Study 1
For this first review, I will be looking at the article Exploring the influence of government social media on cybersecurity compliance: employee attitudes, motivation and behaviors. I will be breaking down the study’s methods, findings, and implications for social psychology. This study investigated users’ engagement with government social media and their attitudes and behavior toward cybersecurity practices. Surveys were sent to different provinces in Vietnam where social media was being used. When the surveys returned any surveys that were filled out in under two minutes or had the same selection for every question were discarded. These surveys asked questions to measure government social media (GSM) engagement, perceived threat vulnerability (PV), Self-efficacy (SE), and Response efficacy (RE). According to the paper, “research shows that users’ engagement in GSM has a positive impact on cybersecurity compliance ATT (attitude) toward using security measures through PV and RE, but a negative impact through SE” (Tran et al., 2024). This study could impact social psychology by showing that social media can create greater awareness of threats and increase the belief that following guidelines would help prevent these threats. The negative impact on self-efficacy would be interesting to explore as it could indicate that social media lessens a person’s belief that they are in control of stopping the threat. This makes me wonder if social media in other realms could result in a loss of self-efficacy as well. The definitive conclusion of this study is that social media can bring greater awareness to threats.
Study 2
After analyzing the study’s methods, findings, and implications for social psychology here are the results. The study methods used involved selecting participants and introducing them to a company. Two different companies were shown for two different studies. The first was a fictitious Dutch e-commerce company undergoing a crisis centered on reputational concerns. Participants were then shown one of three social media posts made by an employee that showed the company in a positive, negative, or neutral light. Questions were then given to determine the participants’ view of the company’s reputation. This first study showed that when presented with a positive post from the company employee participants gave the company a more positive reputation rating. The negative post was associated with a negative reputation rating when compared to the neutral post. The second study in this article tried to determine if employee ambassadors were intrinsically motivated to post if it would yield greater results than extrinsically. They accomplished this by creating another fictitious company and again presented a reputation crisis. A post was then shared from an employee stating that she enjoyed the products at the company. One post showed “brand ambassador” next to the employee’s name while the other one did not. They found no difference between the two posts about a participant’s feelings toward the company. (Soens and Claeys, 2023) The implication for social psychology is that social media can be a huge asset in influencing what consumers think about a company.
Study 3
The article Viral vaping: A systematic review and meta-analysis of e-cigarette and tobacco-related social media content and its influence on youth behaviors and attitudes goes over a study in which other studies were reviewed to see the impact of substance-related social media posts on youth behavior and attitude. To meet the necessary criteria for review the studies needed to be in English and reviewed self-reported use of tobacco or e-cigarette after seeing social media posts with tobacco or e-cigarette. Out of all the studies grouped and organized, most looked at the correlation of social media content exposure to the above-mentioned substances in the last 30 days and current e-cigarette and tobacco use. The correlation between these two showed that exposure on social media had a higher chance of using tobacco or e-cigarette products (Rutherford et al., 2023) This study has potential to further support the illusionary truth effect. As more exposure takes place the chances of seeing tobacco or e-cigarettes in a positive light increases as well as use. While that is hypothetical it would be interesting to further investigate the illusionary truth effect in association with substance use. This study may not consider advertisement tracking. Perhaps all those who exposed social media posts or advertisements were already users of a retargeting campaign. The only thing this study seems to really say for sure is that there is a correlation between social media exposure to tobacco and e-cigarettes and their use.
Study 4
This is a review of the article Musculoskeletal problems, attitudes and behaviors related to physical activity, and social media addiction in musicians during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study was set up by providing musicians who had been playing for at least three years. Participants filled out a Google form that had questions taken from Cornell Musculoskeletal Discomfort Questionnaire (CMDQ), Cognitive Behavioral Physical Activity Questionnaire (CBPAQ), and Bergen Social Media Addiction Scale (BSMAS). After receiving the results participants were divided into groups based on the instruments they played. The primary groups they looked at were musicians who played string instruments, keyboard instruments, and wind instruments. Other groups were excluded from the study because of low numbers of participants. While each group did show increases of musculoskeletal problems there was no increase in social media addiction. During the COVID pandemic, social media use increased dramatically in the general population, but among musicians there were no signs that it did (Narin and Kecelioglu, 2023) While this study does not show a direct correlation between social media use, and its influence on attitudes and behavior, it does have some social psychology applications. One possible route to explore would be other addictions among musicians during the pandemic. Did addiction numbers decrease for certain groups? The only definitive thing that this study showed was that musicians during the pandemic had an increase in musculoskeletal problems and not social media addictions.
Study 5
Normative Influence of social media on adolescents’ actions, attitudes, and perceptions toward non-normative behavior in South Korea is a study that looked at the impacts of social media and exposure of non-normative behavior to adolescents specifically in South Korea. Non-normative behavior is described as “substance abuse, cyberbullying, or risky sexual behavior” (Jeong and Khang 2023). To further define non-normative behavior a series of focus groups interview with freshman college students was held. Through these interactions they determined four non-normative behaviors that adolescents could be exposed to. This included verbal aggression, use of internet slang, illegal downloading, and self-disclosure. Middle school students were then given an anonymous questionnaire in the classroom. The data was collected in both 2016 (Year 1) and 2017 (Year 2) and then compared. Reports of social media use increased from year 1 to year 2. Additionally, students reported increases in their network size or an increase in friends although a decrease in online only relationships was shown. It was also reported that material viewed with action against non-normative behaviors increased. This study also showed that the more students were exposed to verbal aggression, illegal downloading, and self-exposure, the more likely they were to act against it. Although this was the opposite when it came to internet slang (Jeong and Khang 2023). This would make implications for social psychology that the more exposure does not always mean the more likely people would be to adopt that behavior. While the Bobo doll experiment may argue against that stance.
References
Tran, D. V., Nguyen, P. V., Nguyen, A. T. C., Vrontis, D., & Dinh, P. U. (2024). Exploring the influence of government social media on cybersecurity compliance: employee attitudes, motivation and behaviors. Journal of Asia Business Studies, 18(1), 204–223. https://doi.org/10.1108/JABS-09-2023-0343
Soens, E., & Claeys, A. (2023). The ambassadorship potential of employees: Examining the impact of work-related social media posts on consumer attitudes and behaviors. Public Relations Review, 49(5), 102390–102390. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2023.102390
Rutherford, B. N., Lim, C. C. W., Cheng, B., Sun, T., Vu, G. T., Johnson, B., Daniel Paul Ashley, Chung, J., Huang, S., Leung, J., Stjepanović, D., Connor, J. P., & Chan, G. C. K. (2023). Viral Vaping: A systematic review and meta analysis of e-cigarette and Tobacco-Related social media content and its influence on youth behaviours and attitudes. Addictive Behaviors, 147, 107828. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.addbeh.2023.107828
Narin, S., & Kecelioglu, S. (2023). Musculoskeletal problems, attitudes and behaviors related to physical activity, and social media addiction in musicians during the COVID-19 pandemic. Work, 1–7. https://doi.org/10.3233/wor-220479
Jeong, I., & Khang, H. (2023). Normative Influence of Social Media on Adolescents’ Actions, Attitudes, and Perceptions Toward Non-Normative Behavior in South Korea. Korea Observer, 54(3), 409. https://eds.p.ebscohost.com/eds/detail/detail?vid=1&sid=77a21276-23e7-492a-8f11-811f5a28e366@redis&bdata=JkF1dGhUeXBlPXNoaWImc2l0ZT1lZHMtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#AN=edsgcl.767509782&db=edsgin