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Wahyu Rahardjo, Indah Mulyani, Milka Santoso, Meity Arianty, Ridho Akbar Yogandito Lurking in ûffice Whatsapp Group: Examining The Role of Neuroticism, Knowledge contribution Loafing, Fear
of Losing Face, and playing Dumb российский психологический журнал, 20(3), 2023
СОЦИАЛЬНАЯ ПСИХОЛОГИЯ
Research article UDC: 159.9.072 https://doi.org/10.21702/rpj.2023.3.12
Lurking in Office WhatsApp Group: Examining the Role of Neuroticism, Knowledge Contribution Loafing, Fear of Losing Face, and Playing Dumb
Wahyu Rahardio1* , Indah Mulyani1 , Milka Santoso1 , Meity Arianty1 ,Ridho Akbar Yogandito1
xGunadarma University, Depok, Indonesia
'Corresponding author: wahyu r@staff.gunadarma.ac.id
Abstract
Introduction. WhatsApp group is ofen used as online communication among employees for achieving effectiveness and efficiency at work. However, they often passive and silent and may hardly contribute much to work-related discussions which known as lurking behavior. This study aim to measure whether a number of variables such as neuroticism, knowledge contribution loafing, fear of losing face, and playing dumb affect the lurking in the WhatsApp office group. Methods. Participants in this study were 600 employees from various cities in Indonesia. Multiple regression was carried out to measure the effect of each variable on the hole as the dependent variable. Results. The results showed R square = 0.615 which means, all independent variables have a large and significant contribution on lurking behavior. Although all the independent variables had a great influence on lurking, partially it appeared that only neuroitisism and fear of losing face had a significant effect on lurking. Discussion. Tasks at work are often delegated, shared, and discussed with work team members through WhatsApp groups. These conditions can encourage individuals with high neuroticism to withdraw from conversations in WhatsApp groups. It happens because that condition makes individuals with high neuroticism feel anxious, uncomfortable, and vulnerable to pressure as a result of work-related discussions in WhatsApp office groups. In addition, the fear of getting a negative response in the form of criticism from other group members, which includes personality, the fear of being wrong, and not believing in the environment, is a factor that must be considered in lurking behavior.
Wahyu Rahardjo, Indah Mulyani, Milka Santoso, Meity Arianty, Ridho Akbar Yogandito
Lurking in ûffice Whatsapp Group: Examining The Role of Neuroticism, Knowledge contribution Loafing, Fear
of Losing Face, and playing Dumb
российский психологический журнал, 20(3), 2023
СОЦИАЛЬНАЯ ПСИХОЛОГИЯ
Keywords
lurking, neuroticsm, knowledge contribution loafing, fear of losing face, playing dumb, office WhatsApp group
For citation
Rahardjo, W., Mulyani, I., Santoso, M., Arianty, M., & Yogandito, R. A. (2023). Lurking in Office WhatsApp Group: Examining The Role of Neuroticism, Knowledge Contribution Loafing, Fear of Losing Face, and Playing Dumb. Russian Psychological Journal, 20(3), 220-236. https://doi.org/10.21702/rpj.2023.3.12
Introduction
Online communication through social media become commonly thing and found in various aspects of life, including in the workplace. Social media usage not only useful for company marketing media and its products (Bossio, McCosker, Milne, Golding, & Albarran-Torres, 2019), but also maximize the effectiveness of communication among the workers and make them more merged with work (Adomi & Solomon-Uwakwe , 2019; Ariffin & Omar, 2018).
As like communication process involving many individuals, there are roles and dominance variants in the conversation. Some individuals in group chat are active speakers, an ordinary, and some others that quite and passive were doing lurking. Lurking commonly happened and often found in various form online communities communication (Hurtubise, Rivard, Berbari, Heguy, & Camden, 2017; Williams, Heiser, & Chinn, 2012). Online communities are virtual social groups that contain individuals with the same purpose of gathering (Schneider, von Krogh, & Jager, 2013). It is interesting to discuss groups that classified as a passive in online communication or lurkers. Lurkers are passive readers who prefer act as observers in a virtual community on social media and often referred as free-riders (Kollock & Smith, 1996; Preece, Nonnecke, & Andrews, 2004).
Lurking behavior can be found in education world when individuals prefer to be passive learners who do not provide feedback in the learning process in cyberspace (Bozkurt, Koutropoulos, Singh, & Honeychurch, 2020; Chen & Chang, 2011), it also found in social media relation for example due to privacy issues (Child & Starcher, 2016; Ortiz, Chih, & Tsai, 2018; Seigfried-Spellar & Lankford, 2018). Those issues were small part of lurking research on education and cyberspace social relations. Meanwhile, apart from the Neelen and Fetter studies (2010), there has not been much published research regarding employees as participants.
Lurking were considered to hamper the initial purpose of establishing a virtual community to maximize communication at work without being disturbed by employees' time and geographic location. However, individuals are not obligated being active in
Wahyu Rahardjo, Indah Mulyani, Milka Santoso, Meity Arianty, Ridho Akbar Yogandito Lurking in office Whatsapp Group: Examining The Role of Neuroticism, Knowledge Contribution Loafing, Fear
of Losing Face, and Playing Dumb российский психологический журнал, 20(3), 2023
СОЦИАЛЬНАЯ ПСИХОЛОГИЯ
virtual communities because the contribution is voluntary (Yeow, Johnson, & Faraj, 2006). On the other hand, the availability and ease of technology cannot always help individuals survive in achieving common targets, so further motivation is needed to keep individuals involved in online communities (Newell, Pan, Galliers, & Huang, 2001; Schneider, von Krogh, & Jager, 2013). At this point, it can be understood that lurking happened when there is a lack of reciprocity of communication and the process of sharing information smoothly and effectively related to work which is the main goal of the WhatsApp group formation.
Nguyen (2020) describes lurking behavior through a four-dimensional model. This model describes the reasons for lurking behavior which is categorized into four categories, namely individual, social, technological, and organizational or is called the ISTO model. According to Nguyen (2020), individual decisions to share knowledge or lurking are based on those four categories. Individual factors are individual characteristics that explain why different people show different behaviors for the same situation. Individual factors relate to members' perceptions of cognitive needs, knowledge self-efficacy, and loss of knowledge power (feel a sense of threat to their competitive advantage, power, importance and job security). Social, technological, and organizational factors explain how individuals respond under the influence of external factors. Social factors related to interactions with other members of the community, such as group cohesiveness, trust, and number of posts in the online community (information overload). Factors related to technical reasons that hinder individuals from posting, such as design quality, user perception, and level of ease of use. Organizational factors are related to the rules, norms, and structures in online communities that will influence lurking through commitment and management in the community.
Nonnecke and Preece (2001) tried to explain with The Gratification Model of Lurkers. This theory explains that lurking is a behavior based on a social relational context to get gratification and fulfill the needs. Lurking is thought to accommodate perceived needs. This theory explains that a person becomes lurker for four reasons, namely anonymity, privacy, and security, then time and work-related constraints, message volume and quality, and shyness over public postings. One other theory that can explain lurking is building an identity (Beaudouin & Vekovska, 1999). This theory explains that the involvement of individuals in a community is to form identity, take on roles and status. When the employee becomes aware through conversation and communication within the group that he or she does not match the primary identity of the group members, he or she will withdraw form conversation and showing passive behavior.
This research can be explained by using The Gratification Model of Lurkers belonging to Nonnecke and Preece (2001). Anonymity, privacy, and safety are the first reasons considered to accommodate the problem of neuroticism. Neuroticism causes individuals to easily feel uncomfortable and anxious in a social environment. When developing passive communication in conversations on WhatsApp Groups, individuals do not need to respond much so they can avoid feedback that might make them uncomfortable.
Wahyu Rahardjo, Indah Mulyani, Milka Santoso, Meity Arianty, Ridho Akbar Yogandito
Lurking in office Whatsapp Group: Examining The Role of Neuroticism, Knowledge Contribution Loafing, Fear
of Losing Face, and Playing Dumb
российский психологический журнал, 20(3), 2023
СОЦИАЛЬНАЯ ПСИХОЛОГИЯ
Then the second reason is shyness over public posting which represents variables such as knowledge contribution loafing, fear of losing space, and playing dumb. Individuals who refrain from providing comprehensive job information, fear of being criticized for posting opinions, and then pretending to be stupid do not know the topic being discussed are the reasons why employees are lurking in WhatsApp Groups. Meanwhile, other big reasons, such as time and work-related constraints, and message volume and quality, can be represented by other additional findings from the existing descriptive data.
Lurking doesn't happen suddenly for sure. There are several things that affect lurking. First is neuroticism. Personality has been referred as one of the internal factors that cause lurking in individuals (Amichai-Hamburger et al., 2016). Neuroticism personality types encourage individuals to engage in pleasant social online activities (Seigfried-Spellar & Lankford, 2018) because individuals with anxiety and low adaptability need a pleasant atmosphere to make themselves calm. One of the involvement of individuals with neuroticism personality types towards social internet usage is to accommodate their need to belongings and get a lot of information (Amiel & Sargent, 2004). Information and needs fulfillment can provide a pleasure for individuals when doing browsing. That is the reasonwhy the findings mention that neuroticism is positively correlated with the social media usage such as WhatsApp (Montag, Blaszkiewicz, Sariyska, Lachmann, Andone, Trendafilov, Eibes, & Markowetz, 2015).
Meanwhile, office WhatsApp group is an online community that was formed specifically for work. This is considered to accommodate the needs of its members to learn and develop their work needs (Pimmer, Abiodun, Daniels, & Chipps, 2019). There are lot of work delegated and discussed among members in Whatsapp group. At this point, work information develops into giving and demanding jobs. Dedeoglu, Okumus, Yi, and Jin (2019) stated that personality influences individuals in perceiving information sharing on social media. Changing information about work into giving work is not a pleasant and uncomfortable for individuals who avoid pressure in social relations. Thus, when an individuals' presence in an online social community brings them into an uncomfortable position for various reasons, they will tend to reduce their activities in the community. Therefore, the higher neuroticism tendency that individual have, the more passive they will be involved in the online community which they follow.
On the other hand, there are some other things that also suspected to support neuroticism in influencing lurking behavior in sharing knowledge, i.e. fear of losing face and pretending to be stupid. Emerging behaviors such as lack of self-confidence, fear of other people's perceptions, reluctance to share, less ready to get feedback, fear of making mistakes, hesitating and more comfortable being indifferent. Knowledge contribution loafingis often considered as a coping strategy of individuals to get a lighter effect from the perceived pressure (Fang, 2017). When individuals were holding the informations or intentionally not sharing work-related information, this is done not only because they feel uncomfortable, but also because they are afraid of getting negative feedback in the form of criticism and ridicule. At this point, fear of losing face causes the individual to
Wahyu Rahardjo, Indah Mulyani, Milka Santoso, Meity Arianty, Ridho Akbar Yogandito Lurking in office Whatsapp Group: Examining The Role of Neuroticism, Knowledge Contribution Loafing, Fear
of Losing Face, and Playing Dumb российский психологический журнал, 20(3), 2023
СОЦИАЛЬНАЯ ПСИХОЛОГИЯ
choose to be silent and passive (Fang, 2017; Osatuyi, 2015). Meanwhile, individuals also feel the need to be passive in a subtle way by pretending to be ignorant, ignorant the topic being discussed at that time in the group, or even pretending to skip the begining of the conversation regarding related topic discussed in the group (Conelly, Zweig, Webster, & Trougakos, 2012). This playing dumb behavior could help individuals reduce their influence in the group and also their social interaction (Demirkasimoglu, 2016). Based on those reasons, individuals can gave slower respond or not at all to work-related information which they dislike.
Based on the theoretical arguments presented earlier, this research aim to empirically investigate the effects of neuroticism, knowledge contributionloafing, fear of losing face, and playing dumb against employees'lurking behavior. This research also investigate the reason why employees doing lurking behavior in the WhatsApp group office.
Methods
Participants
The participants of this study were 600 employees who worked in several big cities in Indonesia. The majority of participants were men (N = 361), and the rest were women (N = 239).Google form were used for online data collection in order to get more participants because of geographical location consideration such as the city of residence, as well as the practical concerns in a data collection. At the beginning of the online questionnaire, the purpose of data collection and participant requirements was explained, as well as the willingness of applicant participants to participate or refuse to be part of this research.
Materials
Lurking is a passive behavior by not uploading something as a form of contribution in online communication for various reasons and preferring to be positioned as an observer (Edelmann, 2013; 2017). In this research, lurking was measured by using a scale belonging to Preece, Nonnecke, and Andrews (2004). This scale initially had a total of 25 items. One example of an item on this scale is "I feel like I'm in the wrong group".The reliability of this scale is 0.943.
Neuroticism is the tendency of inability to make psychological adjustments and emotional stability which is characterized by anxiety,fear, and distrust (Cullen & Morse, 2011). In this study neuroticism personality types are measured by using 5 Big Subscale that has been adjusted in the Indonesian context by Ramdhani (2012). This scale has a number of 4 items. Begins with the introductory sentence "I am a person who ...", an example of this item is "Easy moody". The reliability of this scale is 0.930.
Knowledge contribution loafing is individuals tendency to show less performance when working in a team than when working alone (Chidambaram & Tung, 2005). In this study the knowledge contribution loafings measured by using a scale belonging to
Wahyu Rahardjo, Indah Mulyani, Milka Santoso, Meity Arianty, Ridho Akbar Yogandito
Lurking in office Whatsapp Group: Examining The Role of Neuroticism, Knowledge Contribution Loafing, Fear
of Losing Face, and Playing Dumb
российский психологический журнал, 20(3), 2023
СОЦИАЛЬНАЯ ПСИХОЛОГИЯ
Kidwell and Robie (2003). One examples of items on this scale is"I share less knowledge than I have". The reliability of this scale is 0.830.
Fear of losing face is fear or anxiety feeling which associated with feelings of shame and worthless when the experience or knowledge shared were considered useless by others so that the individuals will hold the information that they have(Hwang, Francesco, & Kessler, 2003; Zhang & Ng, 2012). Fear of losing face is measured by using a scale belonging to Fang (2017). This scale has a number of 4 items. Begins with the introductory sentence "If I share knowledge in a group ...", an example of the item in this study is "I am afraid that others will find fault with the ideas that I have shared". The reliability of this scale is 0.944.
Playing dumb is a behavior in which the individuals pretend uncare about therelevant information therefore when they are presented certain topics to be discussed, they will behave as if they did not have enough knowledge related to the topic (Webster, Brown, Zweig, Conelly, Brodt, & Sitkin, 2008). Playing dumb is measured by using a scale belonging to Conelly et al. (2012). This scale consists of 5 items. Begins with the introductory sentence "When communicating in a group ...", an example of the items in this study is "I pretend not to understand what is really being talked about in the group". The reliability of this scale is 0.826.
Neuroticism scale has a response category Strongly Disagree to Strongly Agree with a score range from 1 to 7, knowledge contribution loafing scale has a response category Never to Very Often with a score range from 1 to 5, and the rests has a response category Very Inappropriate to Very Appropriate with a score range from 1 to 5.
Analysis Technique
The data analysis technique used in this study is multiple regression. This analysis technique is useful for measuring the effect of predictor variables in this study, i.e. neuroticism personality type, knowledge contribution loafing, fear of losing face, and playing dumb against lurking in WhatsApp office group. Some other things that are trying to be revealed such as reasons for lurking and discussion topics in groups which dislikewere asked through additional questions in other parts of the questionnaire where each participant can choose or give respond more than one answer.
Results
Correlation and Regression Analysis
Table 1 shows that employees' lurking behavior correlates with all independent variables, including demographic variables such as age, years of service, education level, and position in the organization. These demographic variables seem to provide additional interesting findings to complement the previously hypothesis. Table 2 and 3 show
Wahyu Rahardjo, Indah Mulyani, Milka Santoso, Meity Arianty, Ridho Akbar Yogandito Lurking in Office Whatsapp Group: Examining The Role of Neuroticism, Knowledge Contribution Loafing, Fear
of Losing Face, and Playing Dumb российский психологический журнал, 20(3), 2023
СОЦИАЛЬНАЯ ПСИХОЛОГИЯ
that only neuroticism and fear of losing face make a significant contribution to lurking behavior. Meanwhile, knowledge contribution loafing and playing dumb are not strong enough. However, all independent variables have a large and significant contribution on lurking behavior.
Table 1
Correlation Matrix between Variables and Demographic Data
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
1 2 .587**
3 .686** .538**
4 .739** .647** .694**
5 .681** .530** .995** .689**
6 -.209** -.279** -.243** -.282** -.242**
7 -.088* -.076 -.091* -.080* -.092* .436**
8 -.393** -.343** -.301** -.407** -.296** .208** .127**
9 -.322** -.370** -.332** -.368** -.328** .549** .113** .343**
M 70.01 13.56 15.54 11.03 15.51 31.55 3.89 4.37 2.16
SD 16.01 5.88 3.94 4.20 3.93 6.18 3.74 1.35 1.26
Note: 1 = lurking, 2 = neuroticism, 3 = knowledge contribution loafing, 4 = fear of losing face, 5 = playing dumb, 6 = age, 7 = years of services, 8 = education level, 9 = position in the organization*= p<.05, **= p<.01
Table 2
Regression of Each Independent Variables on Lurking Behavior
Model Unstandardized Coefficients Standardized Coefficients t Sig.
B Std. Error Beta
(Constant) 27.115 1.664 16.298 .000
neuroticism .379 .092 .139 4.111 .000
1 kbp 1.447 1.097 .357 1.320 .187
tkm 1.647 .151 .433 10.935 .000
ppb -.188 1.092 -.046 -.172 .864
a. Dependent Variable: lurking
Wahyu Rahardjo, Indah Mulyani, Milka Santoso, Meity Arianty, Ridho Akbar Yogandito
Lurking in office Whatsapp Group: Examining The Role of Neuroticism, Knowledge Contribution Loafing, Fear
of Losing Face, and Playing Dumb
российский психологический журнал, 20(3), 2023
СОЦИАЛЬНАЯ ПСИХОЛОГИЯ
Table 3
Simultaneous Regression of All Independent Variables on Lurking Behavior
Model
R
R Square Adjusted R Square
Std. Error of the Estimate
1
.784a
.615
.612
9.971
Note. a. Predictors: (Constant),ppb,neuroticism,tkm,kbp. Open-ended Questions
Based on the additional questions asked before, it is known that the presence of superiors or other people with higher positions is the most reason that mentioned by participants as the reason why they choose to be passive in WhatsApp office group. The following reasons are the number of coworkers in the WhatsApp group who are not very close, less confidence to participate, the number of work topics that are not mastered in the discussion, have conflicts with other group members, lots of unimportant things that were not related to work, busy with work, lazy, bored, refrain from being too active, and others reasons. For more details the results can be seen in Table 4.
Table 4
The reasons why participants do lurking
Reasons
N (%)
The presence of superiors or other people with higher positions
The number of coworkers in the WhatsApp group who are not very close
Less confidence to participate in the discussion
The number of work topics that are not mastered in the discussion
Have conflicts with other group members
The number of unimportant things that were not related to the work
Busy with work
Lazy, bored and refrain from being too active
Discussion topics were not related
There are group members who gave the responds earlier
Prefer to do direct communicatin (private chat or face to face communication)
Others
350 (34.34%) 194 (18.98%)
173 (16.92%) 146 (14.28%) 50 (4.89%)
28 (2.73%) 23 (2.25%) 19 (1.85%) 10 (0.97%) 10 (0.97%)
9 (0.88%) 6 (0.58%)
Wahyu Rahardjo, Indah Mulyani, Milka Santoso, Meity Arianty, Ridho Akbar Yogandito Lurking in office Whatsapp Group: Examining The Role of Neuroticism, Knowledge Contribution Loafing, Fear
of Losing Face, and Playing Dumb российский психологический журнал, 20(3), 2023
СОЦИАЛЬНАЯ ПСИХОЛОГИЯ
Table 5 shows the number of topics that the participants did not like as a topic of discussion in WhatsApp office group. The first thing that often mentioned the most is politics, followed by religion, private matters, the work itself, then gossip, topics related to sex or pornography (usually as a jokes), lifestyle, and so on.
Table 5
The Most Unpreferred Discussion Topic in the Office WhatsApp Group
Topics N (%) Topics N (%)
Politics 440 (39.04%) Gossip 13 (1.15%)
Religion 361 (32.03%) Sex / pornography 8 (0.70%)
Private matters 235 (20.05%) Lifestyle 7 (0.62%)
The work itself 53 (4.70%) Others 10 (0.88%)
Discussion
Based on the statistical findings, this study showed some interesting results. Participants with a tendency for neuroticism more easily feel uncomfortable when they have to communicate face to face (Rice & Markey, 2009). The uncomfortable feeling encourages individuals to easily feel anxious and experience a mood swing (Costa & McCrae, 1980). Other media communication such as online computers can reduce the anxiety. This kind of communication can strengthen social relations between individuals (Gross, Juvonen, & Gable, 2002).
However, office WhatsApp group is a different matter. In this WhatsApp group, work is delegated, shared, and discussed with the group members involved. This condition could encourage individuals with neuroticism to withdraw. This occurs because these specific conditions touch the psychological aspects of individuals who are easily anxious, uncomfortable, and vulnerable to pressure (McCrae & Costa, 1987) as a result of work-related discussions in the WhatsApp office group. The presence of superiors at work will also certainly provide additional discomfort for individuals who have a structurally lower position. Sometimes, communication manner between superior to subordinates also exacerbates the pressure that individuals receive as subordinates (Kim & Lee, 2009), especially when delegating and discussing work in group conversations.
Ariffin and Omar's study (2018) found that WhatsApp often responded by employees as a social media which should be used for personal purposes only, not for work purposes. Work-related discussions often bring discomfort to many individuals involved in online discussion groups. Battistoni and Colladon's study (2014) found that neuroticism tendency is negatively affect chatting activities on social networks, regardless of the position and
Wahyu Rahardjo, Indah Mulyani, Milka Santoso, Meity Arianty, Ridho Akbar Yogandito
Lurking in Office Whatsapp Group: Examining The Role of Neuroticism, Knowledge Contribution Loafing, Fear
of Losing Face, and Playing Dumb
российский психологический журнал, 20(3), 2023
СОЦИАЛЬНАЯ ПСИХОЛОГИЯ
role of individuals in the group. The finding neuroticism tendency is related to lurking also confirmed by the influence of fear of losing face. Amiel and Sergant (2004) state that individuals with neuroticism tendencies try not to be actively involved in online group discussions because they avoid criticism or confrontation with other group members. If the discussion is forced, people with neuroticism tendencies will try to do time lags in replying every conversation which intended or involving themselves (Barnes, Mahar, Wong, & Rune, 2017).
The absence of a significant influence from the knowledge contribution loafing and playing dumb behaviors in discussions about work on the WhatsApp group office shows the strong individual's unwillingness to get a response or criticism. This is also supported by the findings of Teh, Yong, Chong, and Yew (2011)'s studies, which explain neuroticism tendency is affacted the attitude in sharing knowledge, whether lazy or not. Basically, individuals still want to share knowledge or what they know about work and also do not pretend to lack understanding the topic being discussed or not to be aware that there are discussions about certain work topics being discussed in the WhatsApp group. However, there is a sense of shyness, discomfort and fear of being criticized or humiliated when individuals discuss thattopic in online work groups (Esmaeelinezhad & Afrazeh, 2018; Pour & Taheri, 2019).
The existence of WhatsApp office group also often perceived as a source of problems and new work pressure. Individuals may find it easier to be contacted by superiors or coworkers and interfere their private time. Those can exacerbates the cognitive workload that employees have gained while working in the office. Gagne et al. (2019)'study mentions, playing dumb behavior can be displayed individuals with high cognitifve workload in order not to get additional workloads. This playing dumb behavior triggers individuals to retreat and not get too involved in activities that make them feel burdened psychologically (Burmeister, Fasbender, & Gerpott, 2018), such as lurking behavior.
Work discussion in the office social media group are vulnerable to negative responses such as criticism or teasing. This can happen in serious context or just a joke. Negative responses can be given by coworkers or superiors. The presence of superiors who do not appreciate subordinates in online social media groups, not only gives uncomfortable feelings, but also distrust for group members. The results in the individual distrust because the group can't be an arena for him to contribute with ideas and personal opinions related to work. This issue has been alluded in the study Pour and Taheri (2019) which states that feelings of anxiety and fear of criticism can be reduced if there is trust in the online social media discussion group.
Wasko and Faraj (2000) state that sharing information in an online community basically can be done with two basic reasons, those are the necessity to share and altruistic feelings to help selflessly. In virtual communities, those two things become important because no rules arrange communication between members in cyberspace, so social attitudes is prioritized (Yang, Li, & Huang, 2017). In the context of WhatsApp
Wahyu Rahardjo, Indah Mulyani, Milka Santoso, Meity Arianty, Ridho Akbar Yogandito Lurking in office Whatsapp Group: Examining The Role of Neuroticism, Knowledge Contribution Loafing, Fear
of Losing Face, and Playing Dumb российский психологический журнал, 20(3), 2023
СОЦИАЛЬНАЯ ПСИХОЛОГИЯ
group office, the necessity for sharing becomes the dominant factor where the reasons for altruism are left behind. This reason itself will not be fulfilled by group members if empathy disappear because of neuroticism (Pence & Vickery, 2012). Without trust in group members, there is no comfort, so individuals with neuroticismwill resolve their worries about negative responses. Jadin, Gnambs, and Batinic (2013) confirm this, and explain that the opinions of superiors in the group have a negative influence on desire to share information voluntarily. This causes individual uncomfortable speaking in groups so they prefer to be quiet and passive in group discussions.
In a more complete perspective, overall effect of variable, i.e. neuroticism, knowledge contribution loafing, fear of losing face, and playing dumb have a great joint effect on lurking behavior in the WhatsApp office group. Bishop (2007) offers an ecological cognition framework to explain why individuals do lurking behavior in virtual communities. This concept states that lurking behavior can be explained by the non-fulfillment of individual passions in social relations in the virtual community. Some disrupted passions are order desires where group members have more power and dominate the flow of group conversation .The presence of superiors also turns off the social desire where there is no more free interactive space in the conversation that built in groups. On the other hand, the pressure from the flow of work conversations triggers excessive vengeance desire ,where conflict arisen too much in the existing conversations. This can disrupts the creative desire which is to emerge and help group members. These problems then trigger the lack of trust in group and the group members so that individuals prefer to be silent or passive in conversations in virtual groups (Cheng & Chen, 2014).
The neuroticism tendency inside individuals can increase when the office WhatsApp group contains members with higher position or coworkers who have personal conflicts. The work conversations flow are not always pleasant because it is like work reminders and sometimes part of supervisor monitoring. Individuals will lose space to express opinions or latest job progress report due to discomfort and fear of getting a negative response, so that they will hold the informations that should be given and sometimes pretending unknow that the group is talking about certain things related to the projects or jobs. Kucuk's (2010) findings emphasize that the dynamics in virtual groups greatly influence individual to take a position as a passive member and minimize the conversation in it.
Based on open-ended questions, besides the presence of superiors or other people with higher position in the office group WhatsApp, the number of group members who are not very close and discussions related to work topics that are not mastered also can increasing the distance between individuals and group. Tobin, Vanman, Verreynne, and Saeri (2015)'s findings state that lurking behaviors occurs not only when individuals did not feel as a part of the group but also when they feel their existence is not meaningful in the group potentially. This clearly indicates that the WhatsApp office group, is too common with diversity members could potentially encourage the members to be silent and passive in the communication process in the group.
Wahyu Rahardjo, Indah Mulyani, Milka Santoso, Meity Arianty, Ridho Akbar Yogandito
Lurking in Office Whatsapp Group: Examining The Role of Neuroticism, Knowledge Contribution Loafing, Fear
of Losing Face, and Playing Dumb
российский психологический журнал, 20(3), 2023
СОЦИАЛЬНАЯ ПСИХОЛОГИЯ
Another interesting results about another reason for lurking are less confidence to participate in discussions, because many topics related to work that are not mastered, and the busy work that individuals have to do to involved in group discussions. Amichai-Hamburger et al. (2016) states that the issue of competence and time unavailability to participate in the discussion process are usually happened and encourages individuals to do lurking.
The rise of political topics in WhatsApp office group discussion are most likely related to presidential elections recently in Indonesia. Many individuals relatively difficult to refrain from expressing their opinions and political choices in public. Mutz and Mondak (2006) said when there is a big political moment that occurs in a country, various discussions about politics can burst and be founded everywhere, including in daily conversations at the office among employees. Topics related to religion are also often discussed and become the second place most mentioned by participants. In Indonesia, political and religious topics often mixed into one and become sensitive for many people who have an opposite opinion on those topic. Furthurmore, less important and not related to work discussion on WhatsApp group office, including sensitive topics such as politics and religion, could explain why many employees do lurking. Discussions are often accompanied by jokes which are not important and resulted in bias on topics related to work material.
Overall, based on statistical findings and open-ended questions, this research agrees with the findings of several previous studies. Sun, Rau, and Ma's (2014) study, for example, explains that there are three biggest reasons why lurking is done, that is because of environmental influences (in this case influenced by the presence of superiors and the number of group members who are not too close), prefer to respond to work-related chats (not about sensitive topics such as politics, religion, and personal matters), and group relationships that are not built harmoniously due to internal factors (such as the neuroticism tendency, knowledge contribution loafing, fear of losing face, and playing dumb). Meanwhile, network leagues also have a great influence on lurkingg (Liao & Chou, 2012), so it can be understood that the existence of group members, including the established norms, can influence how individuals become passive and do not contribute in the virtual community.
Conclusion
This finding shows only neuroticism and fear of losing face have an influence on lurking behavior as partially. The meaning of this finding is that fear of getting a negative response in the form of criticism reinforced by personality tendency,afraid of being wrong and distrust the environment becomes a factor that must be considered in the employee's lurking behavior. Another thing that can be emphasized is the presence of superiors (people in a higher position) has a great potential to encourage individuals to do lurking in WhatsApp office groups.
Wahyu Rahardjo, Indah Mulyani, Milka Santoso, Meity Arianty, Ridho Akbar Yogandito Lurking in office Whatsapp Group: Examining The Role of Neuroticism, Knowledge Contribution Loafing, Fear
of Losing Face, and Playing Dumb российский психологический журнал, 20(3), 2023
СОЦИАЛЬНАЯ ПСИХОЛОГИЯ
The study's findings revealed some intriguing findings. Participants with a tendency toward neuroticism typically experience more discomfort while communicating in person, hence they frequently use computer-mediated communication. The office WhatsApp group, on the other hand, is a different story since there are a variety of demands relating to job tasks there that cause individuals to feel uneasy and frightened. As a result, people with high neuroticism have a propensity to distance themselves from conversations in the workplace WhatsApp group.
Other findings show that the existence of a supervisor or person in a higher position is the reason that most often referred in lurking. Meanwhile, politics and religion are the two topics that are the most widely cited disliked by participants during discussion in the WhatsApp office group.
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Wahyu Rahardjo, Indah Mulyani, Milka Santoso, Meity Arianty, Ridho Akbar Yogandito Lurking in office Whatsapp Group: Examining The Role of Neuroticism, Knowledge Contribution Loafing, Fear
of Losing Face, and Playing Dumb российский психологический журнал, 20(3), 2023
СОЦИАЛЬНАЯ ПСИХОЛОГИЯ
Received: 11,11. 2022 Revision received: 4,04. 2023 Accepted: 26,07. 2023
Author Contributions
Wahyu Rahardjo contributed to conceptualizing and designing research, finding respondents, collecting data, statistical analysis and interpreting the results, writing, and editing research report manuscripts.
Indah Mulyani contributed to conceptualizing the research, collecting data, statistical analysis, interpreting results, editing report manuscripts, and become corresponding author.
Milka Santoso contributed to conceptualizing the research, finding respondents, collecting data, and editing research manuscripts.
Meity Arianty contributed to conceptualizing the research, collecting data, and editing research manuscripts.
Ridho Akbar Yogandito contributed to conceptualizing the research, collecting data, and editing research manuscripts.
Author Details
Wahyu Rahardjo - Dr. Sci. (Social Psychology), Gunadarma University, Depok, Indonesia; WOS ID: AAL-7796-2021; ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6810-3071; e-mail: wahyu_r@staff.gunadarma.ac.id
Indah Mulyani - Dr. Sci. (Social Psychology), Gunadarma University, Depok, Indonesia; WOS ID: ITW-2154-2023; ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0009-0009-5476-2485; e-mail: indah_mulyani@staff.gunadarma.ac.id
Milka Santoso - Master of Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Gunadarma University, Depok, Indonesia; ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0009-0005-9645-027X; e-mail: milka.santoso@gmail.com
Meity Arianty - Master in Clinical Psychology, Gunadarma University, Depok, Indonesia, ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0009-0009-2313-5219; e-mail: meity.arianty@yahoo.co.id Ridho Akbar Yogandito - Master in Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Gunadarma University, Depok, Indonesia; ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0009-0001-0382-406X; e-mail: yogandito@gmail.com
Conflict of Interest Information
The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.
