How anonymous are you online? Examining online social behaviors from a cross-cultural perspective

Communication on the Internet is often described as “anonymous”, yet the usage of the term is often confusing, even in academia. Three levels of anonymity, visual anonymity, dissociation of real and online identities, and lack of identifiability, are thought to have different effects on various components of interpersonal motivation. Specifically, we propose that cross-cultural differences in interpersonal motivation (autonomy vs. affiliation)...