The psychological motivation of users actively constructing information cocoons from the perspective of Adler’s teleology: an empirical study based on a sample of Chinese university students

With the advancement of internet technology, the phenomenon of information cocoons has become increasingly prominent. Existing research, focusing on algorithms and personal preferences, tends to view users as passive recipients of information, overlooking the fact that audiences in the Web3.0 era are algorithm-aware and possess autonomy in their choices. Therefore, this study adopts a new perspective by treating users as proactive agents and introduces Adler’s teleology to explore the psychological motivations behind users’ active construction and maintenance of information cocoons. The study categorizes user psychological motivations into six dimensions, revealing that sense of belonging ( B = 0.623***), sense of control and security ( B = 0.620***), self-consistency maintenance ( B = 0.554***), superiority ( B = 0.509***), goal orientation ( B = 0.578***), and avoidance of failure and negative emotions ( B = 0.323***) all exert significant positive effects on users’ proactive information cocooning behaviors. Subsequently, the study categorized the six psychological dimensions into two motivational systems: proactive motivation and defensive motivation. Through moderation analysis, the relationship between proactive and defensive motivation in influencing information cocooning behavior was examined, revealing an inhibitory moderation effect between the two. By examining the moderating effects of the six psychological motivations, it was found that defensive motivation and proactive motivation exerted roughly equivalent moderating strengths on users’ proactive information cocooning behaviors, with no clear priority. Both play equally important roles in influencing user behavior.