The results, published earlier this month in the journal Administrative Science Quarterly<\/em>, may help explain why a growing number of recession-weary Americans are participating less in monetary-based consumerism in favor of \u201cgift economies\u201d built on freebies and community spirit.<\/p>\n \u201cWe found that being active in online gift-giving communities like Freecycle generates strong feelings of solidarity and identification, which in turn drive people to give more gifts in the system<\/strong>,\u201d said Robb Willer, assistant professor of sociology and psychology at UC Berkeley. \u201cThis dynamic may help explain why the membership of sites like Freecycle and Couchsurfing has taken off in recent years.\u201d<\/p>\n In a wide-ranging survey of more than 1,300 online consumers and recyclers, UC Berkeley and Stanford University researchers gauged the dynamics of transactions and levels of solidarity and group identification among two of the most popular online goods exchange networks: Freecycle and Craigslist.<\/p>\n Launched in 2003, Freecycle is a thriving, grassroots, web-based recycling network that boasts 9 million members in more than 70 countries. Craigslist, started in 1996, is a pioneering online free-classifieds system used predominantly to advertise goods or services for sale, and it claims to receive 50 million ads a month.<\/p>\n \u201cUsers of Freecycle make unilateral contributions to other individual users, but cannot make requests for payments or ask for any other form of reciprocation,\u201d the study notes. \u201cIn contrast, Craigslist users exchange resources with one another by engaging in direct transactions, the terms of which are explicitly shared and mutually agreed upon.\u201d<\/p>\n Researchers hypothesized that people who give and receive via a \u201cgeneralized exchange system,\u201d (Freecycle) would feel greater solidarity and group identification than those using a \u201cdirect exchange system\u201d (Craigslist). The results bear out their claims.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat we found is that a site like Freecycle is uniquely good at generating pro-group sentiments like group identification and solidarity,\u201d said Willer, a co-author of the study.\u00a0 \u201cThe more people receive gifts through these systems, the more they come to identify as members of the group and view the group as cohesive and high in solidarity, more so than Craigslist members. These pro-group feelings in turn motivate members to give to the group.\u201d<\/p>\n Thus, the study points out, \u201cIf a critical mass of contributions can be harnessed, it may spark a sort of \u2018virtuous cycle\u2019 that leads groups featuring generalized exchange to achieve productivity and maintain group members\u2019 giving.\u201d<\/p>\n Freecycle and Craigslist users answered questions about their consumer activity and sentiments about their respective online communities. Among other things, they reported the amount of time spent on these websites or listservs and the number of items bought, sold, advertised, given and received. They also rated how strongly they agreed or disagreed with such statements as \u201cThe group I belong to is an important reflection of who I am,\u201d or \u201cMy group membership has very little to do with how I feel about myself.\u201d<\/p>\n Researchers factored in such variables as environmental concerns \u2013 reducing waste sent to landfills \u2013 and political or religious affiliations that might predispose their subjects to stronger feelings of idealism and group identity.<\/p>\n Overall, the study found Freecycle\u2019s \u201cgeneralized exchange system\u201d inspired greater team spirit and giving behavior among its active members than did the \u201cdirect exchange system\u201d for Craiglist users<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Another notable disparity between Freecycle and Craiglist respondents emerged during recruitment for the study. Given the choice to enter a lottery drawing for a 30GB video iPod or get an official Freecycle banner to promote the organization at public events, about 60 percent of Freecycle users opted for the iPod. By comparison, nearly 80 percent of Craiglist users opted for the iPod over a small donation to the charitable Craigslist Foundation.<\/p>\n On a practical level, the findings offer management strategies to foster more positive and cooperative working environments<\/strong>.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen leaders communicate to employees about exchange dynamics, they may be better off emphasizing how \u2026 \u2018we all benefit from sharing resources\u2019 rather than \u2026 \u2018we should do more to help our colleagues<\/strong>,\u2019\u201d the study concluded.<\/p>\n In addition to Willer, other co-authors of the study are Francis Flynn, a professor of organizational behavior at Stanford\u2019s Graduate School of Business, and Sonya Zak, Ph.D., a former researcher at Stanford\u2019s Graduate School of Business.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" From the UC Berkeley press release: Reinforcing that the best things in life are free, a new study from the University of California, Berkeley, shows\u00a0that online freebie-exchange communities such as… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5,8],"tags":[306,59,37,58,143,12,102],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3273"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3273"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3273\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3319,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3273\/revisions\/3319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/images\/blogpics\/Community.jpg\" "\\"community\\"")
Reinforcing that the best things in life are free, a new study from the University of California, Berkeley, shows\u00a0that online freebie-exchange communities such as \u201cFreecycle\u201d and \u201cCouchsurfing\u201d foster greater team spirit among their members than do cash-for-goods websites<\/strong>.<\/p>\n