Zhang Yang, Ji Tong
School of New Media and Communication, Tianjin University, Tianjin, China.
Peking University Library, Beijing, China.
Front Psychol. 2023 May 18;14:1014331. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1014331. eCollection 2023.
In China, involution, which means pressure to out-compete other group members, has attracted public attention on Weibo. The new online connotation of involution empowered group cohesion among youth. Dissimilar to other crises, this crise also closely relates to group cohesion concept. However, few previous group cohesion-related studies focus on this critical concept. This study explains why and how youth created group cohesion online when facing involution. First, by examining the relationship between involution and group cohesion. Second, by examining whether youth are united in the online discussion of involution by investigating the generational gap. Following this, this study analyzes the different opinions to identify why this group cohesion occurs, how youth think about involution, and why they regard "older adults" as others. Lastly, this study analyzes how youth use hashtags to attract more youth to voice their opinions, consequently leading to greater group cohesion.
By combining frontier computational methods with causation and axial coding, this study proposes a new way to in-depth analyze group cohesion on social media.
The results indicate that involution triggers poor online group cohesion, and online involution-related hot issues trigger identity-based group cohesion. Additionally, youth are significantly more negative than older adults, and their expressions are full of identity-based construction. By stressing the social roots and blaming the "other" (older adult group), youth united together online. These findings indicated that a generation gap does indeed exist and that youth unite on social media by posting related hashtags via "revealing social identity" and "positioning and becoming" strategies.
The findings stress that involution is related to poor group cohesion and that social media offers a new way to face the involution crisis. Youth will use hashtags to unite and blame imagined enemies, such as older adults and the upper class. These findings might assist in understanding interventions that lead to more group cohesion.
在中国，“内卷”，即超越其他小组成员的竞争压力，在微博上引起了公众关注。“内卷”这一新的网络内涵增强了年轻人之间的群体凝聚力。与其他危机不同，这场危机也与群体凝聚力概念密切相关。然而，以往很少有与群体凝聚力相关的研究关注这一关键概念。本研究解释了年轻人在面对内卷时为何以及如何在网上形成群体凝聚力。首先，通过考察内卷与群体凝聚力之间的关系。其次，通过调查代际差异来考察年轻人在关于内卷的在线讨论中是否团结。在此之后，本研究分析不同观点，以确定这种群体凝聚力为何会出现、年轻人如何看待内卷以及他们为何将“年长者”视为他者。最后，本研究分析年轻人如何使用话题标签来吸引更多年轻人表达意见，从而导致更强的群体凝聚力。
通过将前沿计算方法与因果分析和主轴编码相结合，本研究提出了一种深入分析社交媒体上群体凝聚力的新方法。
结果表明，内卷引发了不良的网络群体凝聚力，而与网络内卷相关的热点问题引发了基于身份认同的群体凝聚力。此外，年轻人比年长者明显更消极，他们的表达充满了基于身份认同的建构。通过强调社会根源并指责“他者”（年长者群体），年轻人在网上团结在一起。这些发现表明代际差异确实存在，并且年轻人通过“揭示社会身份”和“定位与成为”策略发布相关话题标签，从而在社交媒体上团结起来。
研究结果强调，内卷与不良的群体凝聚力有关，社交媒体为应对内卷危机提供了一种新方式。年轻人会使用话题标签来团结起来并指责想象中的敌人, 比如年长者和上层阶级。这些发现可能有助于理解那些能带来更强群体凝聚力的干预措施。
