De rol van gelijksoortigheid van het publiek bij online zelfexpressie: een replicatiestudie

In an attempt to replicate the experiment by Nekmat (2012), the present study investigated the effects of presenting one’s opinion about a topic to an online audience and the similarity of the audience to the presenter, on cognitive elaboration, learning and attitude change. A sample of 121 students from the University of Amsterdam was asked to either give their opinion about an online blog on ‘sexting’ (i.e., sending nude pictures of oneself to others) to friends (N = 40), strangers (N = 36), or to read the blog without sharing their opinion with others online (N = 45). The original findings could not be replicated on a statistical significant level, but similar patterns were found: cognitive elaboration and learning were highest for self-expression to strangers, followed by self-expression to friends, and lowest in the no self-expression condition.