Social Motivations' Limited Influence on Habitual Behavior: Tests From Social Media Engagement

Motivations that drive initial or occasional actions may have less impact as people repeat a behavior and form habits that are automatically cued by contexts. We tested this shifting role of motivation with social media engagement. Specifically, we assessed how the posting rates of habitual and nonhabitual social media users varied with social rewards of others' reactions and comments and with a platform design change in 2007 that increased the salience of one's own and others' posts. In a preliminary study with Instagram users and in Study 1's controlled observation of Facebook posting, nonhabitual posters increased engagement after receiving social rewards on a prior post, whereas habitual ones were unaffected. In Study 2, occasional Facebook posters were motivated by the platform design to increase engagement, but frequent users were not; instead, their posting was disrupted by the new platform features. Finally, suggesting that these effects of reward were not due to waning motivation, habitual posters self-reported being concerned about others' reactions and predicted they would increase engagement following the platform change. Thus, frequent users responded automatically out of habit, showing insensitivity to their own motivations.