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Group awareness and self-presentation in computer-supported information exchange

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Abstract

A common challenge in many situations of computer-supported collaborative learning is increasing the willingness of those involved to share their knowledge with other group members. As a prototypical situation of computer-supported information exchange, a shared-database setting was chosen for the current study. This information-exchange situation represented a social dilemma: while the contribution of information to a shared database induced costs and provided no benefit for the individual, the entire group suffered when all members decided to withhold information. In order to alleviate the information-exchange dilemma, a group-awareness tool was employed. It was hypothesized that participants would use group awareness for self-presentational purposes. For the examination of this assumption, the personality variable ‘protective self-presentation’ (PSP) was measured. An interaction effect of group awareness and PSP was found: when an awareness tool provided information concerning the contribution behavior of each individual, this tool was used as a self-presentation opportunity. In order to understand this effect in more detail, single items of the PSP-scale were analyzed.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Applied Cognitive Psychology and Media Psychology, University of Tuebingen, Konrad-Adenauer-Str. 40, 72072, Tuebingen, Germany

    Joachim Kimmerle

  2. Knowledge Media Research Center, Konrad-Adenauer-Str. 40, 72072, Tuebingen, Germany

    Ulrike Cress

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  1. Joachim Kimmerle
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Correspondence to Joachim Kimmerle.

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Kimmerle, J., Cress, U. Group awareness and self-presentation in computer-supported information exchange. Computer Supported Learning 3, 85–97 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11412-007-9027-z

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