The relationship among individual differences in individualism-collectivism, extraversion, and self-presentation

The influence of intrinsic and extrinsic motivational factors on e-WOM behaviour: The role of psychological impact during the time of COVID-19 crisis

This investigation unearths the trait antecedents of intrinsic and extrinsic motivational drivers and their consequences on attitude towards e-WOM of social mobile app users. Additionally, this study attempts to explore the moderating role of psychological impact on attitude towards e-WOM when COVID-19 is ravaging the world. Following the descriptive research method, the survey was carried out among convenience sample respondents of 627 social mobile app users. The outcome brought out that extraversion had a favourable influence on opinion leadership, customer engagement, and self-expression for sharing consumption related information during the pandemic. Likewise, materialism also had a strong effect on self-expression. Nonetheless, extraversion and materialism failed to affect self-presentation motives. And, self-presentation was observed influencing attitude towards e-WOM negatively. The outcome of the study demonstrates that individuals with high psychological impact have a strong motivation to involve in customer engagement to participate in e-WOM communication. Motivational drivers such as self-expression, opinion leadership, and customer engagement had a significant effect on attitude towards e-WOM for the whole sample analysis. This investigation contributes to existing literature of e-WOM behaviour and widens the scope of self-presentation theory, social exchange theory, theory of planned behaviour etc. Finally, this research also assists marketers and practitioners to take better decision-making on developing a social media advertising and campaign using the framework.

Impact of Personality Traits on Knowledge Hiding: A Comparative Study on Technology-Based Online and Physical Education

Knowledge hiding has been a variable of interest that has led to major intangible losses to organizations, especially in this pandemic era when everything has shifted to online platforms and social media. Knowledge hiding has taken a new turn into the field of knowledge management. Moreover, the major players in knowledge hiding are the personality characteristics of individuals that have now found a way of expression without coming into the spotlight. This study is a necessary one in this time of online working environments where the role of personality traits and psychological ownership has been explored to understand their impact on the knowledge hiding within the organizations of China, and furthermore, to understand what role social status plays in moderating these relationships. The sampling design used is convenient random sampling with a sample size of 298 managers. This study has used the software Smart-PLS 3.3.3 for analyzing the data. The data relied on and was validated using preliminary tests of reliability and discriminant and convergent validities using the measurement model algorithm. Further, the partial least square technique was used to find the equation modeling for the variables, with the help of a structural model algorithm using 500 iterations for bootstrapping. The findings of the current study show that the personality traits of the "BIG FIVE" model positively predict knowledge hiding, except for openness to experience. At the same time, psychological ownership plays a partial mediating role.

The Nexus Between the Big Five Personality Traits Model of the Digital Economy and Blockchain Technology Influencing Organization Psychology

The basic aim of the study was to understand the role of the Big Five model of personality in predicting emotional intelligence and consequently in triggering the entrepreneurial behavior of the employees. The emotional intelligence of the individuals plays a very important role in decision making, enhancement of quality of living, and many other social realms. Hence, the intelligent use of emotions can make or break an individual’s future considering their attitude toward exploiting the entrepreneurial opportunities available. This study has measured the impact of personality traits on emotional intelligence and EI’s role in digital entrepreneurial behavior. The population used in this study was the middle management employees in the corporate sector of the mainland in China. The sample size taken in this study was 260 and selected through convenient sampling. The data was collected through a structured questionnaire measuring each variable. The data collected was employed to SmartPLS 3.3 for analyzing through structural equation modeling to measure the hypotheses. The study has found the partial effect of the Big Five model of personality on emotional intelligence, which significantly predicted the digital entrepreneurial behavior of the employees. The organizations can use the study findings to anticipate the employees’ possible prospects and endeavors regarding their digital entrepreneurial behaviors.

Increase of Collectivistic Expression in China During the COVID-19 Outbreak: An Empirical Study on Online Social Networks

The pathogen-prevalence hypothesis postulates that collectivism would be strengthened in the long term in tandem with recurrent attacks of infectious diseases. However, it is unclear whether a one-time pathogen epidemic would elevate collectivism. The outbreak of COVID-19 and the widespread prevalence of online social networks have provided researchers an opportunity to explore this issue. This study sampled and analyzed the posts of 126,165 active users on Weibo, a leading Chinese online social network. It used independent-sample t-tests to examine whether COVID-19 had an impact on Chinese collectivistic value-related behaviors by comparing the usage frequency of personal pronouns, group-related words, and relationship-related words before and after the outbreak. Overall, most collectivist words exhibited a significant upward trend after the outbreak. In turn, this tendency pointed to a rising sense of collectivism (versus individualism). Hence, this study confirmed the pathogen-prevalence hypothesis in real settings, finding that an outbreak of an infectious disease such as COVID-19 could exert an impact on collectivism and may deliver a theoretical basis for psychological protection against the threat of COVID-19. However, further evaluation is required to ascertain whether this trend is universal or culture-specific.

Physical topography is associated with human personality

Regional differences in personality are associated with a range of consequential outcomes. But which factors are responsible for these differences? Frontier settlement theory suggests that physical topography is a crucial factor shaping the psychological landscape of regions. Hence, we investigated whether topography is associated with regional variation in personality across the United States (n = 3,387,014). Consistent with frontier settlement theory, results from multilevel modelling revealed that mountainous areas were lower on agreeableness, extraversion, neuroticism and conscientiousness but higher on openness to experience. Conditional random forest algorithms confirmed mountainousness as a meaningful predictor of personality when tested against a conservative set of controls. East-west comparisons highlighted potential differences between ecological (driven by physical features) and sociocultural (driven by social norms) effects of mountainous terrain.

The Influence of Social Interactions and Subjective Norms on Social Media Postings

This study investigated the influence of social interactions and subjective norms on individuals’ social media postings. The study developed a theoretical model by extending the Theory of Reasoned Action with social interactions. A CB-SEM analysis was conducted to test the hypothesised relationships based on the data collected from 312 social media users. Results indicated that social interactions (i.e. likes, shares, comments and follows) were significantly related to the attitude towards the selfie-posting behaviour. Further, the attitude and subjective norms were significantly related to behavioural intentions, which together accounted for a significant amount of variance in the actual behaviour. The findings contributed to literature by introducing the significant role of “social interactions” in predicting the attitude towards the selfie-posting behaviour.

Moderating Role of Gender in the Relationship between Big Five Personality Traits and Smartphone Addiction

This study contributed to cyberpsychology literature by identifying moderating role of gender in the relationship between personality traits and smartphone addiction. A multi-group SEM analysis was employed to investigate the relationship between five factor personality traits (i.e. Big Five) and smartphone addiction among men and women. Big-Five-Inventory (BFI) and Smartphone Addiction Inventory (SPAI) were used to collect data from 320 undergraduate students. The results suggested a positively significant relationship between neuroticism (emotional imbalance) and smartphone addiction for women only. Whereas, conscientiousness was negatively related with smartphone addiction for women. Further, there was a negatively significant relationship between agreeableness and smartphone addiction for both genders. The findings suggested that gender has a moderating role in the relationship between neuroticism and smartphone addiction.

Are Collectivistic Cultures More Prone to Rapid Transformation? Computational Models of Cross-Cultural Differences, Social Network Structure, Dynamic Social Influence, and Cultural Change

Societies differ in susceptibility to social influence and in the social network structure through which individuals influence each other. What implications might these cultural differences have for changes in cultural norms over time? Using parameters informed by empirical evidence, we computationally modeled these cross-cultural differences to predict two forms of cultural change: consolidation of opinion majorities into stronger majorities, and the spread of initially unpopular beliefs. Results obtained from more than 300,000 computer simulations showed that in populations characterized by greater susceptibility to social influence, there was more rapid consolidation of majority opinion and also more successful spread of initially unpopular beliefs. Initially unpopular beliefs also spread more readily in populations characterized by less densely connected social networks. These computational outputs highlight the value of computational modeling methods as a means to specify hypotheses about specific ways in which cross-cultural differences may have long-term consequences for cultural stability and cultural change.

How Social Interaction Affects Purchase Intention in Social Commerce: A Cultural Perspective

In the context of social commerce, the influence of culture on consumers’ behavior and attitude is more significant. This paper empirically analyzes the influence of social interaction (perceived risk, trust, and intimacy) on consumers’ purchase intention in social commerce, and the antecedent effect of cultural dimensions (uncertainty avoidance and individualism/collectivism) on social interaction is also explored. Data were collected in China and France from consumers who had prior online shopping experience on social commerce websites. The results show that the impact of perceived risk on subsequent purchase intention in social commerce will be transferred by trust and intimacy to a certain extent. The intimacy between users contributes to trust-building, and both of their positive impacts on purchase intention would show distinct effects in different cultures. Besides, cultural dimensions are proved to have a significant effect on users’ social interaction. Although high uncertainty avoidance brings perceived risk, it can promote subsequent trust-building. These findings help provide managerial insights for social commerce community to establish effective trust mechanism in a multicultural context.

Relationship Bonds and Service Provider's Emotional Labor: Moderating Effects of Collectivism

Since service providers directly conduct emotional labor to customers, it is important to identify the factors influencing emotional labor of service providers. Even though the studies identifying the predisposing factors influencing emotional labor are taking place, there is no empirical evidence confirming how relationship bonds, which have been established between corporations and service providers, are related to emotional labor. This study examined the influences of relationship bonds on emotional labor through person-organization fit (P-O fit) and the moderating effects of collectivism between P-O fit and emotional labor. Analysis was conducted by performing questionnaire surveys targeting 350 employees in the financial industry. As a result of the analysis, it has been found that financial bonds, social bonds, and structural bonds enhanced P-O fit and P-O fit improved deep acting. In addition, this study identified that collectivism of service providers strengthened the influence of P-O fit toward deep acting. This study not only suggested the empirical evidence identifying the process of relationship bonds influencing emotional labor but also expanded the scope of study by examining moderating roles of collectivism in cultural psychology aspect.