“Transformation Tuesday”: Temporal context and post valence influence the provision of social support on social media

ABSTRACT

Social network sites (SNSs) such as Facebook have become integral in the development and maintenance of interpersonal relationships. Users of SNSs seek social support and validation, often using posts that illustrate how they have changed over time. The purpose of the present research is to examine how the valence and temporal context of an SNS post affect the likelihood of other users providing social support. Participants viewed hypothetical SNS posts and reported their intentions to provide social support to the users. Results revealed that participants were more likely to provide social support for posts that were positive and included temporal context (i.e., depicted improvement over time; Study 1). Furthermore, this research suggests that visual representations of change over time are needed to elicit social support (Study 2). Results are discussed in terms of their practical implications for SNS users and theoretical implications for the literature on social support and social media.

KEYWORDS:

• Facebook
• social media
• social networking
• social support
• temporal context

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Data availability statement

The data described in this article are openly available in the Open Science Framework at https://osf.io/rstc5/ (DOI: 10.17605/OSF.IO/RSTC5)

Open Scholarship

This article has earned the Center for Open science badges for Open Data and Open Materials through Open Practices Disclosure. The data and materials are openly accessible at https://osf.io/rstc5/ (DOI: 10.17605/OSF.IO/RSTC5)

Notes

1. Materials and data are publicly available for download through our Open Science Framework page at https://osf.io/rstc5/ (DOI: 10.17605/OSF.IO/RSTC5).

2. To examine the effects of participant gender, social support intentions were submitted to a 2 (Gender: Male or female) X (Post valence: Positive or negative) X 3 (Temporal context: Distant past, recent past, or no context) between-subjects ANOVA. Gender had a significant effect on social support intentions, such that women had higher social support intentions (M = .14, SD = .64) than men (M = -.16, SD = .66; F(1, 277) = 12.69, p < .001). However, gender did not interact with post valence (F(1, 277) = .29, p = .59), temporal context (F(2, 277) = .47, p = .62), or the post valence X temporal context interaction (F(2, 277) = .68, p = .51). The main effects and interaction described above remained significant when gender was included in the model.

3. Although Studies 1, 2a, and 2b were all conducted in 2016, Facebook made a slight change to its response options during this time. Users can now indicate different responses with a simple click. In addition to “like,” users can click “love,” “haha,” “wow,” “sad,” or “angry” to convey a wider range of reactions. The wording of the social support items in Study 2b was adjusted slightly to account for these different response options. For example, participants were asked, “If you logged into Facebook and saw this post from an acquaintance, how likely would you be to press the ‘like’ button (or another reaction button, such as ‘love’ or ‘sad’)?” (1 = not at all likely, 5 = very likely).

4. Our valence manipulation of health/fitness status likely also manipulated perceived attractiveness of the target because a thin, lean physique is considered attractive for both men and women in Western culture (e.g., Cafri, Yamamiya, Brannick, & Thompson, 2005; Tod, Edwards, & Hall, 2013). Thus, one could speculate that any results found on the valence manipulation could also be due to an attractiveness effect. However, several findings speak against this interpretation. First, the main effect of valence was replicated in Studies 2a and 2b where no pictures were used (Studies 2a and 2b) and a non-fitness related context was assessed (Study 2a). Second, target attractiveness cannot account for the effects of temporal context in Study 1. Participants in the conditions that included temporal context saw both the more attractive and less attractive photos of the target people (i.e., “before and after” photos) in the same photo sets. This suggests that although photos are an important component of gaining social support from “transformation” posts, attractiveness is not a viable explanation for these results.