The Relationship Between Environmental Cues on Facebook and Users’ Behavior, in the Context of Online Environmental Psychology

The purpose of the thesis is to examine the effects of various environmental (social and design) cues on Facebook-­‐users’ behavior under different situational involvement levels. A model is proposed to test the effects of environmental cues of Facebook on users’ emotional and cognitive states, which then affect their WOM (Word-­‐of-­‐Mouth) and intention to “Like” a fan page. A sample of 190 respondents participated in a survey experiment in the context of user-­‐charity interaction on Facebook. The results of the research showed that there is a set of environmental cues on Facebook that significantly affects users’ behavior. Manipulation checks showed that different levels of environmental cues have a significant effect on respondents’ perceived social presence, appearance and content quality of a fan-­‐page. The main analysis revealed a significant effect for environmental cues on pleasure and arousal, while situational involvement moderated this effect; respondents under high situational involvement reported greater Pleasure and Arousal than those respondents under low situational involvement. Users’ emotions, subjective norms and attitude were found to be significant predictors of their intentions and WOM. Further analysis emphasized that females are more sensitive and emotional when it comes to Liking a fan-­‐page for children and they have a biggest urge to support non-­‐ profits for children on Facebook than males.