Understanding WeChat Users’ Herd Behavior in Forwarding Health Information: An Empirical Study in China

Abstract

This paper attempts to examine the impacts of social influence factors and herd effect on the herd behavior on forwarding health information of WeChat users. The results of data analysis show that social influence factors have a significant impact on the herd behavior on forwarding health information of WeChat users through two mechanisms, namely, normative social influence and informational social influence. And herd effect factor has a positive impact on the herd behavior in forwarding health information. Especially, the impacts of informational social influence factors are greater, which had been ignored by previous literature. Implications for research and practice are also discussed.