Computers in Human Behavior 26 (2010) 778–784

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Computers in Human Behavior

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Balancing uniqueness and assimilation in computer-mediated groups

Junghyun Kim *

School of Communication Studies, P.O. Box 5190, Kent State University, Kent, OH 44242-0001, United States

a r t i c l e i n f o

Article history:Available online 2 March 2010

Keywords:Group identityComputer-mediated communication (CMC)Social identity model of deindividuationeffects (SIDE)Uniqueness theoryOptimal distinctiveness theoryUniqueness motivationAssimilation motivation

0747-5632/$ - see front matter � 2010 Elsevier Ltd. Adoi:10.1016/j.chb.2010.02.001

* Tel.: +1 330 672 0285.E-mail address: jkim23@kent.edu

a b s t r a c t

The goal of the current study is to investigate how the augmented visual similarity and individuation caninfluence group identification process in computer-mediated groups. In investigating this topic, this studyrelies on the assumption that human beings need to meet two competing motivations – assimilation moti-vation and uniqueness motivation – at the same time. An experiment using virtual self-representationsshowed that uniform virtual appearance, whatever form it may take, encouraged group identification.However, uniform appearance did not increase assimilation within computer-mediated groups all thetime, because uniform appearance made individuals perceive a strong threat to their uniqueness andbecame less willing to agree with others as a way to restore their uniqueness. On the contrary, peoplemight have pandered to their uniqueness motivation from being represented by excessively idiosyncraticvisual cues. As a way to boost up the other motivation, assimilation motivation, they tried to find any cuethat can bond themselves with others even amongst differences in their visual representations.

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1. Introduction

Humans are arduous beings. They want to be similar to othersor belong to collectives so that they would not feel isolated, (i.e.,assimilation motivation) (Baumeister & Leary, 1995; Maslow,1968) but at the same time, they want to be perceived as uniqueindividuals (i.e., uniqueness motivation) (Brewer, 1991; Snyder &Fromkin, 1980). In terms of assimilation motivation, a group of so-cial psychology studies showed that people naturally assimilate tothe norms and values of their groups by not expressing their dis-senting opinions for fear of social sanction (e.g., Allen, 1965; Deu-tsch & Gerard, 1955; Santee & Maslach, 1982; Tajfel, 1981; Turner,1991). Social identity model of deindividuation effects (SIDE)(Postmes, Spears, & Lea, 1998) is one of theoretical frameworksthat focus majorly on assimilation in computer-mediated commu-nication (CMC). Naturally, most of SIDE-based CMC studies haveshown how anonymity or limited social context cues in CMC (Kies-ler, Siegel, & McGuire, 1984) diminishes people’s focus on theirindividual differences but increase the salience of their groupmembership (e.g., Lea, Postmes, & Rogers, 1999; Lea & Spears,1995; Postmes & Spears, 2002; Postmes et al., 1998). Such dimin-ished focus on individual distinctiveness and intensified salienceof the shared group membership are called depersonalization.

Even with the existence of these two disparate motivations inhuman nature, however, most of previous research on group pro-cess has focused on assimilation motivation rather than unique-ness motivation within groups. In response to the lack of

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research dealing with uniqueness motivation, the current studyinvestigates how uniqueness motivation as well as assimilationmotivation is activated in CMC. In examining this topic, this studyrelies on two theoretical frameworks – uniqueness theory (Snyder& Fromkin, 1980) and optimal distinctiveness theory (Brewer,1991). These two theoretical frameworks pay attention to the bal-ance between assimilation motivation and uniqueness motivation.According to the optimal distinctiveness theory, people try to meetthese two opposing motivations by maintaining an intermediatedegree of similarity and uniqueness between themselves and oth-ers (Brewer, 1991). In case people are located in a situation wherethey are extremely similar to others, their assimilation motivationis overly indulged while uniqueness motivation is deprived. As away to come back to the intermediate balance between the twoconflicting motivations, they try to find a way to augment theiruniqueness. On the other hand, if people are located in a situationwhere they are excessively differentiated from one another, theymight feel isolated and disconnected. Such overly indulged unique-ness motivation leads them to seek for similarity with others.

Therefore, provided that people might be affected by two com-peting motivations in computer-mediated group settings, the cur-rent study examines people’s reaction to a highly individuatedcondition as well as to a highly depersonalized condition incyberspace.

1.1. Anonymity, visual similarity, and group identity

Most SIDE-based CMC studies have shown that anonymity aug-ments group identity by diminishing people’s focus on their indi-vidual differences (e.g., Lea & Spears, 1995; Lea et al., 1999;

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Postmes & Spears, 2002; Postmes et al., 1998). Interestingly, how-ever, Lea and his colleagues’ study showed that making all partic-ipants visible to one another enhanced group identity when allmembers were from the same gender category (Lea, Spears, Watt,& Rogers, 2000). As a possible explanation for this result, Lea et al.suggested that being all women or men could be communicatedthrough visibility, which might have contributed to intensifyingparticipants’ identification with each other. This is because gendercues do not just represent individual-level attributes, but also di-rect attention to socio-demographic categories (Bailenson, Gar-land, Iyengar, & Yee, 2006). In that sense, anonymity might havetwo-sided effect: although anonymity does increase group identitythrough limiting individuating cues that interfere with people’sstereotyping one another as members of a certain group, it can alsoundermine their awareness of the existence of any common widersocial category shared among group members. Given this researchresult, Lea et al. (2000) insinuated that we should be wary of theproposition that anonymity always increases group identity.

One thing that should be noted in Lea et al.’s study is that ano-nymity and visibility were used to manipulate the high level ofdepersonalization and the low level of depersonalization. However,such manipulation can create a mixed impact in identifiability con-dition by releasing two types of individuating information; socio-categorical information that can increase group identity (e.g., gen-der) and other information that might hinder depersonalization pro-cess (e.g., facial or physical features). In order to reduce suchcomplexity, the current study used the degree of visual similarityas a way to differentiate the levels of depersonalization while con-trolling for the leak of any other individuating cue. That is, sharinguniform appearance with other members was used as a way to in-duce a high level of depersonalization, while being represented bydifferent visual cues from those of other members was used as away to induce a low level of depersonalization (or a high level ofindividuation) (e.g., Kim, 2009; Lee, 2004). For both cases, an abso-lute anonymity was maintained, so that any leak of individuatingcue would not interfere or interact with group identification process.

Sharing the same visual cue in cyberspace can function as wear-ing uniform in face-to-face contexts (e.g., Maslach, 1974;Zimbardo, 1969). Sharing uniform appearance has been known toreduce group members’ focus on individual distinctiveness of oneanother, while allowing them to perceive one another as stereotyp-ical members of their group (Kim, 2009; Lee, 2004). The higher thelevel of inclusiveness, which can be manipulated by making allgroup members look similar to one another, the more depersonal-ized group members might perceive. This leads to stronger groupidentity. The intensified group identity induced by sharing thesame visual cue with others make people more willing to agreewith others, as suggested by SIDE-based CMC studies (e.g., Lea,Spears, & De Groot, 2001; Postmes, Spears, & Lea, 1999). As indi-cated by theory of reasoned action (Ajzen & Fishbein, 1980), indi-viduals’ willingness to agree with their group members isexpected to have a significant positive association with their actualconformity to the dominant opinion promoted by others.

H1. Individuals who share the same visual cue will identify morestrongly with their group members than those who are repre-sented by unique visual cues.

H2. Strong group identity induced by uniform appearance willmake people more willing to agree with their group members. H3. Strong willingness to agree with group members will increaseindividuals’ actual conformity to the dominant opinion promotedby their group members.

At the same time, however, uniform appearance also has beenknown to make people feel uncomfortable by reducing rooms forindividuating their self-representations. As indicated by the opti-

mal distinctiveness theory and the uniqueness theory, people donot value excessive similarity relative to others (Snyder & Fromkin,1977). Looking much like others without any other way to portraytheir individuating characteristics makes people conscious andconcerned of their lessened uniqueness. One way to relieve suchconcern for their diminished uniqueness is to deviate from a dom-inant opinion shared by the rest of their group members (Kim,2009; Maslach, 1974; Simonson & Nowlis, 2000).

H4. Individuals who share the same visual cue will perceive ahigher level of threat to their uniqueness than those who arerepresented by unique visual cues.

H5. Stronger perceived threat to uniqueness intensified by uni-form appearance will make people less willing to agree with theirgroup members.

1.2. Amplified similarity and group identity

If visual similarity can induce strong group identity, it might betempting to assume that more similarity might induce strongergroup identity. However, the current study predicts that addinganother similarity cue would not make a difference in inducinggroup identity as long as people are represented by the same visualcue. This is based on a conjecture that sharing additional similaritycue might be redundant when people are already represented bythe same visual cue. This proposition has been empirically sup-ported by one of Lea et al.’s (2000) study showing that peoplewho shared the same German nationality did not show strongergroup identity compared to those who were in the same experi-mental group but from diverse countries. In the same way, whendepersonalization was induced by uniform appearance (e.g., Kim,2009), adding another common category cue to the existing shareduniform visual cue would not increase group identity more thanuniform appearance without additional common categorical cue.

H6. When people are excessively assimilated from sharing thesame visual cue, adding or withdrawing another common cate-gorical cue will not make significant difference in inducing groupidentity.

1.3. Amplified distinctiveness and group identity

If adding another common cue does not make significant differ-ence in inducing group identity as long as people are sharing thesame visual cue, then what is the effect of adding another cue thatincrease differences among group members on group identity? Thecurrent study tries to find an answer to this question using theuniqueness theory and the optimal distinctiveness theory. Accord-ing to these theories, people feel most comfortable when they areboth moderately differentiated from others and moderately similarto others. A high level of similarity leads to strong group identity,but at the same time, makes people desire for differentiation fromothers and become reluctant to agree with them. On the otherhand, too much individuation might interfere group identificationprocess, but also leads people to seek for inclusion in a larger col-lective as a way to restore their motivations to be included or sim-ilar to others (Brewer, 1991).

Applying this logic to the current research context, when peopleare represented by visual cues that clearly distinguish themselvesfrom everyone else, their need to be different from others is in-dulged much more than their needs to be included. As a way toreestablish the balance between these two needs, they would tryto find any hint of similarity to others that can boost up their senseof inclusion. If people can find any kind of common feature orcharacteristic even amongst their different visual cues, it would

780 J. Kim / Computers in Human Behavior 26 (2010) 778–784

be easier for them to identify with one another, although not asstrongly as when they share the same visual cue. The frame of ref-erence within which possible group identification is formed canrange from being in a specific gathering to the entire human race(Brewer, 1991; p. 478). Thus, when people are excessively individ-uated from being represented by unique cues, they might try toseek for a larger frame of reference that goes beyond the differ-ences in their cues and use it as a common ground for identifica-tion. Meanwhile, if these cues do not share any common frameof reference past different features in their visual cues, it mightbe harder for them to identify with each other.

H7. When people are excessively individuated from being repre-sented by unique visual cues, they will try to look for a commonframe of reference beyond the differences in their cues so that theycan identify with one another.

Fig. 1. A snapshot of the condition where people share uniform visual cue.

Fig. 2. A snapshot of the condition where people share an additional commoncategorical information (ethnicity cue) compared to condition 1 (a case of Asianfemale).

2. Methods

2.1. Sample

Three hundred and fifty-eight undergraduate students from avariety of majors enrolled in a multi-section course required as apart of a large Midwestern university’s liberal education require-ment voluntarily participated in an online experiment. The 60%of the sample was male (N = 215), while the remaining 40% wasfemale (N = 143). In terms of race, 88.5% of the sample was White(N = 317), 7.3% was Black (N = 26), and 4.2% was Asian (N = 15).Participants were invited to visit the online experimental websitein assigned time slots for taking part in a series of onlinediscussions.

2.2. Procedure

On the first page of the experimental website, participants wereasked to provide their ethnicity information. On the next page, par-ticipants were asked to read three hypothetical dilemma situationscenarios and choose what they would do for each situation. Aftermaking their decisions for the three dilemma situations, they wereassigned to a discussion group composed of five members. Partic-ipants were randomly assigned to one of the four conditions: (1) acondition where all group members shared the same visual cue(Fig. 1), (2) a condition where all group members were sharingone more common categorical information than condition 1 (i.e.,sharing the same ethnic background) (Fig. 2), (3) a condition whereeach member of the group was represented by unique cues (Fig. 3),and (4) a condition where members had one more categoricalinformation (i.e., ethnicity information) that increase differencesamong them than condition 3 (Fig. 4). Those who were assignedto the second and the fourth conditions had one more cue (i.e., eth-nicity information) that could increase similarity or uniquenessamong themselves compared to those who were assigned to thefirst or the third conditions. Ninety-three participants were as-signed to the first condition, 91 were to the second condition, 88were to the third condition, and 86 were to the fourth condition.

After being assigned to one of the four conditions, participantscould see the way they and other four discussants were graphicallyrepresented. Solely based on the way they and other discussantswere represented, participants were asked how much they wereable to identify with other discussants (i.e., group identity). Theywere also asked how much they perceived that their uniquenessas distinctive individuals were diminished from the way theyand other discussants were represented (i.e., perceived threat touniqueness). Then participants proceeded to the next page andwere asked to take part in three real-time online discussion ses-

sions with other discussants. During these discussions, they wereto read the same three dilemma situation scenarios that were pre-sented previously and discuss them with other discussants. Afterreading all the other four discussants’ opinions in each of the di-lemma situation scenarios, participants were asked to decidewhether they would stick with their original replies or changethem.

Although participants were told that they were going to takepart in real-time discussions with other four discussants, thesefour discussants and their conversations were programmed. Such

Table 1Inter-scale correlations and reliability of scales.

1 2 3 4

1. Group identity .89**

Fig. 4. A snapshot of the condition where people had an additional categoricalinformation that distinguishes one another (ethnicity cues) compared to condition3 (a case of Asian female).

Fig. 3. A snapshot of the condition where people are represented by unique visualcues.

J. Kim / Computers in Human Behavior 26 (2010) 778–784 781

control was necessary to create the same consensus norm for allparticipants no matter which conditions they were assigned to.That is, whatever initial choice was made by a participant, fourother discussants of his/her discussion group were programmedto pick the opposite choice to that of the participant. If the partic-ipant changed his/her initial decision closer to the opinion pro-moted by the other four discussants, it means that theparticipant conformed to the consensus norm of his/her groupmembers (i.e., conformity).

2. Perceived threat to uniqueness .39 .933. Conformity intention .24** –.12* .854. Conformity .01 .01 .15**

Note. Diagonal numbers show reliability (Cronbach’s alpha).* p < .05.

** p < .01.

2.3. Measures

Group identity was measured by seven items used in a few pre-vious CMC studies (e.g., Kim, 2009; Lee, 2004). These items origi-

nated from Cheney’s (1983) organizational identification scale(M = 4.65, SD = 1.22). Perceived threat to uniqueness scale com-posed of six items (M = 3.93, SD = 1.91) that were from a previousstudy (Kim, 2009). This scale was intended to measure people’sperception on how much of their uniqueness as distinctive individ-uals were suppressed from the ways they and others were visuallyrepresented in cyberspace. Conformity intention (M = 4.50,SD = 1.09) was measured by four questionnaires asking partici-pants’ intention to agree with other discussants in upcoming dis-cussions. All of these scales were measured by seven-pointLikert-type scales (7 = Strongly Agree, 1 = Strongly Disagree). Final-ly, conformity was operationalized as the degree to which partici-pants changed their initial decisions closer to the opinionpromoted by the four other discussants. Specifically, participantswere asked to choose one option out of six when they read threedilemma situation scenarios in the earlier part of the online exper-iment: ‘‘Definitely should do A”, ‘‘Should do A”, ‘‘Probably shoulddo A”, ‘‘Probably should do B”, ‘‘Should do B”, and ‘‘Definitelyshould do B”. If a participant chose ‘‘Should do A” when he/she firstread a dilemma situation scenario but changed it into ‘‘Probablyshould do B” after looking at the other four discussants supportingoption B, 2 points were given as his/her conformity score for thatspecific dilemma situation scenario. Two points indicate that thereare two intervals between participant’s first choice and his/herfinal decision. Changing initial choice into something that wascloser to an option promoted by the other four discussants sug-gests that the participant succumbed to his/her discussion group’sconformity pressure. Meanwhile, if the participant did not changehis/her initial decision or even moved further away from the deci-sion promoted by other discussants, 0 point was given (Lee, 2006).The sum of points collected from three discussions were used asconformity scores (M = 2.10, SD = 2.06, MAX = 10, MIN = 0). Theinter-scale correlations and Cronbach’s alpha values of all fourscales are presented in Table 1.

3. Results

Based on predictions made by Hypotheses 1 through 5, a pathmodel was set up and tested with AMOS 6.0 (Arbuckle, 2005).The path model showed a good fit with the data: v2(4) = 2.92,p = .40, CFI = 1.00, NFI = .99, RMSEA = .00 (Fig. 5). Hypothesis 1 pre-dicted that people who shared the same visual cue with other dis-cussants would exhibit stronger group identity than those whowere represented by unique visual cues. On a related note, Hypoth-esis 4 predicted that people who shared the same visual cue withother discussants would perceive stronger threat to uniquenessthan those who were represented by unique visual cues. As shownin Fig. 5, sharing uniform appearance increased group identity(b = .39, p < .01) as well as perceived threat to uniqueness(b = .69, p < .01) significantly more than being represented by un-ique visual cues. The exogenous variable, visual similarity, was acategorical variable with 1 assigned to uniform appearance condi-tion and 0 assigned to unique visual cue condition, regardless ofwhether the cues shared ethnicity information or not. Thus, both

Fig. 6. Group identity by the levels of visual similarity and the presence/absence ofan additional cue (ethnicity information).

Fig. 5. Results for path analysis.Note. In visual similarity, 1 was assigned to uniform appearance conditions, and 0 was assigned to unique visual cue conditions. *p < .05, **p < .01.

782 J. Kim / Computers in Human Behavior 26 (2010) 778–784

Hypothesis 1 and Hypothesis 4 were supported. In order to affirmthis result, a one-way ANOVA was performed between uniform cuecondition and unique cue condition. There was a significant differ-ence in group identity scores between people who shared the samevisual cue with four other discussants (M = 5.12, SD = 1.14) andpeople who were represented by unique visual cues (M = 4.15,SD = 1.11) [F(1, 357) = 65.93, p < .001, g2 = .16]. Perceived threatto uniqueness was also significantly higher for people who sharedthe same visual cue with four other discussants (M = 5.24,SD = 1.70) compared to those who were represented by uniquevisual cues (M = 2.58, SD = .89) [F(1, 357) = 341.83, p < .001,g2 = .49]. As shown in Fig. 5, the path from group identity to con-formity intention was significantly positive (b = .30, p < .01), andthe path from perceived threat to uniqueness to conformity inten-tion was significantly negative (b = �.17, p < .05). Conformityintention showed a positive association with conformity behavior(b = .15, p < .01). Thus, Hypotheses 2, 3, and 5 were all supported.

Hypothesis 6 predicted that sharing another common categori-cal cue (i.e., ethnicity information) would not intensify group iden-tity more than not sharing the same ethnicity information, as longas discussants were sharing the same visual cue. Meanwhile,Hypothesis 7 predicted that people who were excessively individ-uated would still identify with their group members more whenthey could find a common frame of reference beyond the differ-ences in their unique cues compared to when they could not findany common frame of reference. These two hypotheses, taken to-gether, predicts that the impact of having one more categoricalinformation on group identity might be different depending onwhether people are represented by the same visual cue or differentcues.

A two-way ANOVA was performed to test Hypotheses 6 and 7.The interaction between the levels of visual similarity and inclu-sion/absence of ethnicity information was statistically significant,F(1, 354) = 12.33, p < .001, g2 = .03. As a way to decompose theinteraction, the condition in which people were represented bythe same visual cue with one more common categorical cue andthe condition in which people were represent by the same visualcue without another common categorical cue were contrastedwithin uniform appearance condition and unique visual cue condi-tion respectively. Participants who were assigned to the same vi-sual cue condition identified with their discussants as muchwhen their visual cues did not share ethnicity information(M = 5.15, SD = 1.20) as when their visual cues shared ethnicityinformation (M = 5.10, SD = 1.10), t (180) = �.30, p = .76. On theother hand, those who were assigned to the unique visual cue con-dition identified with their discussants significantly more whentheir visual cues depict human with specific ethnicity (M = 4.52,

SD = .82) than when their visual cues did not represent any specificethnicity (M = 3.76, SD = 1.25) (Fig. 6).

4. Discussion

The major goal of the current study was to investigate how thedifferentiated levels of depersonalization and presence/absence ofspecific socio-demographic cue can influence group identificationprocess in computer-mediated groups. This quest started fromLea et al.’s (2000) two studies. In one study, they found that peoplewho shared the same nationality (i.e., German) did not identifymore strongly with their experimental group members than thosewho were from different countries. Another study, on the otherhand, showed that disclosing gender information by making peo-ple visible to one another actually increased group identity com-pared to making them invisible.

As a possible explanation for the inconsistent results betweenthese two studies, Lea et al. (2000) presumed that the effect of dis-closed social cues might differ depending on whether they can beeasily delivered through visibility or not. For example, gender ismuch easier to be recognized through visibility compared tonationality. Making people visible to one another is expected toincrease identification with their group members who were from

J. Kim / Computers in Human Behavior 26 (2010) 778–784 783

the same gender category. Meanwhile, visibility would not neces-sarily increase people’s identification with their experimentalgroup members who were from the same country, since national-ity cannot be discerned easily just from visual information. Inaccordance with this logic, ethnicity was chosen as an additionalcommon categorical cue in the current study, since ethnicity is atype of cue that can be easily discerned from visual informationlike gender. One thing that was different between Lea et al.’s(2000) study and the current study, however, was the way deper-sonalization was induced. The current study chose to manipulatedepersonalization through differentiating the levels of visual simi-larity, because it could exclude any personal cue that might havebeen disclosed along with gender cues and increased the size ofextraneous variance of group identity in Lea et al. (2000).

Manipulating the levels of depersonalization through differenti-ated degrees of visual similarity has produced some interesting re-sults. First of all, uniform appearance, which has not been used asmuch as anonymity as a way to induce depersonalization in previ-ous studies, has proven to intensify group identification process.However, being represented by the same visual cue as others’ alsogenerated a backlash reaction from participants. As indicated bythe uniqueness theory and the optimal distinctiveness theory,the excessive visual similarity relative to others made people per-ceive a threat to their uniqueness as distinctive individuals. Thiseventually led them to be less willing to agree with their groupmembers in order to restore their uniqueness.

Secondly, sharing an additional common categorical cue (i.e.,ethnicity information) did not induce stronger group identity thansharing the same visual cue without ethnicity information whenpeople were highly depersonalized by uniform appearance. A pos-sible explanation might be that the impact of visual similarityoverrides the influence of belonging to the same socio-demo-graphic category. That is, as long as people share the same visualcue, adding another common social category is superfluous anddoes not significantly increase people’s identification with theirexperimental group members.

On the other hand, being represented by visual cue with theirethnicity disclosed did make a significant difference in their groupidentity when people were represented by unique visual cues.Those who were individuated by being represented by human cuesof diverse ethnic backgrounds showed a significantly higher groupidentity than those who were individuated by diverse nonhumancues without ethnicity information disclosed. This result can be ex-plained by the optimal distinctiveness theory, which indicates thatpeople always try to find an optimal balance between two conflict-ing motivations – assimilation motivation and uniqueness motiva-tion. If people are highly individuated by being represented byunique visual cues different from others’, they would try to refur-bish their assimilation motivation through identifying themselveswith any common frame of reference for a larger collective beyondtheir unique visual cues (Brewer, 1991). In the current study, indi-viduals who were assigned to the fourth condition were repre-sented as humans, which could be served as a common frame ofreference beyond all the diverse ethnicity backgrounds reflectedin their cues. However, those who were assigned to the third con-dition did not share any common frame of reference outstrippingthe individuation promoted by their diverse virtual characters.Therefore, members of the group in which all discussants wererepresented by human cues with diverse ethnic backgroundsmight have been able to find an indication of a common frame ofreference for a larger collective to identify with – human race –,although they were not from the same ethnic category. On theother hand, in the group whose members were represented by di-verse nonhuman cues, there was no common frame of reference fora larger collective with which they could identify. This is becauseall four of the programmed discussants were represented by ani-

mal cues, while the only actual participant was represented as acartoon character: visual cues representing five discussants in thiscondition were not from the same species.

The proposition that people might seek for a larger frame of ref-erence that goes beyond their differences and use it as commonground for identification when they are excessively individuatedcan be used to explain Lea et al.’s (2000) second study result. Intheir study, people exhibited higher group identity in the visibilitycondition where they could see all of them were women. Those inthe visibility condition might have indulged their uniqueness moti-vations too much, because other individuating cues had been dis-closed along with their gender cues. This might have ledparticipants to actively look for a common frame of reference fora larger collective to identify with, the same gender category, asa way to boost up their assimilation motivations. Thus, when peo-ple are excessively individuated from being represented by uniquecues or by disclosing all of their individuating information, theymight try to seek for a common frame of reference for a larger col-lective that goes beyond their differences. This way, people canbalance out too much distinctiveness and too little similarity.

5. Conclusion and Implications

The results of the current study have some implications for con-temporary virtual worlds where the use of avatars, electronicimages that represent and can be modified by computer users(Merriam-Webster Dictionary, n.d.), has become popular. Uniformvirtual appearance, whatever form it may take, can encouragegroup identification. It implies that people from diverse social orcultural backgrounds might be able to get over their differencesand identify with one another just by sharing the same visualcue in cyberspace. However, uniform appearance might not in-crease assimilation within computer-mediated groups all the time.This is because uniform appearance makes individuals perceive astrong threat to their uniqueness and become less willing to agreewith others as a way to restore their uniqueness. On the contrary,people might pander to their uniqueness motivation from beingrepresented by excessively idiosyncratic visual cues. As a way toboost up the other motivation, assimilation motivation, they wouldtry to find any cue that can bond themselves with others evenamongst differences in their visual representations.

The results of this study also indicate that individuals can beinfluenced by situational factors (i.e., the intensity of visual similar-ity relative to others) in deciding whether to agree or disagree withothers in CMC. For example, if individuals participate in an onlinediscussion boards (e.g., political blogs) where there is a high degreeof depersonalization both from uniform visual representation andexistence of a dominant opinion promoted by discussants, theymight disagree with the dominant opinion to preserve theiruniqueness, not necessarily because they perceive significant dif-ference between their opinions and other discussants’ opinion.On the other hand, if individuals are in a virtual community whereeveryone is excessively individuated, they would try to find anycommon cue to use as a frame of reference beyond their differ-ences. By looking for and identifying with a larger collective pasttheir differences, they can balance out too much uniqueness anddeprived similarity. Furthermore, they might agree with otherswho belong to the same larger collective as theirs to augment theirsimilarity, not necessarily because they truly agree with them.

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