Supportive Exchange on Support Forums: The Influence of Others' Responses and Support-Seekers' Replies

Research on online support forums has largely overlooked the quality of support provision. Two experiments were conducted to a) examine the interactions between online support-seekers and -providers, b) understand the mechanisms underlying online supportive communication, and c) identify relatively unique features of online support messages. Study 1 examined how others' responses and support-seeker's replies can influence action-focused supportiveness, emotion-focused supportiveness, and politeness of readers' support messages. A total of 357 college students read and replied to a manipulated support-seeking post followed by others' comments and the support-seeker's reply. Results showed that compared to readers of unsupportive comments on a support-seeking post, readers of supportive comments perceived the public to be more supportive and liked the support-seeker more, leading to more supportive responses to the support-seeker.;Study 2 employed a similar design to further investigate the role of others' comments and a support-seeker's reply on readers' support provision. Specifically, both appreciativeness and additional reasoning in a support-seeker's reply were examined. 576 college students replied to a manipulated post online and filled out a questionnaire afterwards. Consistent with study 1, results showed that supportiveness of others' comments affected readers' support provision through both perceived public opinion and their liking of the support-seeker. In addition, readers with stronger informational conformity motivation were more affected by perceived public opinion when they responded to a support-seeking post. Appreciation and additional reasoning in support-seeker's reply each enhanced a support-seeker's likeability and thereby led to more supportive responses. Overall, the two studies demonstrated the impact of others' comments and a support-seeker's reply on readers' perceptions of and responses to support-seekers on support forums. Limitations and implications of each study were discussed.