Social-Role Identity Salience and User Participation in Social Networks

This paper studies the effect of social-role identity salience in social networks on user participation in an online community that facilitates user rating, reviewing and discussing of cultural products. Drawing on previous literature on social preference, we develop a model demonstrating how the salience of friendship identity changes equilibrium participation behaviour. Predictions are tested with a differences-in-differences model using data from an online social network community. Results show evidence of positive effect of salience of friendship identity on user participation.