Self-Disclosure, Interpersonal Relationships, and Stickiness of Online Communities

Abstract

Online communities change the way people interact. Due to the high diversity of online communities, how to maintain and increase user participation is an important issue for the administrators of those sites. This study first examines propensity to trust, need for affiliation, and exhibitionism as antecedents to self-disclosure and relationship maintenance and further explores the effects of self-disclosure and relationship maintenance on intimacy as well as the relation of intimacy to stickiness. By convenience and snowball sampling, 503 valid responses to an online questionnaire were collected. Data was analyzed using SPSS 20.0 and AMOS 7.0. Results indicate that need for affiliation and exhibitionism have positive effects on self-disclosure, that propensity to trust and need for affiliation are antecedents to relationship maintenance, that self-disclosure and relationship maintenance contribute to intimacy, and that intimacy reinforces stickiness to online communities.