Normative- and Needs-based commitment & Lock-in

Joseph Reagle

Commitment

  1. Affective Commitment (feelings of closeness and attachment to members or group; want): identity-based & bonds-based
  2. Normative commitment (an obligation to the community, to be loyal and act on its behalf; should)
    • to the cause (e.g., FLOSS)
    • others’ normative commitment (e.g., others’ testimonials)
    • reciprocity (e.g., “paying it forward”)
  3. Needs based (people stay committed as long as they continue to benefit in some instrumental way; need)

Terms

Terms

parochialism
in/out group behavior
self-disclosure
exchange of personally revealing information
strong/weak ties
friends give support; acquaintances lead us to jobs

sunk cost fallacy

ignore unrecoverable costs; decide only with present+future in mind

“23 bad subs”

Other examples

  1. Is finishing a book that you hate sunk cost fallacy?
    • Yes: only finish a bad book if the time left to do so yields a present/future benefit
  2. What if you get a new book for finishing the book?
    • No: getting a new book may be worth the extra 4 hours to finish
  3. Would leaving college w/ 1 semester to go count?
    • No: 1 awful semester may be worth college degree

QICs?

  • TessM on affective turning to needs-based at FB
  • TessB and Suki on leaving FB and political exposure.
  • Mia on lock-in of Tumbler

Normative & Need

eg of Normative-based?

Normative commitment is a feeling that one has obligations to the community, to be loyal and act on its behalf. [p. 102]

eg of Needs-based?

Needs-based (or continuance) commitment refers to attachment to an online community that depends on the net benefits that people experience from the community. [p. 105]

ex. Document design criteria

I need two groups for each of:

  1. Normative commitment (27-31)
  2. Needs-based commitment (32-35)

Link/screenshot a community’s home page that applies the design criteria, include notes on your choices (including things the site doesn’t do).

Normative (NOC)

  1. Highlighting a community’s purpose and achievements can translate into NC
  2. Testimonials about people’s NC increases others
  3. Priming norms of reciprocity by highlighting related concepts should increase NC

  1. Showing people what they have received from the community increases NC
  2. Highlighting opportunities to return favors to specific others will increase NC

Needs-based NBC

  1. Providing participants with experiences that meet their motivations for participating in the community increases their NBC
  2. Showing information about other communities in the same ecological niche reduces NBC
  3. Making it difficult for members to export assets or transfer them to other members increases NBC
  4. Hindrances that prompt community specific investments, even if they sunk costs that do not create valuable assets, will increase NBC

Lock-in

Mechanisms

  • barriers to movement (e.g., can’t port content or contact)
  • social network effects (e.g., where your aunts are)
  • technical and path dependence (e.g., Facebook login)
  • psychology (e.g., loss aversion, sunk-cost fallacy)

APIs

Twitter API

Netflix API

Google “take-out”

Your account, your data. Download a copy.

Facebook

(a) You may not use Facebook Platform to export user data into a competing social network without our permission; (b) Apps on Facebook may not integrate, link to, promote, distribute, or redirect to any app on any other competing social network.

Why are people leaving FB?

broadcast to narrowcast

  1. 48% of users > 65
  2. photos are forever
  3. professional concerns (Duncan 2016)

Conclusion

Vote-off

Take 1 minute and then nominate the online community or platform that best that best exemplifies all of affective-, normative-, and needs-based commitment.

We’ll then collectively vote and see which is on top.

Mindmap

Task

In groups of 4, mindmap commitment (affective [identity & bonds], normative, need) and draw on white board.

  1. Form groups of 3-5 people
  2. Work on a mindmap in group on paper (5m)
    • use different shapes & lines
    • include examples & mnemonics
  3. Draw them on the board (perhaps postpone to start of next class.)

Review

Write down an example of (affective (identity, bond), normative, need).