The Impact of Reference Group and Group Norms on Word-of-Mouth Communication of Nutrition Information on Facebook and Intended Behavioral Change

Social media is a very quick, economical, and efficient way to spread food safety and nutrition education messages. It contributes to the "democratization of information" , permitting anyone to become an author online, providing the opportunity to get personal opinions heard and spread throughout the Internet. However, with a variety of information sources available online, nutrition educators and policy makers have to compete for the attention of consumers with the food and beverage industries, individual companies, consumer organizations, and with individual bloggers. The question facing nutrition educators and policy makers is how to take advantage of social media to ensure that accurate and science-based food safety and nutrition education information is widely disseminated and reaches targeted consumers?;During the previous iteration of the Internet, consumers would seek information from a variety of websites with official content published or reported by news and media professionals. However, the emergence of social media has shifted the pattern of communication of information from that of professionally produced mass media such as TV, newspapers, and aggregator websites to individualized social media websites such as Wikipedia, YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook, where users employ technology and mobile devices to create their own Internet content and to interact with each other. These Social Networking Sites enable individuals to combine and critique information from multiple sources and to provide points-of-view and commentary of their own, enabling social media users to put themselves in the center of the online virtual world.;Focusing on information "sharing" behavior on Facebook, this study investigates the information transmission process through social media, motivations underlying online users' information sharing behavior, and psychosocial factors influencing the flow of messages through Social Networking Sites (SNS). The study uses Social Identity Signaling Theory and the notion that "You are what you share" to identify factors that motivate people's information communication processes. The study hypothesizes that reference social group and group norms will strongly influence online users' news "sharing" behavior on Facebook. To explore this, different reference groups were created and associated with a healthy eating behavior in a news article; group norms were also manipulated as either descriptive norms or injunctive norms.;This dissertation is composed of three studies. All three studies use randomized controlled incomplete factorial experimental designs. Study I manipulated reference group as in-group or out-group condition in the news article; Study II manipulated reference group as either a socially proximate group or a socially distant group in the news article; Study III manipulated reference group as either an aspirational group or non-aspirational group in the message. In addition, all three studies manipulated group norms as either descriptive or injunctive norms in the news article.;In Study I and Study II where results showed that reference groups were not a significant predictive factor of participants' news article sharing behavior or intended vegetarian consumption behavior. However, consumers who read a news article describing a reference group's behavior in terms of injunctive group norms were more likely to share a vegetarian recipe on their Facebook than consumers who read a similar news article describing a reference group's behavior in terms of descriptive group norms. In addition, there was an interaction between group norms and reference group, which influences consumers' news sharing behavior on Facebook and in-person in both studies:;In Study II, participants who read the news article describing an socially proximate group that is consuming vegetarian dishes at least twice per week were more likely to share the news article on Facebook, share the news article on Facebook especially with family and close friends, and to recommend the news article to family and friends in person than participants who read the news article describing that an socially proximate group should consume vegetarian dishes at least twice per week. In contrast, participants who read the news article describing a socially distant group that thinks they should consume vegetarian dishes at least twice per week were more likely to share the news article on Facebook, share the news article on Facebook especially with family and close friends, and recommend the news article to family and friends in person than participants who read the news article describing that an socially distant group are currently consuming vegetarian dishes at least twice per week.;Study III showed that participants reading the news article associating the healthy eating behavior with an aspirational group were significantly more likely to "share" the news article on Facebook, recommend the news article to family and friends when meeting with them in person, and to order a vegetarian meal for their next lunch or dinner than the similar news article associating the healthy eating behavior with a non-aspirational group. (Abstract shortened by ProQuest.).