General Discussion

After reading paper attached, write Your

General Discussion

section, this will be new in Paper V. Here, you will summarize

your results from BOTH studies and draw conclusions, but you will NOT use statistics

again. This section will evaluate both of your studies and see if (and how) they connect

and lead you to general conclusions. That is, your general discussion is the end of your

story, so make sure to tie it back to information that you presented throughout both of

your studies. You can also identify flaws in your study designs as well as propose new

directions for future research in this section.

APA format is mandatory and also this part should be two to three pages.
Running head: FACEBOOK CONSENSUS 1

FACEBOOK CONSENSUS 6

Facebook Consensus: The Dynamics of Social Media Responses

Wendy Perez Ramos

Florida International University

The Dynamics of Social Media Responses

Moral judgment is commonly swayed by irrelevant factors, whereby people tend to arrive at the judgment(s) about different actions as being wrong if they are predisposed to fury prior to the making of moral judgment. On the contrary, the bias for positive emotions makes unacceptable actions at times appear acceptable. In the context, dilemmas that came before the prevalent one influence the permissibility of the unwarranted actions (Kundu & Cummins, 2013). The violation of rationality norms occurs when people allow social consensus to take precedence to facts (Kundu & Cummins, 2013). In like manner, accepting conformity creates room for error and confusion to spread reign a group, whereas the making of independent decisions as well as resistance to conform tends to be socially constructive (Kundu & Cummins, 2013). In this case, resistance to conformity may be considered both moral and rational, as it is commonplace for people’s behaviors to be frequently judged based on whether the persons involved relied on their moral principles or they simply complied. Conformity is, however, considered illogical if a person holds the belief that social consensus should be awarded less weight in the decision in comparison to one’s beliefs and values (Kundu & Cummins, 2013). In a nutshell, conformity can possibly be an outcome of a rational process, whereby the concerned people chose to follow their beliefs and the truth at the expense of a lie.

The seeking of knowledge continuously takes place on various social media platforms, whereby the determinants of the messages obtained by an individual are the pages followed and the friends that one has. Unfortunately, the platforms are responsible for the spread of fake news, whereby some players hide their identities and post content to reinforce their positions (Perfumi et al., 2019). Notably, social norms exist on the platforms but people’s perception of the values vary for a number of reasons, which include platform type, anonymity, and the nature of relationships between friends (Perfumi et al., 2019). Moreover, conformity to social norms in the context of social platforms varies significantly from that of face to face, while social influence therein may be categorized into norms-oriented social influence and information-oriented one. Remarkably, it would be necessary to create a distinction between the two aspects. The implication is that online users who feel that they are anonymous may experience the temptation to disregard the opinions that they could be exposed to. The other implication may be the motive of the users of online platforms. Where the intention is communication at the expense of conformity to social norms, the communicators tend to disregard the norms completely, while they may consider them in other cases (Perfumi et al., 2019).

Moral dilemmas entail the determination of whether to accept harm in a bid to prevent bigger catastrophes, and decision-makers who reject harm are often viewed as warm, moral, trustworthy, and empathetic. The concepts originated in philosophy, an example of related sub-disciplines being utilitarian philosophy, which considers the impartial maximization of the greater good. In the context, decision-making systems focus on the action at hand against myriad factors, which include long-term goals, adherence to moral rules, and the application of moral grammar. Usually, people really care about individual moral reputation and dilemma decisions have an impact on standing (Rom & Conway, 2018). Furthermore, past research indicates that people can be considerably accurate when assessing how peers view them with self and social ratings converging when the traits in question involve public behaviors. As an illustration that people care about their presentation to others, many persons tailor public images to values and preferences that are perceived as being generally acceptable. In this case, some people are forced to conform to pressure for the rejection of harm than accepting it. In case of an opportunity to establish warmth through social interactions, it is commonplace for people to exhibit other qualities such as competence.

Social influence consists of some distinct, conceivable differences, one of which is normative social influence. The variant describes the influence to adhere to certain expectations that are other people cherish. The second process is informational social influence, which is the tendency to accept information, which is provided by people, as evidence for the support of reality. When both cases apply to the context of a product, the information provided should be uniform in terms of product quality and should possess a direct impact on the evaluation of consumers (Cohen & Golden, 1972). Interpersonal response orientations refer to the modes in which people commonly respond to others. Usually, people exhibit a balance between orientations and will be flexible based on the demands of various situations. The bottom line, however, is that an individual will show preference to some given orientation. In a nutshell, social influence operates in situations that do not exhibit strong normative pressures, while no noticeable difference exists between high and low uniformity treatment groups.

Study One

In general, we predict that participants who read unanimously supportive feedback will rate the Facebook user’s conduct as more acceptable than participants who read unanimously oppositional feedback, with those who read mixed feedback falling between these extremes.

More specifically, participants in the unanimously supportive condition will more strongly agree with supportive survey statements (“Abigail’s behavior was understandable, “Abigail’s behavior was reasonable”, “Abigail’s behavior was appropriate”, “I would advise Abigail to keep silent”, and “I would try to comfort Abigail”) and more strongly disagree with oppositional survey statements (“Abigail’s behavior was wrong”, “Abigail’s behavior was unethical”, “Abigail’s behavior was immoral”, and “Abigail’s behavior was unacceptable”) compared to participants in the unanimously oppositional condition, with participants in the mixed condition falling between these extremes. However, participants in both the unanimously supportive and unanimously oppositional conditions will strongly agree that they would give Abigail the same advice that her friends gave her.

Methods Study One

Participants

The students are selected randomly from Florida University for the study and the sample size is one hundred and forty for the study. Among 140 students 44.3% were male and 52.1% were female, total male respondent are (n=62) and female respondents are (n=73), only five participants did not mention their gender. Participants consist of a population of 40% Hispanic American (n=56), Asian Americans were 6.4% (n=9), Caucasians were 25.7% (n=36) and Native Indians were 2.1% (n=3). While African Americans were 17.1% ( n=24) and Asian Americans who are almost 6.4% (n=9). See Appendices 1

Materials and Procedure

Based on the procedure used to this study, students had to look at the Facebook of a college student named Abigail. In this page, they would see a profile with a complete description of her. Also they see a demographic section which contains a long paragraph discussing an incident in which Abigail accidentally got an exam answer key during an exam and used it to get the best grade in the course. She feel ashamed about it and want some suggestions from her friends. The advices from Abigail’s friends varies, according to the level of understanding of her behavior. Some of her friend think that her conduct was corrected, while others said that she should be honest and tell her professor about her bad conduct.

Then, participants were given a series of statements in order to see their impressions towards Abigail and her cheating behavior as well as whether they agree with her friends advices. All the students have agreed to participate and got their questions sheet without noticing that each one was part of three different conditions. This was conducted in order to see if their feedback support the wrong behavior of Abigail, or if they are opposed this, or if they have a mixed feedback about it.

The participant proceeded to the second part of the study, which was made out of a series of questions, in order to rate their impressions towards Abigail’s behavior. They are asked to agree or disagreed with seven about Abigail, using a scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 6 (strongly agree). These include , “Abigail’s behavior was wrong”, Abigail’s behavior was understandable”, “Abigail’s behavior was reasonable”, “Abigail’s behavior was unethical”, “Abigail’s behavior was immoral”, “Abigail’s behavior was appropriate”, and “Abigail’s behavior was unacceptable”.

Part three of the questions were based on how would participants advise Abigail and how they would respond if they mistakenly received the answer key. In this part,…