The Psychology of Digital Community Formation: Self-Concept, Authenticity, and Para-Social Bonds in Social Media Environments

This study examines how consumer self-concept dimensions influence technology-mediated relationships in digital influencer marketing through structural equation modeling with 748 social media participants. We investigated how self-efficacy, self-assertion, social presence, self-esteem, and social conspicuousness affect social distance perception and para-social interaction formation with human influencers, while examining authenticity as a moderating variable. Results reveal that all self-concept dimensions significantly predict both social distance reduction and para-social interaction development with influencers. Notably, social conspicuousness emerged as the strongest predictor of social distance, while self-efficacy showed the strongest effect on para-social interaction. The study uncovered an asymmetric relationship pattern: while social distance strongly influenced recommendation intentions, it showed no significant effect on brand trust formation. Conversely, para-social interactions positively affected both brand trust and recommendation intentions. Brand trust demonstrated a robust relationship with recommendation intentions. Authenticity moderated four relationships, strengthening the self-assertion→social distance link under high authenticity conditions, while amplifying social presence effects on social distance and self-esteem/social conspicuousness effects on para-social interaction under low authenticity conditions. These findings contribute to management information systems literature by providing validated theoretical foundations for understanding technology-mediated self-concept manifestations in digital marketing, offering strategic implications for algorithmic personalization, consumer micro-segmentation, and adaptive content delivery mechanisms within social media marketing platforms.