Convenient for Positive Expression: Role of Expressivity and Internet Use Motives to Online Self-disclosure

Previous studies found that online self-disclosure was related social network (sites) characteristics and hyper-personal variables such as privacy concern and anonymity, which led to greater benefit and lesser risks. Current study tried to link (emotional) expressivity and internet use motives – namely convenience, interpersonal/communication, and social – to online self-disclosure. Expressivity and all motives for using internet were hypothesized to significantly predict uncovering self on internet.One hundred and fifty-two Indonesian internet users filled Berkeley Expressivity Questionnaire, Internet Motive Questionnaire-12, four-items of subjective online self-disclosure, and five yes-no questions related to personal information online, which were converted to a dummy variable called actual self-disclosure. Due to non-normality nature of the data, subjective and actual self-disclosure data were splitted by median and converted to dichotomous category. Logistic regression analysis showed that although actual and subjective self-disclosure is significantly correlated, positive expressivity and convenience motive only significantly predicts subjective self-disclosure. Result will be explained further in discussion section. Keywords: positive expression