Human Behavior on the WWW

Human Behavior on the WWW

Anja S. Göritz (University of Freiburg, Germany), Ranjit K. Singh (University of Freiburg, Germany) and Birgit J. Voggeser (University of Freiburg, Germany)
Copyright: © 2012 |Pages: 15
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-0315-8.ch010

Abstract

This entry summarizes psychological research on human behavior on the World Wide Web, excluding WWW topics addressed in other entries in this encyclopedia (e.g., social networking sites, blogs, and Wikipedia). Four areas are examined: (1) Online research covers the methodology of conducting psychological research online. The focus lies on people’s behavior as participants in Web-based research. (2) Internet addiction is a clinical psychological topic about the phenomenon of excessive Internet use that shares characteristics with compulsive or addicted behavior. (3) Online search behavior and information processing deals with how people search for information online and with the effects of hypertext on learning and cognitive load. (4) Online consumer behavior summarizes research of determinants of whether and how often people buy online.
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Online Research

The most stable phenomenon of research on human behavior on the Web is humans' participation behavior in this very research. Online research is a methodological area that is concerned with the quality of research data that are collected via the WWW. The current leading researchers in this area include Mick Couper and Roger Tourangeau from the University of Michigan (Couper, 2000; Couper, Conrad, & Tourangeau, 2007; Couper & Miller, 2008; Couper, Tourangeau, Conrad, & Crawford, 2004; Couper, Tourangeau, & Kenyon, 2004; Fricker, Galesic, Tourangeau, & Yan, 2005; Kreuter, Presser, & Tourangeau, 2008; Tourangeau & Yan, 2007) and Ulf-Dietrich Reips from the University of Deusto in Bilbao, Spain (Musch & Reips, 2000; Reips, 2002).

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