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Group behavior in social media: Antecedents of initial trust formation

TL;DR: The study finds that peers are likely to invest blind faith in the content shared on social media groups without subjecting it to verification, and identifies the threat of biased peers, who spread irresponsible content with predetermined motives to influence members of certain socialMedia groups.
About: This article is published in Computers in Human Behavior.The article was published on 2020-04-01 and is currently open access. It has received 62 citations till now. The article focuses on the topics: Social media & Social theory.

Summary (6 min read)

1. Introduction

  • Recent events suggest that social media users do not analyze, investigate, and/or validate sources of the content they share with their network members/peers.
  • Some political activists took advantage of this situation and created false propaganda on social media platforms to instigate young people against the government, creating unrest in Bangladesh (The Daily Star, 2018) .
  • This social learning from external environment, where any single attribute change confirms customers' overall perception change, is very similar to social group behavior.

2.1 Social Media Marketing

  • Social media marketing has caught momentum in the recent years and marketing managers are now allocating enough time and resources to build on its benefits (Dwivedi et al., 2015; See-To & Ho, 2014) .
  • Due to changing lifestyles, behaviors, and psychological and commercial statuses, consumers do not deliberate over promotional messages communicated via traditional advertisements (Shareef et al., 2019) .
  • They enthusiastically allocate daily time to provide opinions and share experiences on social media (Eltantawy & Wiest, 2011; Haciyakupoglu & Zhang, 2015) .
  • Such social interaction medium gives marketers a new platform for persuading consumers to learn about their products and services; in some cases, members of social media groups can utilize this opportunity to infiltrate certain preformed unfavorable notions about such marketers (Eltantawy & Wiest, 2011; Ems, 2014; Haciyakupoglu & Zhang, 2015; Lee & Chan, 2015) .
  • In summary, subversive sharing of predirected opinions can have detrimental effects on society and market economy.

2.2 Behavior and Attitude

  • Consumers' behavioral attitude is composed of marketing, social, and individual traits (Bagozzi et al., 2012) .
  • Traditionally, attitude is cognitive, affective, and conative.
  • Proponents of social learning theory (Bandura, 1963; Bandura, 2002; Schaik et al., 2011; Skinner, 1957) acknowledge that psychologically, people are more biased to learn from social interactions, which are compatible with their own intentions, judgment, and attitude towards life.
  • Since social media group members have congruent attitudes, they are inspired to share opinions by learning from messages shared by other group members (Eltantawy & Wiest, 2011; Lee & Chan, 2015) , without verifying every message.
  • Trustworthiness is a self-concept, which is developed willingly and spontaneously in forming favorable cognitive attitudes towards shared content (Haciyakupoglu & Zhang, 2015; Hughes, 2011; Lee & Chan, 2015) .

2.3 Trust Model

  • By organizing the central idea of trust in the context of social media, it can be deduced as the overall confidence a person has in their own cognitive, affective, and behavioral attitude towards another socially associated individual's actions to be aligned with their expectations (Gefen & Straub, 2004; Schaik et al., 2011) .
  • Researchers suggest that for any social interaction involving remote technology, for instance -computer mediated interactions, both external and internal environments impact interpersonal trust (Goles et al., 2009; Li et al., 2008; Shin, 2009) .
  • Researchers analyzing trust reveal different paradigms of trustworthiness, parties to be trusted, and social interactions that may lead to trusting behavior (Gefen, 2002; Jarvenpaa et al., 2000; Mukherjee & Nath, 2003; Shareef et al., 2008) .
  • By using the socio-technical lens (McAllister, 1995) , it can be suggested that trust formation is directly related to the psychological status and compatibility between members of a social media group.

3. Conceptual model and hypotheses development

  • The authors base their theoretical framework on the following premise -in trusting peers of a social media group, the expectation is that there are no preformed motives or personal gains for members who circulate content in that group (Shareef et al., 2018a) .
  • Trusting such content is governed by affective component of attitude; in addition, cognitive component of attitude derived from experience of interacting with social network peers also contributes to trust formation (Shareef et al., 2018a) .
  • This cognitive component is shaped by interactions between peers, who demonstrate identical beliefs and consensus towards social incidents (McKnight et al., 2002; Schaik et al., 2011) .

3.1 Dependability (DD) and Fulfilled Expectations (FE)

  • Social psychologists postulate that the need-satisfaction process motivates trust (Butler, 1991; Jarvenpaa & Tractinsky, 1999; Shareef et al., 2018b) .
  • In social media interactions, users eagerly share and support peer views, which can fulfill, or at least supplement their needs without them having to deliberate over the validity of such content (Gefen, 2002; McKnight et al., 2002) .
  • From literature on trust (Ganesan, 1994; Giffin, 1967; Jarvenpaa & Tractinsky, 1999; McAllister, 1995) , the authors shortlist two constructs -dependability (personal deficiency) and fulfilled expectation (social deficiency) to measure needs-based trust.
  • From literature based on trust (Butler, 1991; Ganesan, 1994; Giffin, 1967; Jarvenpaa & Tractinsky, 1999) , the authors define fulfilled expectations as the assurance that a social media group member has the capacity, integrity, and ability to overcome social deficiencies via their contributions on social media.
  • Researchers in human psychology recognize this trait as -fulfilled expectations.

3.2 Familiarity (FM) and Credibility (CR)

  • People, as free agents of the society, have complicated psychological status and do not behave rationally, or make decisions with predictable social judgment (Angeli et al., 2016; Kumar et al., 1995; Williamson, 1993) .
  • Typically, rules and regulations have enormous impact on controlling physical institutions, but social media is virtual, where a group of people with unified doctrines and expectations from society interact in the hope of developing group perceptions, uncontrolled by external regulations (Gefen & Straub, 2004; Hosmer, 1995) .
  • Familiarity, a behavioral component of trust, mostly governed by affective attitude, can reduce uncertainty (Fukuyama, 1995.) .
  • As theory of mind (Astington, 2003) suggests, in navigating social gaps and unsatisfactory situations, unfulfilled desires of human mind inherently support expected tasks of known people, who consistently correlate and supplement that person's inert intentions.
  • From literature based on trust (Butler, 1991; Ganesan, 1994; Kumar, 1996) , the authors define credibility as the confidence in peers of a social media group that they will not intentionally fabricate facts, as they are free from social and commercial bias.

3.3 Predictability (PR) and Conformity (CN)

  • When someone behaves as expected, their behavior reflects predictability (Frey & Jegen, 2001) .
  • Different researchers (Hogg, 2003; Li et al., 2008) argue that in social media interactions, members attempt to dispose trust in peers, as they can predict peer behaviours, and also find evidence that conforms to their predictions.
  • This study thus defines two constructs, predictability and conformity for the development of initial trust.
  • Self-perception theory (Bem, 1967) suggests, group interactions are highly dominated, controlled, and evaluated on the assumption that they are entirely speculated and expected.
  • Perception of norms also supplements the behavioral strength of predictability.

3.4 Norms (NR) and Monitor (MN)

  • Cognitive learning theory (Bandura, 1963; Mowrer, 1960) suggests, people analyze information rhetorically from the perspectives of counter logic, supporting logic, and source of derogation before believing it (Shareef et al., 2018a) .
  • Classical conditioning illustrates that a nonresponsive stimulus, if paired with a responsive stimulus can create a response.
  • TRA provides insights on social presence focusing on norms, which suggests influence of social surroundings on development of cognitive values governing attitude (Ajzen, 1991; Dwivedi et al., 2018b; Gefen & Straub, 2004) .
  • Media richness theory (Daft & Lengel, 1986) suggests that perception of social presence and connectivity through social media groups can trigger persuasive feelings of trust amongst peers.
  • Researchers on virtual medium assert that the key principle of virtual relationship management is to develop, maintain, and establish connectivity amongst users (McKnight et al., 2002) .

4. Research Methodology

  • The objective of this research is to identify the antecedents of initial trust development between peers of a social media group.
  • The methodology followed here is consistent with other social media marketing research conceptualizing the epistemological and ontological beliefs (French, 2017; Rose & Wood, 2005) of social media users.
  • The authors employ exploratory approach toidentify antecedents of initial trust formation by analyzing social psychology and trust models/theories; observing social media user behavior in trusting the content shared by their peers through a closed experiment; conducting systematic survey to capture antecedents of trustworthiness behavior; and analyzing and verifying the proposed cause-effect relationships.
  • Absence of rules and regulations in market transactions is an acute problem in emerging markets like Bangladesh.
  • The authors target a closed Facebook group, where three research assistants (RA) appointed for this research, are active members.

H3

  • The questionnaire was tested by a focus group of three university professors in Bangladesh with expertise in marketing, particularly in people behavior on social media, and two researchers with experience in launching advertisements on social media; they assessed the questionnaire for its consistency, reliability, meaning, and significance.
  • Next, the questionnaire was tested by 25 students from a leading business school in Bangladesh, also active members of different social media groups with experience in sharing content related to social and marketing issues.
  • The authors employed a 5-point Likert scale ranging from one (strongly disagree/never) to five (strongly agree/always), which is a useful instrument for measuring consumer behavior in marketing studies, and helps increase the response rate and quality (Babakus & Mangold, 1992) .

4.2 Experimental Design

  • The following message, M1 was created and circulated in a closed Facebook group with 1174 members by one of the RAs (active member of this group), "The mobile operating company…X… claims that their call rate per minute is 0.60 Taka; however, their one minute actually measures 53 seconds.
  • The RA circulated this message pretending that this is his independent unbiased opinion without any imposed motive.
  • Within a week, other group members posted their own views on M1 or simply read it.
  • After one week of posting M2, the third RA posted the following social message, M3 in the same group on the failure of Dhaka City Corporation to manage traffic jams.
  • This is the primary reason of road accidents".

4.3 Data Collection

  • After a week, one of the RAs introduced an author of this paper to the members of this closed Facebook group as the researcher.
  • The questionnaire with 37 items was emailed to all 1174 members of the group, requesting a response.
  • The members were askedif they read and share the content posted by their peers in their Facebook group, if they positively perceive such content sharing, and if they trust the knowledge, experience, and evaluation of their group peers.
  • The authors sample size is representative of the Bangladeshi population interacting on social media (Shareef et al., 2018a) .
  • About 37 percent respondents are working class people (employees in different organizations), 33 percent are students, and the rest belong to different groups.

5. Research Results

  • Sample adequacy was examined using the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) test as a basis of fitness.
  • Kaiser (1974) proposed that a KMO < 0.5 suggests factor analysis is inappropriate.
  • The Bartlett Sphericity test was also significant at 0.000.
  • The authors employed structural equation modeling (SEM), a multivariate technique to reveal relationships between the constructs and their scale items via a reflective model, and cause-effect relationships between the dependent and independent constructs via a formative model.
  • A two-step approach, where the confirmatory measurement model precedes the structural model was undertaken (Anderson and Gerbing, 1988) .

5.1 Validity Testing

  • This study undertook CFA to examine and verify the validity and acceptance of the scale items for all shortlisted constructs.
  • The CFA analysis and loading patterns confirmed that the reflective indicators appropriately measured their respective unobserved variables.
  • After the removal of these six scale items, all measuring items loaded at values exceeding 0.50, confirming convergent validity (Fornell & Larcker, 1981; Kline, 2011) .
  • Measurement model showed the largest shared variance between the independent factors was lower than the least average variances extracted (AVE) for each factor and its measures (Chau, 1997) .
  • The variance-extracted test was undertaken to verify discriminant validity, which is ensured between two constructs if both their variances are greater than the squared correlations between the two constructs (Fornell & Larcker, 1981) .

5.2 Reliability Testing

  • Composite reliability scores indicate internal consistency of the scale items to measure any latent construct, and are estimated by the standardized factor loadings and indicator's measurement error (Fornell & Larcker, 1981) .
  • This study found the composite reliability scores of all latent variables to be higher than 0.7, indicating adequate consistency amongst the scale items to measure their corresponding latent variables (Table 2 ).

5.3 Cause-Effect Relationships for Social Media Trust

  • SEM was employed for the structural part of the model to examine the hypothesized cause-effect relationships.
  • Both unstandardized and standardized regression weights (factor loadings) for the cause-effect relationships were verified.
  • The authors found -dependability, credibility, and conformity did not predict initial trust formation, as their path coefficients were not significant (<0.05).
  • The fitness indices suggest a causal relationship from norms to predictability.

6. Discussions

  • Fulfilled Expectations have the highest influence on SMT formation.
  • Predictability also significantly contributes towards fulfilled expectations (H5b: accepted).
  • Due to absence of freedom of speech, equal rights, censored media, poverty, exercise of power by political and upper class people, social discrepancy, and other irregularities, majority people in developing countries feel suppressed, and unable to fulfill their social desires.
  • Being unconsciously influenced by the group in the preliminary stages, social media peers gradually discover that interdependency has control on their group behavior and their own attitude (McCarthy, 2009) .
  • Therefore, norms and monitor contribute to the development of initial social media trust.

6.1 Theoretical Contributions

  • From their findings and the epistemological and ontological paradigms of the shortlisted constructs, the authors conclude that SMT is governed by the affective component of attitude.
  • This study finds that human behavior in trusting peers on social media is not developed from any logical interference; rather, it is governed by affective attitude towards social media peers.
  • Willing and spontaneous sharing of psychological feelings is fundamentally an emotional exchange, often preoccupied with a belief of social presence (Bandura, 1989; Eltantawy & Wiest, 2011; Ems, 2014) .
  • Several researchers suggest that trust is formed without verified knowledge of biasness, and is spread due to feelings of mutual integrity and caring attitude (Gefen & Silver, 1999) .

6.2 Implications for Practice and Policy

  • Social media is evolving as a potential marketing channel for companies to reach customers, promote products, change beliefs and attitudes, and establish market standards via group dynamics (Haciyakupoglu & Zhang, 2015; Lee & Chan, 2015) .
  • Insights into users' group behavior and categorization of group dynamics can significantly improve the understanding of consumer characteristics.
  • Corporate marketing managers struggling to promote their products are now looking to utilize social media platforms.
  • This study identifies another interesting avenue of investigating biased peers with intentions to promote pre-determined agendas amongst members of a group.
  • SMT behavior is increasingly influenced by attitude towards peers in the group, where there is mutual trust without reservations.

7. Conclusions

  • This empirical study explores the trust development process on social media platforms.
  • The authors develop a theoretical framework for the antecedents of social media trust, which influence the willingness of social media users to believe in the product/service/social content shared by their peers.
  • The study's findings have significant implications for policymakers, social psychologists, and marketing people, as they offer valuable insights on people behavior.
  • The authors undertake this study in Bangladesh, since developing countries are more prone to social, political, and economic instability, following rumors on social media networks.
  • In terms of relative importance, personality-based predictability, knowledge-based familiarity, and social presence based monitor and norms significantly contribute to the development of unconditional trust.

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Citations
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TL;DR: In this paper, the Shand-McDougall concept of sentiment is taken over and used in the explanation of moral motivation, which is reinforced by social pressures and by religion, treating as an effort of finite man to live in harmony with the infinite reality.
Abstract: In his Preface the author' says that he started out to review all the more important theories upon the topics ordinarily discussed under human motivation but soon found himself more and more limited to the presentation of his own point of view. This very well characterizes the book. It is a very personal product. It is an outline with some defense of the author's own thinking about instincts and appetites and sentiments and how they function in human behavior. And as the author draws so heavily upon James and McDougall, especially the latter, the book may well be looked upon as a sort of sequel to their efforts. There is a thought-provoking distinction presented between instinct and appetite. An instinct is said to be aroused always by something in the external situation; and, correspondingly, an appetite is said to be aroused by sensations from within the body itself. This places, of course, a heavy emphasis upon the cognitive factor in all instinctive behaviors; and the author prefers to use the cognitive factor, especially the knowledge of that end-experience which will satisfy, as a means of differentiating one instinct from another. In this there is a recognized difference from McDougall who placed more emphasis for differentiation upon the emotional accompaniment. The list of instincts arrived at by this procedure is much like that of McDougall, although the author is forced by his criteria to present the possibility of food-seeking and sex and sleep operating both in the manner of an appetite and also as an instinct. The Shand-McDougall concept of sentiment is taken over and used in the explanation of moral motivation. There is the development within each personality of a sentiment for some moral principle. But this sentiment is not a very powerful motivating factor. It is reinforced by social pressures and by religion, which is treated as an effort of finite man to live in harmony with the infinite reality. Those whose psychological thinking is largely in terms of McDougall will doubtless find this volume a very satisfying expansion; but those who are at all inclined to support their psychological thinking by reference to experimental studies will not be so well pleased. The James-Lange theory, for example, is discussed without mention of the many experimental studies which it has provoked. Theoretical sources appear in general to be preferred to experimental investigations.

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  • ...…et al., 2015b, Abed et al., 2016; Dwivedi et al., 2015a; Felix et al., 2017; Kapoor et al., 2016; Plume et al., 2016; Rathore et al., 2016; Shareef et al., 2018; Shareef et al., 2019a; Shareef, Mukerji, Dwivedi, Rana, & Islam, 2019b; Shiau et al., 2017, 2018; Singh et al., 2017; Yang et al., 2017)....

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References
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TL;DR: Ajzen, 1985, 1987, this article reviewed the theory of planned behavior and some unresolved issues and concluded that the theory is well supported by empirical evidence and that intention to perform behaviors of different kinds can be predicted with high accuracy from attitudes toward the behavior, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control; and these intentions, together with perceptions of behavioral control, account for considerable variance in actual behavior.

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"Group behavior in social media: Ant..." refers background or result in this paper

  • ...TPB (Ajzen, 1991) asserts group behavior is dominated by socially surrounded people i.e. subjective norms, as they are continuously connected on social media....

    [...]

  • ...TRA provides insights on social presence focusing on norms, which suggests influence of social surroundings on development of cognitive values governing attitude (Ajzen, 1991; Dwivedi et al., 2018b; Gefen & Straub, 2004)....

    [...]

  • ...In line with this argument, researchers (Ajzen, 1991; Altman & Taylor, 1973; Gefen & Straub, 2004; Moorman et al., 1993) reveal that norms shaping behavioral intentions and capacity to monitor are two fundamental pragmatic constructs influencing trust amongst social media peers (Aiken, 2002)....

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  • ...Theory of reasoned action (TRA) (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975) and theory of planned behavior (TPB) (Ajzen, 1991) support this idea by suggesting - social associations i.e. ‘subjective norms’ significantly influence user behavior....

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TL;DR: In this paper, the statistical tests used in the analysis of structural equation models with unobservable variables and measurement error are examined, and a drawback of the commonly applied chi square test, in additit...
Abstract: The statistical tests used in the analysis of structural equation models with unobservable variables and measurement error are examined. A drawback of the commonly applied chi square test, in addit...

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TL;DR: The book aims to provide the skills necessary to begin to use SEM in research and to interpret and critique the use of method by others.
Abstract: Designed for students and researchers without an extensive quantitative background, this book offers an informative guide to the application, interpretation and pitfalls of structural equation modelling (SEM) in the social sciences. The book covers introductory techniques including path analysis and confirmatory factor analysis, and provides an overview of more advanced methods such as the evaluation of non-linear effects, the analysis of means in convariance structure models, and latent growth models for longitudinal data. Providing examples from various disciplines to illustrate all aspects of SEM, the book offers clear instructions on the preparation and screening of data, common mistakes to avoid and widely used software programs (Amos, EQS and LISREL). The book aims to provide the skills necessary to begin to use SEM in research and to interpret and critique the use of method by others.

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01 Jan 1989
TL;DR: Regression analyses suggest that perceived ease of use may actually be a causal antecdent to perceived usefulness, as opposed to a parallel, direct determinant of system usage.

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"Group behavior in social media: Ant..." refers background in this paper

  • ...Society can be benefitted from the message posted in our social media group Davis, 1989; Gefen et al., 2003; Pavlou, 2003; Rogers, 1995; Shareefet al., 2007; Wolfinbarger & Gilly, 2003 Familiarity (FM) 11....

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TL;DR: In this article, the authors developed and validated new scales for two specific variables, perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use, which are hypothesized to be fundamental determinants of user acceptance.
Abstract: Valid measurement scales for predicting user acceptance of computers are in short supply. Most subjective measures used in practice are unvalidated, and their relationship to system usage is unknown. The present research develops and validates new scales for two specific variables, perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use, which are hypothesized to be fundamental determinants of user acceptance. Definitions of these two variables were used to develop scale items that were pretested for content validity and then tested for reliability and construct validity in two studies involving a total of 152 users and four application programs. The measures were refined and streamlined, resulting in two six-item scales with reliabilities of .98 for usefulness and .94 for ease of use. The scales exhibited hgih convergent, discriminant, and factorial validity. Perceived usefulness was significnatly correlated with both self-reported current usage r = .63, Study 1) and self-predicted future usage r = .85, Study 2). Perceived ease of use was also significantly correlated with current usage r = .45, Study 1) and future usage r = .59, Study 2). In both studies, usefulness had a signficnatly greater correaltion with usage behavior than did ease of use. Regression analyses suggest that perceived ease of use may actually be a causal antecdent to perceived usefulness, as opposed to a parallel, direct determinant of system usage. Implications are drawn for future research on user acceptance.

40,720 citations

Related Papers (5)
Frequently Asked Questions (14)
Q1. What contributions have the authors mentioned in the paper "Group behavior in social media: antecedents of initial trust formation" ?

This study investigates the influence of antecedents of user trust amongst peers on social media platforms that they apply without sufficient cognitive judgment. Based on extensive literature review and analysis of social theories, the authors propose a theoretical framework for social media trust ( SMT ). Based on the SMT model, the authors conduct empirical analysis using structural equation modeling to verify the cause-effect relationships hypothesized in this study. The study finds that peers are likely to invest blind faith in the content shared on social media groups without subjecting it to verification. 

Such artificial setting is a limitation, and future researchers must investigate real-time interactions of social media users. In addition, people may have different responses for different subjects ; thus, future researchers may explore marketing and social issues separately. Age, gender, income, and education may have significant effects as the moderating variables on the SMT framework, which should also be investigated in the future. For generalization purposes, this framework can be replicated in similar cultural settings to confirm the findings. 

Due to absence of freedom of speech, equal rights, censored media, poverty, exercise of power by political and upper class people, social discrepancy, and other irregularities, majority people in developing countries feel suppressed, and unable to fulfill their social desires. 

Proponents of SET also certify that psychological dependence in the search for meeting personal deficiencies is key for developing trustworthiness behavior. 

Structural model represents the relationships between the latent variables and the dependent construct, i.e., the cause–effect relationships. 

Social psychologists postulate that the need-satisfaction process motivates trust (Butler, 1991; Jarvenpaa & Tractinsky, 1999; Shareef et al., 2018b). 

Due to changing lifestyles, behaviors, and psychological and commercial statuses, consumers do not deliberate over promotional messages communicated via traditional advertisements (Shareef et al., 2019). 

Social media is evolving as a potential marketing channel for companies to reach customers, promote products, change beliefs and attitudes, and establish market standards via group dynamics (Haciyakupoglu & Zhang, 2015; Lee & Chan, 2015). 

In controlling the development of perceptual belief, theorizing the antecedents of trust on social media is becoming an issue for social scientists and marketing researchers (Haciyakupoglu & Zhang, 2015; Lee & Chan, 2015). 

Evidence from social exchange theory (SET) (Thibaut & Kelley, 2008) and Mcleland’s need theory (McClelland, 1988) suggests that strong desire for fulfilling needs motivates users to engage with peers capable of pursuing speculations that fulfill those deficiencies. 

From literature based on trust (Butler, 1991; Ganesan, 1994; Giffin, 1967; Jarvenpaa & Tractinsky, 1999), the authors define fulfilled expectations as the assurance that a social media group member has the capacity, integrity, and ability to overcome social deficiencies via their contributions on social media. 

While five variables – fulfilled expectation, predictability, familiarity, monitor, and norms emerged significant, three variables – dependability, credibility, and conformity (H1, H4 and H6) were non-significant. 

This study found the composite reliability scores of all latent variables to be higher than 0.7, indicating adequate consistency amongst the scale items to measure their corresponding latent variables (Table 2). 

for emerging markets, analyzing group behavior in the context of social media interactions is an issue of utmost importance.