A social cognitive theory of Internet uses and gratifications: toward a new model of media attendance.

The socio-cognitive mechanism can be perceived in "A General Media Gratifications Model" (found in Palmgreen et al. 1985, p. 17) in which media consumption affects perceptions of gratifications obtained, which feed back to beliefs and expectations about media alternatives, which determine gratifications sought, which determine media consumption behavior. From the SCT perspective, the expectations about media alternatives--specifically the outcomes that our media consumption behavior produces, organized according to the incentives that motivate human behavior--are what determine further media consumption. GS and GO are thus imprecise, and perhaps superfluous, ways of describing the construct of outcome expectations. The SCT formulation differs in that these expected consequences are themselves the psychological origins of media behavior. The expected outcomes thus produce the "need" for media attendance.

This imprecise match between outcome expectations, GS, and GS-GO formulations might explain the pattern of weak relationships observed between gratifications and media consumption (e.g., Papacharissi & Rubin, 2000). Unsuccessful attempts by researchers (Babrow & Swanson, 1988) to distinguish outcome expectations (derived from a related theory, the Theory of Planned Behavior (Ajzen, 1985) from gratifications perhaps indicated that the two are related constructs. However, the distinction between outcome expectations and gratifications is potentially consequential. Some gratifications sought could be negative predictors of media behavior (if we don't expect to achieve them), others positive ones, but in the aggregate are just possibly confounded ones. Comparing gratifications obtained with those sought compounds the problem (e.g., with gratifications that are obtained but not sought, those that are sought but never realistically expected) that may have no reliable relationship to media behavior. Outcome expectations cut through the ambiguity because they "reflect current beliefs about the outcomes of prospective future behavior but are predicated upon comparisons between incentives expected and incentives attained in the past" (LaRose et al., 2001, p. 399).

Extending Uses and Gratifications

SCT also suggests new concepts that may extend our understanding of uses and gratifications and their impact on media behavior. Two additional mechanisms of SCT, self-efficacy and self-regulation, are particularly heuristic.

Self-efficacy is belief in one's capability to organize and execute a particular course of action (Bandura, 1986). Self-efficacy is particularly relevant for novice users who have not yet acquired the requisite skills to obtain useful information and deal with the discontents of life online, from viruses to balky home Internet connections. It was directly related to Internet usage (Eastin & LaRose, 2000; LaRose et al., 2001), and also acted on usage indirectly, through expected outcomes. In other words, as Internet users become more self-efficacious, their expectations that they will obtain specific outcomes (e.g., finding useful information) also increase, and that encourages more usage. Prior experience with the Internet in turn causally preceded Internet self-efficacy (Eastin & LaRose, 2000), probably through the process of enactive mastery (Bandura, 1986), in which users gradually master complex tasks.

The SCT construct of self-regulation (Bandura, 1991) describes how individuals monitor their own behavior (self-monitoring), judge it in relation to personal and social standards (judgmental process), and apply self-reactive incentives to moderate their behavior (self reaction). Self-regulation is an important point of distinction between SCT and stimulus-response theories of human behavior in that self-generated influences free the individual from blindly following the dictates of external reinforcement. However, when self-regulation fails, increased media consumption may be expected. This issue has been conceptualized in terms of habit and deficient self-regulation (LaRose, Lin, & Eastin, 2003).

In simplest terms, a habit is a recurring behavior pattern. Habit is a well-established predictor of behavior (Oulette & Wood, 1998; Triandis, 1980). Although long overlooked in communication research (cf. Rosenstein & Grant, 1997; Stone & Stone, 1990), recent qualitative research suggests that a great deal of media behavior is habitual (Adams, 2000). Uses and gratifications researchers have associated habit with "ritualistic gratifications," such as passing time (Rubin, 1984), that are conceptually still part of an active selection process. However, recent research (e.g., Aarts, Verplanken, & van Knippenberg, 1998; Bargh & Gollwitzer, 1994) suggests that habit is a form of automaticity, a pattern of behavior (e.g., checking one's e-mail) that follows a fixed cognitive schema, triggered by an environmental stimulus (e.g., seeing one's computer desktop in the morning) or by recalling a goal (e.g., keeping up with one's associates), and performed without further self-instruction. This is outside the realm of active media selection presumed in uses and gratifications research At best, automatic media consumption behaviors were initially framed by active considerations that were eventually forgotten (cf. Stone & Stone, 1990): We carefully evaluated our options the first time we used e-mail but by the hundredth time we did not. Within SCT habit is a failure of the self-monitoring subfunction of self-regulation. Through repetition we become inattentive to the reasoning behind our media behavior, our mind no longer devotes attention resources to evaluating it, freeing itself for more important decisions.

Habit strength is not a catch-all for uses and gratifications but rather represents patterns of behavior established by past thinking about outcome expectations/ gratifications that is no longer repeated in the present. Habit strength is expected to influence ongoing behavior, independent of current active thinking about expected (gratification) outcomes. Habit should be causally determined by outcome expectations, which precede habit in time. Habit strength should be preceded by self-efficacy, since users are unlikely to be inattentive to a behavior they are still mastering. These relationships were confirmed in LaRose et al., 2003).

Deficient Self Regulation is defined as a state in which conscious self-control is diminished. It has been proposed as an explanatory mechanism for so-called "Internet addictions," more properly called "problematic Internet use" (LaRose et al., 2003). In that research, deficient self-regulation was directly related to Internet usage and also contributed to usage indirectly, through habit strength. As deficient self-regulation comes into effect, media behavior tends to become an end unto itself and no longer subject to active consideration of its expected outcomes. One important exception are self-reactive outcomes, through which users counteract the negative affect that results from personal problems that intensify with excessive media usage, part of a self-reinforcing "downward spiral" into problematic or addictive usage.

Still, habit and deficient self-regulation have not been clearly distinguished. Addictions, including behavioral addictions, are a form of habitual behavior (Marlatt, Baer, & Kivlahan, 1988) so the two constructs overlap. At the operational level, measures of habit lacked sufficient reliability and exhibited some degree of multi-collinearity with deficient self-regulation so LaRose et al. concluded that they had not clearly distinguished the two. They proposed a possible theoretical distinction: Habit could represent the failure of self-monitoring, while deficient self-regulation might represent a failure of the judgmental and self-reactive subfunctions. Both the conceptual definition of deficient self-regulation and its operationalization (based on symptoms of pathological gambling and substance dependence, e.g., "I feel tense, moody, or irritable if I can't get on the Web when I want") betray an intense, even painful, self-awareness of media consumption. Thus, deficient self-regulation reflects a distinct state of mind from one in which media consumers are inattentive, explaining how both might have independent effects on media attendance. Yet, the two should be related in that persons with deficient self-control may also be expected to engage in habitual behavior.

Are College Students Typical Internet Users?

Research on Internet usage has focused on college students, often with the reassurance that scholars are interested in the lawful relationships among variables that should be observable among many groups, including purposive samples of college students. But there are also some important ways that college students differ from the general population and these are particularly salient from the SCT perspective.

College students, and particularly the freshmen who populate large introductory classes, have relatively high levels of depression (Rich & Scovel, 1987) and depression is known to inhibit effective self-regulation (Bandura, 1991), possibly exaggerating the effect of that variable. One reason that freshmen are depressed is separation from their family and friends, perhaps heightening the importance of social and mood-elevating self-reactive outcomes. Indeed, college students demonstrate an especially heavy reliance on the Internet for social interaction and fun activities (Pew Research Center, 2002). Will the same motives found among college students affect Internet attendance in broader populations?