International Journal of Communication 10(2016), 398–415
1932–8036/20160005
The Effect of Anonymity on Conformity to Group Norms in Online Contexts: A Meta-Analysis GUANXIONG HUANG KANG LI Michigan State University, USA This research meta-analyzed 13 journal articles regarding anonymity and conformity to group norms. Results showed that there was a positive relationship between anonymity and conformity, with a weighted mean effect size
= 0.16, which was in line with the
social identity model of deindividuation effects. This study also investigated the differences between different types of anonymity and found that visual anonymity had a medium magnitude of effect size on conformity (
= 0.33), whereas evidence was
lacking in terms of the significant effects of physical anonymity and personal information anonymity. In addition, the presence of an outgroup was also a moderator of the effect of anonymity on conformity. Studies in which participants were aware of the existence of an outgroup ( = 0.22) had larger effect sizes than those with no outgroup ( = 0.10). Keywords: depersonalization, group identification, anonymity, conformity, meta-analysis
Normative social influence associated with group membership has been well studied in social psychology and group communication. Since the early days of this research stream, it has been demonstrated that anonymity has different impacts on individual judgments, depending on whether individuals are immersed in a group or not (Deusch & Gerard, 1955). Specifically, among individuals who do not compose a group, their judgments are influenced more by other people’s opinions in the identifiable setting than in the anonymous setting. However, when individuals form a group, they conform to the majority’s opinions in the anonymous situation. In other words, the impact of anonymity on individual perceptions and judgments is contingent on the availability of a prevalent group identity. Over the past few decades, scholars have conducted extensive research concerning the role of anonymity in group communication in various settings, especially since the advent of the computer-mediated communication (CMC) technology. In light of the affordances of online communication that enable users to remain anonymous in diverse ways, this issue has received substantial academic attention in the era of the Internet, investigated with respect to quite a few online phenomena, such as online communities (e.g., Ren, Kraut, & Kiesler, 2007; Ren et al., 2012), collective action (e.g., Spears & Postmes, 2015), and online collaboration (e.g., McLeod, 2011; Pissarra & Jesuino, 2005). Guanxiong Huang: huanggu1@msu.edu Kang Li: likang2@msu.edu Date submitted: 2015–04–18 Copyright © 2016 (Guanxiong Huang & Kang Li). Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial No Derivatives (by-nc-nd). Available at http://ijoc.org.