They Said What?

Abstract

In online communities, satisfied members are essential to community success, since they are more likely to contribute and consume content, engage with other members, and feel committed to the community. However, it is difficult for community leaders to know, on an on-going basis, whether members are satisfied. In this paper, we explore the relationship between member satisfaction and language use within content posted in workplace online communities. We hope to find patterns of language use that are associated with satisfied members. We employ linguistic analysis based on LIWC, and a survey to directly measure member satisfaction in 142 workplace communities. We contribute a better understanding of how members interact in effective workplace communities, and show that linguistic analysis could be a useful part of future methods to automatically assess community member satisfaction.

Language Use in Group Discourse and Its Relationship to Group Processes

“…Finally, we hypothesized that use of "we" pronouns and perceptions of similarity would be related but did not find support for this. Previous research has found that "we" pronouns are used to integrate members within the group (Kane & Rink, 2015) and that "we" pronouns may signal a more collective focus, identity, and cohesion (Lieberman et al, 2005;Matthews et al, 2015). However, Gonzales et al (2010) found that groups that had more cohesion used fewer "we" pronouns.…”

“…Group members with a stronger sense of group identity and cohesion may have a more group focus rather than inward and self-focus, and therefore use more collective pronouns (Pennebaker, 2011). For example, research has found a positive relationship between use of "we" pronouns and perception of cohesiveness in a group (Lieberman et al, 2005;Matthews et al, 2015), although Gonzales et al (2010) found that more cohesive groups used fewer "we" pronouns. Furthermore, newcomers can encounter more social acceptance in a group using collective pronouns because these pronouns serve a social integration function (Kane & Rink, 2015).…”

Language and Group Processes: An Integrative, Interdisciplinary Review

“…Consistent with this argument, compared to online health support groups composed of members with heterogeneous disease experiences, homogeneous support groups used more collective pronouns ("we," "our") and expressed positive feelings about the group, and these differences manifested in the first 5 weeks of a 20-week support group intervention (Lieberman, Wizlenberg, Golant, & Di Minno, 2005). A study of interactions across a 5-year period in 142 workplace community-of-practice groups revealed the use of fewer first-person singular pronouns ("I," "me") and more first-person plural pronouns ("we," "us") in groups whose members were collectively more satisfied with the community (Matthews et al, 2015). Research with airplane crews also found that use of "we" pronouns was positively related to performance (Sexton & Helmreich, 2000).…”

“…Experimental groups engaged in a variety of involving tasks that required members, for instance, to weigh evidence to make complex decisions (Van Swol & Carlson, 2017; Yilmaz, 2016), produce origami sailboats (Kane & Rink, 2015), or monitor airspace (Hansen & Levine, 2009). Naturalistic groups also collaborated intensely to support members (Han et al, 2008), share best practices (Matthews et al, 2015), fly airplanes (Goguen, Linde, & Murphy, 1986), and apply science to manage space exploration rovers (Paletz & Schunn, 2011).…”