With them or watching: Entitativity is Facebook Status Updates

Are Facebook status updates groups? If Facebook status updates are groups, then they may be an understudied yet fundamental unit of analysis for understanding Facebook. Using entitativity and self-categorization theories, we examine how status updates are perceived as groups by the status updaters. Results suggest that people who post status updates iterpret the responders to their status updates as groups. Further, using multiple group analysis, we demonstrate that interacting with status update responders creates a stronger and more robust assessment of the group. Our study suggests that theories about groups, particularly groups in which people are members, may be a new, useful theoretical stream for researchers.