Using personal profiles create a sense of familiarity between students. This allows students to be more than just a name on a screen during class but to have a whole profile that expresses their personal interest and hobbies. Having these profiles allow students to form connections with one another that encourages participation- ultimately leading to increased educational performance.

Connection with others: Personalized profiles

Within a Computer-mediated communication (CMC) context, social presence is the extent to which an individual is perceived as a genuine human being in communication through a medium and represents the psychological connection between people.

The greater social presence there is, the more interactions there are within the community (i.e. more engagement) leading to stronger connections, trust, and social ties between students resulting in a greater social cohesion.

Social presence in social cohesion

Social loafing is the tendency for individuals to devote less time or effort when working with others compared to working alone.

When an individual is not interacting with the rest of the group members, there is a lack of social cohesion and emotional connection amongst the group. Improving social loafing would lead to more equally distributed contribution and connection between all of the group members.

Social Loafing in Social Cohesion

Social ties relies on having a connection with other members within the community, The greater the amount of social ties, the more comfortable members are within the community and more likely to continue contribution, collaboration, and cohesion with other members of the community.

Ways to increase the social ties within an online community to further increase the connection between members
- anonymity of profiles
- more offline behavior/activities

Improving Social Ties in Online Communities

Social capital is the extension of available or potentially available resources for the community as a result of the network of relationships from an individual within the community. Social capital has three dimensions:
- relational capital (social trust)
- cognitive capital (shared narrative)
- structural capital (social tie)

The greater the social capital is, the more likely the individual is interacting with others within the community, therefore increasing the social cohesion. Additionally, the more members that strengthen their social network in the community, the greater the overall social cohesion will be

Social Capital in Social Cohesion

Gamification has been implemented within work environments to examine how it may increase team cohesion-related effects.

Gamification to Increase Team Cohesion-Related Effects

Members of online communities often share news to increase social cohesion within their groups

Sharing of News to Increase Social Cohesion

Allison, K., Bussey, K. (2020). Communal Quirks and Circle jerks: A taxonomy of processes contributing to Insularity in Online Communities. Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media, 14. https://doi.org/10.1609/icwsm.v14i1.7275.

A taxonomy of processes contributing to Insularity in Online Communities

A social state in which a community becomes exclusionary and homogenous.  Insular communities are highly homogenous, and exclude people who do not share the same beliefs and interests as the rest of the group. Groups which develop high social cohesion may become so tightly connected, that they become exclusionary.

Insularity

Anonymity is the extent to which individuals can participate in social interactions and communities without revealing their personal identity or information. Varying degrees of anonymity can come into play depending on the platform, context, and measures taken by an individual to obscure their identity. As such, anonymity exists upon a spectrum ranging from total transparency, where an individual's identity is fully disclosed, to complete anonymity, where no identifiable information can be found.

Anonymity

Creating a connection within the members of the community creates a sense of belonging and a motivation to continue engaging with others and the goals within the group. 
Social cohesion can be increased by improving:
- social loafing 
- social presence
- social capital
- personalized profiles
- gamification
- sharing of news

New York University

Davidson College

San Jose State University

DePaul University

Social cohesion is the sense of connectedness and belonging that people feel with others who share their values, beliefs, and goals. It can also refer to the degree of harmony and cooperation among groups in a society. Social cohesion can have positive effects on individual and collective well-being, such as trust, happiness, health, and social capital.

Social Cohesion

Lock, J. V. (2007). Laying the groundwork for the development of learning communities within online courses. Online learning communities, 129-149.

Laying the groundwork for the development of learning communities within online courses

Shiue, Y. C., Chiu, C. M., & Chang, C. C. (2010). Exploring and mitigating social loafing in online communities. Computers in Human Behavior, 26(4), 768-777.

Exploring and mitigating social loafing in online communities

Wang, D. C., Jeng, Y. L., Chiang, C. M., & Huang, Y. M. (2022). Exploring the cohesion of classroom community from the perspectives of social presence and social capital. Journal of Computing in Higher Education, 1-21.

Exploring the cohesion of classroom community from the perspectives of social presence and social capital

Vegt, N., Visch, V., Vermeeren, A., & Ridder, H. (2018). A case study on gamified interventions for team cohesion in factory work. Human Technology, 14(2), 176.


A case study on gamified interventions for team cohesion in factory work

Duffy, A., Tandoc, E., & Ling, R. (2020). Too good to be true, too good not to share: the social utility of fake news. Information, Communication & Society, 23(13), 1-15. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2019.1623904

Too good to be true, too good not to share: The social utility of fake news

Inclusivity is when the entire online community feels comfortable and accepted by the rest of the members to contribute and engage with the rest of the group. This is another important piece to increasing social cohesion. When more people are interacting with one another, there is greater likelihood everyone is coordinating and collaborating without risk of social loafing.

Inclusivity

When measuring social cohesion, one way to do so is by measuring the social engagement. This means we measure the extent to which students/individuals are interacting with each other in a collaborative way,  i.e. interactivity. The more interactive the community is, the higher the social cohesion is.

Engagement impact on Social cohesion within Group Cohesion

Research has explored the effects of different degrees of social cohesion on knowledge sharing. Such research has found a curvilinear relationship between degree of social cohesion and knowledge sharing

Effects of Different Amounts Of Social Cohesion on Knowledge Sharing

When people are divided along different lines such as race, ethnicity, religion, or income, it can create a sense of distrust and animosity between different groups. This can weaken the social fabric of society, reducing social cohesion and making it harder for people to work together to solve common problems.

Social Fragmentation Reduce Social Cohesion

Factors that Interact with Social Cohesion in Communities

Research has focused on the ways in which social connectedness, i.e., how connected students are, differs in in different learning environments.

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