Why do women write personal blogs? Satisfying needs for self-disclosure and affiliation tell part of the story

Hierarchical OLS regression of survey results from a random sample of 312 women bloggers reveals a statistically significant positive relationship between need for self-disclosure and seeing blogging as a way to express one’s own voice, mediated by need for affiliation and time spent blogging. In essence, women with a strong need to self-disclose information about themselves are more likely than other women to say they blog to express their own voice in the blogosphere, compared with blogging to connect with other people or to gain influence in the blogosphere. In contrast, for women who blog to connect with other people or gain influence in the blogosphere, the strongest predictors is time spent blogging, not needs that motivated them to blog. Results are discussed in relation to need theory.

► Women with high need for self-disclosure blog to express own voice, not connect with people or gain influence in blogosphere. ► Need for affiliation and time spent blogging mediate relationship between self-disclosure and blogging to express one’s voice. ► Time spent blogging is strongest predictor of blogging to connect with others or gain influence in blogosphere.