Research On User Social Network Engagement Behavior In Public Crisis

In recent years,the deep-seated contradictions in society gradually emerged,various types of public crisis-prone.During the urgent and high-pressure crisis,the public gathered informally and quickly through the developed social network.User social network engagement has a high degree of uncertainty,which may not only gather the wisdom of crowds,play active roles,and become the cooperator of government crisis management,but also may bring additional risks,cause serious damage,and become the key management object in crisis management activities.In order to more profoundly perceive,understand and guide user social network engagement behavior,this dissertation is based on the internal cognitive characteristics and external behavior rules of the "person”embedded in the social network and adopts multiple theories,models and research methods of management,cognitive psychology,sociology,communication,behavioral economics,mathematics,computer science,and other disciplines.Following the logic line of "behavior perception-behavior understanding-behavior guidance",the cross-level research work is divided into four specific aspects,in order to provide theoretical support and practical implications for the management and response of public crisis events.The main conclusions of this dissertation are as follows:First,from the perspective of engagement behavior perception,through the virtual space of social networks,with the contagion of crisis messages,moral appeal and utilitarian appeal content can improve the possibility of public social network engagement.Moreover,the multiple negative discrete emotions embedded in crisis messages would "directionally" enhance or decrease the incitement effect of appealing content.To analyze the psychological processing clues and processes of individual engagement decision-making,using the framework of HSM dual-system cognitive processing theory,message appeal theory,and emotion appraisal theory,the first study establishes an empirical model to investigate the influencing factors and mechanism of user social network engagement in public crisis events.Two distinct kinds of crisis message appealing contents(i.e.,moral appeal vs.utilitarian appeal)generated by users themselves are conceptualized,and the intensity of them is measured by text classification method based on machine learning technology.In terms of the cognition appraisal of certainty,this study distinguishes the fine-grained differences between two kinds of common negative discrete emotions(i.e.,anger vs.anxiety)embedded in messages,and uses LIWC to complete the measurement.The unique datasets during four public crisis events(i.e.,the Weizexi event,the Thailand boat sink event,the Facebook data-leak event and the#MeToo event)are collected through Sina Microblog and Twitter platform,and the main effects of appealing content and the complex moderating effects of negative discrete emotions are examined using econometric models and a series of robustness checks.The empirical results show that,(1)both moral appeal(as the heuristic processing clues)and utilitarian appeal(as the systematic processing clues)can spur the public to engage in crisis events;(2)anger-embedded increases the importance of moral appeal,whereas it decreased the influence of utilitarian appeal on public engagement;(3)on the contrary,anxiety-embedded facilitates the influence of utilitarian appeal on the public's decisions but hurt the effect of moral appeal on them.Second,from the perspective of engagement behavior understanding,user benign social network engagement is the result of external actions generated by the interaction of multiple internal psychological motivation factors,and the public would have obvious different tendencies when making decisions in different social network situations,showing distinct "self" cognitive states.To understand the antecedent motivation and necessary conditions for the user proactive benign social network engagement,oriented to two typical social network categories(i.e.,Sina Microblog and WeChat),the second study attempts to take rumor combating behavior common in the context of crises as an example and divides public psychological motivation in rumor combating tasks into moral-tendency motivations(i.e.,self-disciplined personal norms and heteronomous social norms)and utilitarian-tendency motivations(i.e.,altruistic information support and egoistic self-presentation)on account of social facilitation theory and moral-utilitarian judgment.Utilizing the fussy-set qualitative comparative analysis(fsQCA),this paper combs the combination path of multiple motivational factors which are intertwined and implicated,and explores the most typical,the most concise and the most core causal chain that public drives or resists the benign social network engagement.The empirical results show that,(1)in the context of WeChat with a crowd of onlookers,when users are faced with the dilemma of decision-making with regard to benign social network engagement,they tend to play a calm "me" role,prefer to trigger rational utilitarian-tendency motivations to conduct a cost-benefit analysis;(2)on the contrary,in the context of Microblog with few onlookers,users always prefer to be natural,simple and real "I",and respond instinctively relying on their moral motivation.Third,from the micro-perspective of engagement behavior guidance,most well-designed nudge strategies can effectively help the government to improve the crisis communication ability and enhance the public's intention of benign social network engagement.Moreover,the heterogeneity of cognitive styles of social network users would significantly affect the actual effect of nudge strategies.To guide more users to actively enhance the benign engagement intention in an imperceptible way,considering the bounded rationality of decision-makers in the public crisis environment,the third stud introduces the nudge theory of behavioral economics in the field of public crisis management,and designs three kinds of government crisis communication nudge strategies point at the key links in the individual decision-making framework,including mental-set priming strategy,additional option strategy and exemplary norms strategy,which are aimed at decision-makers themselves,decision-making options and environment respectively.Considering individual hemisphere preference in cognitive style,this study further refines the influence mechanism of nudge strategies on user engagement decisions at the inner psychological cognition level.An online experiment is conducted with a 4(mental-set priming vs.additional option vs.exemplary norms vs.control group)× 2(left hemisphere preference vs.right hemisphere preference)between-subject design to investigate the effects of nudge strategies in guiding users to promote benign social network engagement behavior and the interaction effects between nudge strategies and cognitive styles.The empirical results show that,(1)although the pointcut to intervene people's engagement decision-making seems small and delicate in the manner of nudging,it grasps the core of the issue that problem comes from behavior and behavior comes from choice.Public's intention of benign social network engagement would be enhanced by the nudge strategies of mental-set priming and exemplary norms;(2)however,an additional option may increase the cognitive processing burden of individuals,so they wouldn't achieve the expected effect in the urgent public crisis;(3)users'cognitive style plays a moderation role in the relationship between government nudge messages and their subsequent benign engagement intention.Compared to users with left hemisphere preference,the users with right hemisphere preference are more likely to be influenced by nudge intervention,thus generating stronger positive benign engagement intention.Fourth,from the macro-perspective of engagement behavior guidance,facing different stages of public psychological stress reaction,aimed at different roles in deviant collective engagement activities,the government exerts different intensities and different directions of nudge intervention,and correspondingly social network systems would present different evolution situations of collective engagement,thus suggesting that government intervention activities should have "customized" guiding thought.To effectively block deviant collective engagement behaviors,timely dredge deviant social network engagement users and guide public into recovery state,the fourth study distinguishes the role differences in the process of collective engagement from the holistic perspective,introduces the 2SI2R model in the field of infectious diseases and psychological stress reaction theory,as well as clarifies the user state transition rule between ignorant state,engagement(i.e.,supporter and amplifier)state,recovery state,after advocates input deviant information into the social network system during public crises.This study establishes differential equations to describe the state transition mechanism mathematically and exploits the data-driven simulation models to depict the evolution trend of user collective engagement intuitively.Rely on adjusting and controlling variable parameters,the author observes the changing evolution rules of user collective engagement in the social network system,under the government nudge intervention with different intensities,to different types of engagement users,at different stages,and obtains 6 conclusions.Moreover,based on the simulation results,this research proposes a series of specific intervention strategies,which enhances the practicability of nudge means and creates positive practical significances for the public crisis management and user social network engagement guidance.Through the in-depth study of user social network engagement under public crises,several innovations in this research are as follows:(1)Research perspective innovation:from the micro-level of individual cognition,understand the nature of user social network engagement behavior.This study remedies the lack of scientific insight into the nature of user social network engagement behavior from the micro psychological perspective rather than out-there perspective.Based on the inner cognition of the "person"embedded in the social network(including individual cognitive processing,psychological motivation factors,cognitive style,psychological stress reaction state),the research uncovers the psychological "black box" of decision-makers,perceives and understands the subjective active tendency and law of the user benign engagement behavior from the inside out,and positively guides user social network engagement.Therefore,this study has played a certain role in promoting the cross-scale integrated development of micro-level cognitive psychology research and macro-level public crisis management research.(2)Research variable innovation:from the perspective of moral-utilitarian,analyze the decision-making process of user social network engagement.Although the discussion of moral and utilitarian is an eternal proposition in the traditional crisis management issue,when the public crises move to the virtual world of social networks,researchers seem to ignore the thinking of the fundamental contradiction behind the phenomenon from the perspective of moral-utilitarian.This study helps scholars in the field of public crisis management to understand individuals' decision-making processes and provide new theoretical support for the engagement behavior research system by analyzing the external moral-utilitarian appealing decision clues embedded in crisis messages and the internal moral-utilitarian psychological motivations of the decision-makers.(3)Research content innovation:from the view of nudge intervention,provide a new approach to the guidance of benign social network engagement behavior.In the field of user social network engagement behavior guidance under public crises,the existing means and research with regard to intervention are limited,delayed,incomplete.To improve the phenomenon,this study innovatively draws on nudge theory belonging to the new school of behavioral economics,integrates the soft and non-invasive nudge intervention into the research system of public crisis management emergency response and behavior guidance.Through a set of online experiments,the research verifies the effectiveness of nudge intervention tools and explores a series of implementation strategies to optimize the nudge intervention effect.Thus,this paper makes a reference to other researchers and practitioners engaged in public crisis communication and crisis management and provides a more comprehensive introduction of the new behavior guidance mode,nudge intervention,in order to strengthen people's attention to it.(4)Research route innovation:from the perspective of interdisciplinary,generate new cross-border thought on the research system of public crisis management.This study draws the essence of multi-disciplinary research paradigm and methodology,and adheres to the unique advantages of management science in terms of insighting into the mechanism behind the phenomenon.Under the guidance of the core thought,this study tries to comprehensively apply the theories(including message appeal theory,emotion appraisal theory,social facilitation theory,nudge theory,psychological stress reaction theory,etc.),models(including HSM theoretical framework,moral-utilitarian analysis framework,individual decision-making framework,SIR model,etc.)and analytical techniques(including econometrics,machine learning,QCA,online experiment,model simulation,etc.)in different disciplines to ensure the in-depth development of the issue.Thus,to a certain extent,this paper expands the research methods and routes of user social network engagement,enriches the cross-border research paradigm in the field of public crisis management,and promotes the overall thinking of researchers on the integration of management and other multi-disciplines.