Lecture 2: Online prosocial behavior Flashcards
Why do we help?
- Reciprocal altruism
- Evalutionary factors (same genetic materials)
- individual differences (!)
- Situational factors (!)
(REIS)
What are the 6 ‘Situational factors’ that influences if we help or not?
- Self-concern or distraction
- Lack of competence
- Audience inhibition
- Ambiguity
- Pluralistic ignorance
- Diffusion of responsibility
(SLAAPD)
Do media cause antisocial behavior?
- Strong concerns in society (cyberbulying)
- Media may also be positively related to prosocial behavior
- Even promoting prosocial behavior
What is Online prosocial behavior (OPB)?
- Voluntary behavior…
- …carried out in an electronic [online] context
- …with the intention of benefiting particular others…
- …or promoting harmonious relations with others
Describe our online prosocial behavior on social media
- Interpersonal (person to person)
- CMC ->Lacking face-to-face (text, image, video)
- one-to-many -> broadcast
- Social capital (forming new networks)
What are the positives of social media on our behavior?
Opportunities for kindness, support
What are the negatives of social media on our behavior?
Disinhibition
What the research found about teen behavior on social media? (Erreygers, et al., 2019)
- that prosocial behaviour is more common than online antisocial behaviour
- 68% get support on social media during though time
When do people contribute prosocial behavior online what was found in earlier research? (Erreygers, et al., 2019)
- influenced by offline pb
- influenced by popularity and social preference
- influenced by being the recipient of opb
- influenced by frequency of using digital technologies
- influenced by relational self-construal
- influenced by altruism and reciprocity
- influenced by positive and negative emotions
- influenced by gender more opb among girls
What where the most important findings in this research:
“spillover and crossover effects of happiness on Adolescents’ OPB” (Erreygers, et al., 2019)
- Spillover
- On days that adolescents reported higher than (their own) average levels of happiness after school, they also reported higher levels of happiness at home later that day (within-person level)
- Adolescents who reported higher than average happiness levels after school overall (across days), also reported higher than average happiness levels at home (between-person level). - Crossover
- On days that mothers were happier when they returned from work, their daughters felt happier at home later that evening.
- Other crossovers were not significant - Cross-sectional association
- On days that girls reported more happiness at home, they reported more OPB
- Only significant for within-person for girls - Mediation
Two significant effect were found for girls
- on days that girls felt happier after school or that their mothers were happier after work, they behaved more prosocially online, and this association was explained by girls’ higher happiness at home
What is the Broaden and Build Theory (Barbar Frederickson)?
This theory suggests that:
- positive emotions play a fundamental role in expanding:
broaden: experiencing positives emotions expands peoples mindset
building: stimulating them to think of others and do good
(creating a feedback loop)
What is ‘Broaden’ (Broaden and Build Theory)
Experiencing positive emotions expands people’s mindset
Where can the broaden effect lead to?
The broadening effect of positive emotions can lead to the ‘building’ of psychological resources (e.g. building relationships)
What is ‘Building (relationships)’ (Broaden and Build Theory)
Stimulating them to think of others and do good
Explain the positive mood effect
- When people are happy, they are more helpful, which creates happiness
- Mutally reinforcing each other through a feedback loop
What is spillover?
Transmission of emotional states from one context to another
What is crossover?
Transmission of emotional states from person to person
What is a diary study?
- Multiple measures over time period
- Reported by participants in daily life
- Past: paper and pen, Today: Mobile alerts
- Allows “within-person” analysis (as well as between-person)
- Reduces recall bias (e.g., survey)
What was measured in the study ‘Feel Good, Do Good Online?’ (Erreygers, et al., 2019)
- Happiness (After school & Before bed; Parents & children)
- Online Prosocial behavior (Before bed; Children)
- Digital Technology use (before bed; children)
- Gender, marital status, etc
What were the RQ’s from the study ‘Feel Good, Do Good Online?’ (Erreygers, et al., 2019)
H1. Happy after school/work -> happy at home? (H1) (spillover)
H2. Happy parents -> happy kid? (H2) (crossover)
H3. Happy kid -> happy comments? (H3)
What were the result for H1: “Happy after school/work -> happy at home?” (spillover) (Erreygers, et al., 2019)
Spillover hypothesis confirmed
1. Between-person finding: comparing across kids, happier kids after school were happier kids at home
2. Within-person finding: when kids are happier after school than their own average, they are happier at home
What were the result for H2: “Happy parents -> happy kid? (crossover)” (Erreygers, et al., 2019)
Crossover hypothesis partially confirmed
1. On days that mothers were happier when they returned from work, their daughters felt happier at home (later that evening)
2. Father on children not confirmed
3. Mother on sons not confirmed
What were the result for H3: “Happy kid -> happy comments?” (Erreygers, et al., 2019)
Partially confirmed
1. On days that girls reported more happiness ate home, the reported more OPB
2. For boys not confirmed
What were the most importent points from the discussion? - (‘Feel Good, Do Good Online?’ (Erreygers, et al., 2019)
- Prosocial behavior online is situational
…(not only who you are, but what state you are in) - Moods that predict behaving positively online…
… can be transferred from other people and places
… explanations?
a. “mood maintenance process” – people in a happy mood seek out positive experiences (e.g., OPB) to maintain or elevate mood
b. Broaden and Build Theory: feeling good, opens up your mind to doing good - Why girls and not boys?
Boy’s prosocial behaviour less dependent on current emotional states?
What determines confidence in interaction?
Social self-efficacy
What is social self-efficacy?
Individuals’ belief in their capacity to…:
- … effectively handle interpersonal interactions,
- …successfully initiate social contact,
- … [and] maintain and develop friendships
Explain shyness and social self-efficacy. ‘Shy people tend to…;
Shy people tend to…
- …be “self-conscious, inhibited, and prone to experience more negative emotions”
- …be “excessively concerned about negative evaluation in social interactions”
- …“devalue their capacity…” in social interactions
What does existing research found about: “Are shy people more or less likely to
engage in online prosocial behavior?”
Less (shyness inhibits social behavior including prosocial acts)
Explain shyness and online interaction
- Control over self-presentation
- Control over the message
- Asynchronous
- Anonymous (e.g., Reddit, Discord)
What was the RQ of the study ‘Shyness and online prosocial behavior’? (Guo et al., 2018)
This study aims to investigate whether there is a negative association between shyness and prosociality in cyberspace and related mechanisms accounting for this association.
What explains (mediates) the relationship between shyness and OPB? - ‘Shyness and online prosocial behavior’? (Guo et al., 2018)
Cognitive and Affective Processing Systems of personality
1. Cognitive = Social self-efficacy
2. Affective = Empathy
What is empathy?
Individual emotional response that motivate human altruism
Why do emphatic individuals tend to be prosocial?
Self-transcendence values over self-enhancement values
Which factors were correlated with shyness and empathy?
- perspective taking (negative correlated)
- empathic concern (negative correlated)
- Personal distress (positive correlated)
- Fantasy (positive correlated)
What were the results of the study ‘Shyness and online prosocial behavior’? (Guo et al., 2018)
- Shyer people are less likely to engage in OPB
a. this association was completely mediated by social self-efficacy, perspective taking, and empathic concern
b. Specifically, shyness exerted a negative influence on the above mentioned mediators, thereby decreasing the tendency to act prosocially online.
c. Moreover, the mediating effect of social self-efficacy was larger than that of perspective taking and empathic concern
What were the most important points from the discussion of the study ‘Shyness and online prosocial behavior’? (Guo et al., 2018)
- Online interaction does not (appear to) eliminate the barrier of social self-efficacy
for shy people to engage in OPB - Empathy also plays a (smaller) role
- How to empower shy people to help online?
* Enhance social self-efficacy (!)
What is Personalized advertising?
- …specialized flow of communication…
- …that sends different recipients distinct messages…
- …tailored to their individual preferences or characteristics
How to cut through message clutter on social media?
- Involvement (Petty & Cacioppo)
- Self-referencing
What is ‘Involvement’ (Petty & Cacioppo)?
- Personal relevance to the recipient
* The “me-ness” of the message - More relevant, interesting and important
What is ‘Self-referencing’?
- Similar to involvement
- Most direct forms: qualities that (people perceive) speak specifically to them and their “self-concept”
- Basic (effective) example, using a person’s name
What are the 3 hypothesis from the study ‘Personalized charity advertising’ (Bartsch & Klob, 2019)?
H1. Personalization can reinforce prosocial outcomes
H2. This positive effect is mediated by involvement
H3. and by empathy
H4. Personalization may elicit reactance which could act as a negative mediator that runs counter to these positive effects
H5. Finally, we examined whether involvement can mitigate reactance and its negative effects.
What is ‘Empathy-altruism hypothesis’? (Batson and Powell 2003)
- Altruistic motivation results from the experience of empathy with a person in need, and from the desire to increase this person’s welfare
- Bystander effect can limit altruism (particularly online!)
- Self-referencing can activate altruism (from empathy) by limiting bystander effect
What is reactance?
Motivational state directed towards the re-establishment, threatened or eliminated freedom
- Autonomy threat
- Leads to anger, counterarguments and counterbehavior
Explain the relation of reactance and personalized messages…
Personalized messages prone to cause reactance effects
- External pressure having negative effects on altruistic motivations
Which constructs were measures in the study Personalized charity advertising’ (Bartsch & Klob, 2019)?
- Empathy ( ‘tender’, ‘softhearted’, ‘compassionate’)
- Self-reference
- Reactance
- Prosocial behavior (homelessness)
- Attitudes and (general) intentions
- Willingness to support the campaign
What were the results in the study Personalized charity advertising’ (Bartsch & Klob, 2019)?
Overall: insignificant effect of personalization on prosocial behavior!
Why was there no significant effect in the study ‘Personalized charity advertising’ (Bartsch & Klob, 2019)?
positive and negative effect from personalization on reactance cancel each other out
