How Social Context Cues in Online Support-Seeking Influence Self-Disclosure in Support Provision

Research on online support has largely overlooked the role of self-disclosure in support provision. By manipulating the level of social context cues in a support-seeker’s online profile, this study examined how social context cues affected a support-provider’s self-disclosure in an online support forum. Results of the experiment supported the “social context cues—perceived social presence—trust—self-disclosure” model with regard to descriptive self-disclosure but not with regard to evaluative self-disclosure.