Group Identity Posts
J.C. Abdallah, McNair Scholar, West Virginia University
Introduction
Group
Abstract Results
Discussion
Study Descriptives
College students use their social media profiles to create and (normally)
maintain a positive presentation of their self-identities in an expansive
online social network. According to the social identity model of
deindividuation effects (SIDE) model, when students identify strongly as
a member of a group, they may craft posts that reflect this group identity,
which may or may not be seen as acceptable to others in their social
network. In a one-to-many form of communication like a social media
website, a person may have many small groups of people in their social
network, but their audience is their entire network as a whole. This study
analyzes how group identity shapes the way people post updates.
Students from a large Mid-Atlantic university were surveyed about their
group identity and their own social media posts. By analyzing and
comparing their actual Facebook posts to their survey responses, a
direct relationship between strength of group identity and group-
conforming Facebook posts was expected.
Survey Demographics (N = 118)
Descriptives of Study Measures
• In general, the more we identify with a group, the less we perceive
to post as a group member. In actuality, we tend to post more
about our group if we highly identify with them.
• Participants who were classified as “Freshman” or “Sophomore”
were (a) even less likely to self-report posting about their
group, yet they (b) actually posted the most out of all
participants.
• Lab participants’ were more likely to perceive that they did not
post about their group
• Perceptions of how others perceive one’s group is a significant
predictor of group posts by a participant: the more one thinks
others perceive their group as negative or anti-social, the
less likely they are to self-report posting about their group.
• Of 810 posts, none were coded as negative or anti-social!
Correlations
(p < .10)
Facebook is the most widely used social media network. College
students who are a members of a group may implicitly post more
status updates that cater to other members of that group, especially if
that student highly identifies as a part of that group.
Fundamental theories such as self-presentation (Goffman, 1959) and
social deindividuation (Walther, 1996) may help to explain how a
person's identity and being may be idealized and sometimes
compartmentalized in a certain fashion in a computer-mediated
context. Context collapse theory brings forth an argument that
different audiences on social media websites overlap, thus, creating a
faction of an audience that often are not the target of posts, but yet
still see them anyway (Vitak, 2012).
Defined as a collection of multiple people who have free
membership and share a common social (not relational) identity.
Procedure
Participants from introductory Communication Studies courses at
West Virginia University were asked questions about their
demographics, group identity, and Facebook usage through an
online survey administered by Qualtrics (Survey). Specifically, they
were asked what group they identify with, their own perceptions of
their group, what they perceived how others perceived their group,
how much from a scale from 0-100 do they identify with their group
and how much they identify with their group using a three-item
questionnaire. They were also asked to self-report how many of
their last fifteen Facebook posts had to deal with their group
identity. Participants were then asked to come into our research lab
on their own time so the researcher could capture screen-grabs of
the participant’s actual last fifteen posts (see example below) to
compare to their self-report data (Lab).
Participant age M = 20.36 (SD = 2.57)
Participant gender 72 Females, 46 Males
Participant class rank 62 Underclassmen; 56
Upperclassman
Most popular groups ‘Eers (N=69); Greek Member (N=24)
Participant age M = 20.31 (SD = 1.83)
Participant gender 34 Females, 20 Males
Participant class rank 23 Underclassmen; 31
Upperclassman
Most popular groups ‘Eers (N=32); Greek Member (N=12)
Lab Demographics (N = 54)
Variable Mean SD
Group Identity
(0-100 scale)
82.13 17.51
Group Identity
(3-item scale)
4.27 1.02
Own Perception’s
About Group
5.90 1.14
Other’s perceptions
about Group
4.71 1.53
Perceived Number of
Posts
2.78 3.88
Actual Number of
Posts
2.30 2.19
All students
Group Identity
(0-100 scale)
r=-0.11, p=0.13 r=-0.28,
p=0.02*
r=0.18, p=0.09*
Group Identity
(3-item scale)
r=-0.10, p=0.14 r=-0.30,
p=0.01*
r=0.06, p=0.32
Own Perception
of group
r=0.06, p=0.27 r=-0.03, p=0.41 r=0.07, p=0.31
Other’s
perception of
group
r=-0.13,
p=0.07*
r=-0.19,
p=0.08*
r=-0.29,
p=0.02*
Underclass students (Freshman and Sophomore)
Group Identity
(0-100 scale)
r=-0.16,
p=0.05*
r=-0.34, p=0.01* r=0.29, p=0.02*
Group Identity
(3 item scale)
r=-0.19,
p=0.02*
r=-0.40, p=0.00* r=-0.07, p=0.31
Upperclass students (Junior and Senior)
Group Identity
(0-100 scale)
r=-0.02, p=0.44 r=-0.21, p=0.06 r=0.07, p=0.31
Group Identity
(3-item scale)
r=0.00, p=0.49 r=-0.22, p=0.05* r=0.17, p=0.11
Variable
Survey
Participants
With self-
report
posts
Lab
Participants
with self-
report
posts
Lab
Participants
With actual
posts
Number of Self-reported posts compared to actual number of posts
(lab sample only): r=0.18, p=0.10*
Keywords: social media, group identity, Facebook,
college students, self-presentation
For more information, contact J.C. at
jabdalla@mix.wvu.edu.
Special thanks to faculty mentor Dr. Nick Bowman
(Communication Studies) for supporting this project, as
well as the staff of the WVU Interaction Lab (#ixlab).