How Reading Information on SNSs Influences Interpersonal and Personal Certainties about a Target: The Effects of Information Valence, Information Source, and Positivism Bias

ABSTRACT Although social network sites (SNSs) carry a wide range of information about a person, previous research discovered they did not reduce uncertainties about the person as well as direct interactions with the person. This paradox prompted a conceptual distinction between interpersonal and personal uncertainties. With a web-based experiment (N = 216), the study tested how one may gain personal and interpersonal certainties about a target person from reading different types of information on social media, focusing on the effects of information valence, information source, and an information seeker’s positivism bias. Results revealed reading SNS information about a person increased personal certainty more than interpersonal certainty. Negative information increased interpersonal certainty more than positive information but not for those with a higher positivism bias. The results provide initial empirical evidence for the distinction between personal and interpersonal certainties and how different types of information on SNSs influence them.