Restricted accessResearch articleFirst published online 2018-11
Effects of Cultural Tightness–Looseness and Social Network Density on Expression of Positive and Negative Emotions: A Large-Scale Study of Impression Management by Facebook Users
Using data from 13,789 Facebook users across U.S. states, this study examined the main effects of societal-level cultural tightness–looseness and its interaction effects with individuals’ social network density on impression management (IM) in terms of online emotional expression. Results showed that individuals from culturally tight (vs. loose) states were more likely to express positive emotions and less likely to express negative emotions. Meanwhile, for positive emotional expression, there was a tightness–looseness by social network density interaction effect. In culturally tight states, individuals with dense (vs. sparse) networks were more likely to express positive emotions, while in culturally loose states this pattern was reversed. For negative emotional expression, however, no such interaction was observed. Our findings highlight the influence of cultural norms and social network structure on emotional expressions as IM strategies.
AdamsG.PlautV. C. (2003). The cultural grounding of personal relationship: Friendship in North American and West African worlds. Personal Relationships, 10, 333-347. doi:10.1111/1475-6811.00053
2.
AdornoT. W.Frenkel-BrunswikE.LevinsonD. J.SanfordR. N. (1950). The authoritarian personality. Oxford, UK: Harpers.
3.
AllenM. P. (1997). The problem of multicollinearity. In AllenM. P. (Ed.), Understanding regression analysis (pp. 176-180). Boston, MA: Springer.
4.
ArkinR. M. (1981). Self-presentation styles. In TedeschiJ. T. (Ed.), Impression management theory and social psychological research (pp. 311-333). New York, NY: Academic Press.
5.
BazarovaN. N. (2012). Public intimacy: Disclosure interpretation and social judgments on Facebook. Journal of Communication, 62, 815-832. doi:10.1111/j.1460-2466.2012.01664.x
6.
BazarovaN. N.TaftJ. G.ChoiY. H.CosleyD. (2013). Managing impressions and relationships on Facebook: Self-presentational and relational concerns revealed through the analysis of language style. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 32(2), 121-141. doi:10.1177/0261927X12456384
7.
BloombergL.MeyersJ.BravermanM. T. (1994). The importance of social interaction: A new perspective on social epidemiology, social risk factors, and health. Health Education Quarterly, 21, 447-463. doi:10.1177/109019819402100407
8.
BolinoM.LongD.TurnleyW. (2016). Impression management in organizations: Critical questions, answers, and areas for future research. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 3, 377-406. doi:10.1146/annurev-orgpsych-041015-062337
9.
BorgattiS. P.JonesC.EverettM. G. (1998). Network measures of social capital. Connections, 21(2), 27-36.
10.
BurtR. S. (2000). The network structure of social capital. Research in Organizational Behavior, 22, 345-423. doi:10.1016/S0191-3085(00)22009-1
11.
CunninghamC. (2013). Social networking and impression management: Self-presentation in the digital age. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
12.
EkmanP.FriesenW. V. (1975). Unmasking the face: A guide to recognizing emotions from facial clues. Oxford, England: Prentice-Hall.
13.
FeldmanS.StennerK. (1997). Perceived threat and authoritarianism. Political Psychology, 18, 741-770. doi:10.1111/0162-895X.00077
14.
FriesenW. V. (1972). Cultural differences in facial expression a social situation: An experimental test of the concept of display rules (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of California, San Francisco.
15.
GelfandM. J.NishiiL. H.RaverJ. L. (2006). On the nature and importance of cultural tightness-looseness. Journal of Applied Psychology, 91, 1225-1244. doi:10.1037/0021-9010.91.6.1225
16.
GelfandM. J.RaverJ. L.NishiiL. H.LeslieL. M.LunJ.LimB. C.YamaguchiS. (2011). Differences between tight and loose cultures: A 33-nation study. Science, 332, 1100-1104. doi:10.1126/science.1197754
17.
GranovetterM. S. (1973). The strength of weak ties. American Journal of Sociology, 78, 1360-1380.
18.
GranovetterM. S. (1974). Getting a job. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.
19.
GrossJ. J.RichardsJ. M.JohnO. P. (2006). Emotion regulation in everyday life. In SnyderD. K.SimpsonJ.HughesJ. N. (Eds.), Emotion regulation in couples and families: Pathways to dysfunction and health (pp. 13-35). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
20.
HarringtonJ. R.GelfandM. J. (2014). Tightness–looseness across the 50 united states. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111, 7990-7995. doi:10.1073/pnas.1317937111
21.
HayesA. F. (2013). Introduction to mediation, moderation, and conditional process analysis: A regression-based approach. New York, NY: Guilford Press.
22.
HeckR. H.ThomasS. L. (2000). An introduction to multilevel models in organizational and educational research. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
23.
HeywoodA. (2017). Political ideologies: An introduction (6th ed.). London, England: Palgrave Macmillan.
24.
HirshJ. B.DeYoungC. G.XuX.PetersonJ. B. (2010). Compassionate liberals and polite conservatives: Associations of agreeableness with political ideology and moral values. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 36, 655-664. doi:10.1177/0146167210366854
25.
HofstedeG.HofstedeG. J.MinkovM. (2010). Cultures and organizations: Software of the mind (3rd ed.). New York, NY: McGrawHill.
26.
HoganB. J. (2009). Networking in everyday life (Doctoral thesis). University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
27.
HoxJ. (2010). Multilevel analysis: Techniques and applications (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Routledge.
28.
HwangH. S.MatsumotoD. (2012). Ethnic differences in display rules are mediated by perceived relationship commitment. Asian American Journal of Psychology, 3, 254-262. doi:10.1037/a0026627
29.
KosinskiM.MatzS. C.GoslingS. D.PopovV.StillwellD. (2015). Facebook as a research tool for the social sciences: Opportunities, challenges, ethical considerations, and practical guidelines. American Psychologist, 70, 543-556. doi:10.1037/a0039210
30.
KosinskiM.StillwellD. J.GraepelT. (2013). Private traits and attributes are predictable from digital records of human behavior. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 110, 5802-5805. doi:10.1073/pnas.1218772110
31.
KowalskiR. M.LearyM. R. (1990). Strategic self-presentation and the avoidance of aversive events: Antecedents and consequences of self-enhancement and self-depreciation. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 26, 322-336. doi:10.1016/0022-1031(90)90042-K
32.
LearyM. R.KowalskiR. M. (1990). Impression management: A literature review and two-component model. Psychological Bulletin, 107, 34-47. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.107.1.34
33.
LiR.GordonS.GelfandM. J. (2017). Tightness–looseness: A new framework to understand consumer behavior. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 27, 377-391. doi:10.1016/j.jcps.2017.04.001
34.
LinH.TovW.QiuL. (2014). Emotional disclosure on social networking sites: The role of network structure and psychological needs. Computers in Human Behavior, 41, 342-350. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2014.09.045
35.
LiuP.TovW.KosinskiM.StillwellD. J.QiuL. (2015). Do Facebook status updates reflect subjective well-being?Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 18, 373-379. doi:10.1089/cyber.2015.0022
36.
MatsumotoD. (1990). Cultural similarities and differences in display rules. Motivation and Emotion, 14, 195-214. doi:10.1007/BF00995569
37.
MatsumotoD.WillinghamB.OlideA. (2009). Sequential dynamics of culturally moderated facial expressions of emotion. Psychological Science, 20, 1269-1274. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.2009.02438.x
38.
MatsumotoD.YooS. H.FontaineJ. (2008). Mapping expressive differences around the world the relationship between emotional display rules and individualism versus collectivism. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 39, 55-74. doi:10.1177/0022022107311854
39.
OishiS. (2010). The psychology of residential mobility: Implications for the self, social relationships, and well-being. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 5, 5-21. doi:10.1177/1745691609356781
40.
OishiS.KesebirS. (2012). Optimal social-networking strategy is a function of socioeconomic conditions. Psychological Science, 23, 1542-1548. doi:10.1177/0956797612446708
41.
PeltoP. J. (1968). The differences between “tight” and “loose” societies. Trans-action, 5(5), 37-40. doi:10.1007/BF03180447
42.
PennebakerJ. W.BoothR. J.FrancisM. E. (2007). Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC2007). Austin, TX. Available from http://www.liwc.net
43.
PennebakerJ. W.ChungC. K.IrelandM.GonzalesA.BoothR. J. (2007). The development and psychometric properties of LIWC2007. Austin, TX. Available from http://www.liwc.net
44.
RosenbergJ.EgbertN. (2011). Online impression management: Personality traits and concerns for secondary goals as predictors of self-presentation tactics on Facebook. Journal of Computer-mediated Communication, 17, 1-18. doi:10.1111/j.1083-6101.2011.01560.x
45.
SkowronskiJ.GibbonsJ.VoglR.WalkerW. R. (2004). The effect of social disclosure on the intensity of affect provoked by autobiographical memories. Self and Identity, 3, 285-309. doi:10.1080/13576500444000065
46.
SnijdersT. A. B.BoskerR. J. (1999). Multilevel analysis: An introduction to basic and applied multilevel analysis (1st ed.). London, England: SAGE.
47.
SwencionisJ. K.FiskeS. T. (2016). Promote up, ingratiate down: Status comparisons drive warmth-competence tradeoffs in impression management. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 64, 27-34. doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2016.01.004
48.
TalhelmT.ZhangX.OishiS.ShiminC.DuanD.LanX.KitayamaS. (2014). Large-scale psychological differences within China explained by rice versus wheat agriculture. Science, 344, 603-608. doi:10.1126/science.1246850
49.
TovW.NgK. L.LinH.QiuL. (2013). Detecting well-being via computerized content analysis of brief diary entries. Psychological Assessment, 25, 1069-1078. doi:10.1037/a0033007
50.
TriandisH. C. (1989). The self and social behavior in differing cultural contexts. Psychological Review, 96, 506-520. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.96.3.506
51.
TriandisH. C. (1994). Major cultural syndromes and emotion. In KitayamaS.MarkusH. R. (Eds.), Emotion and culture: Empirical studies of mutual influence. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
52.
VandelloJ. A.CohenD. (1999). Patterns of individualism and collectivism across the United States. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77, 279. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.77.2.279
53.
WalkerM. E.WassermanS.WellmanB. (1993). Statistical models for social support networks. Sociological Methods & Research, 22, 71-98. doi:10.1177/0049124193022001004
54.
WaltherJ. B. (1996). Computer-mediated communication impersonal, interpersonal, and hyperpersonal interaction. Communication Research, 23, 3-43. doi:10.1177/009365096023001001
55.
WaltherJ. B.Van Der HeideB.KimS. Y.WestermanD.TongS. T. (2008). The role of friends’ appearance and behavior on evaluations of individuals on Facebook: Are we known by the company we keep?Human Communication Research, 34, 28-49. doi:10.1111/j.1468-2958.2007.00312.x
56.
YouyouW.KosinskiM.StillwellD. J. (2015). Computer-based personality judgments are more accurate than those made by humans. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 112, 1036-1040. doi:10.1073/pnas.1418680112
57.
ZhaoS.GrasmuckS.MartinJ. (2008). Identity construction on Facebook: Digital empowerment in anchored relationships. Computers in Human Behavior, 24, 1816-1836. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2008.02.012
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
