Helping on Social Media

Journal of Media Psychology Theories Methods and Applications, vol. 35, pp. 109–119

Abstract

Abstract: Direct persuasion (i.e., providing people with arguments in favor of a certain behavior) can activate resistance in the receiver and, thus, result in a hampered influence attempt. More promising techniques to influence people’s behavior are self-persuasion (SP; i.e., asking people to generate arguments themselves) and the question–behavior effect (QBE; i.e., asking people to predict their future behavior), which can be easily implemented in social media settings. As both rely differently on message elaboration and focus on different outcomes, we investigated whether SP or QBE is more effective in a social media setting to increase helping behavior. In a between-subjects design, participants viewed an online Facebook group related to United World Schools and either (a) read arguments regarding helping others (direct persuasion), (b) provided arguments regarding helping others (SP), or (c) stated whether they intended to help others (QBE), while their message elaboration was assessed. We hypothesized that both SP and QBE would positively impact attitudes and levels of helping behavior compared to the direct persuasion condition. Additionally, we hypothesized that QBE and SP are equally effective in changing behavior, but that SP is more effective than QBE in changing attitudes toward helping, especially when participants strongly elaborate on their own arguments regarding the positive aspects of helping. Results showed no evidence of SP and QBE influencing attitudes toward helping and helping behavior. For behavioral intentions, some, albeit limited, evidence was found that SP and QBE can have an effect.

Authors 5

1. Tommy van Steen Aachen Institute of Security and Global Affairs

   Leiden University

   Affiliation as printed

   Institute of Security and Global Affairs, Leiden University, The Netherlands

2. Barbara C. N. Müller

   Radboud University Nijmegen

   Affiliation as printed

   Behavioural Science Institute, Radboud University, The Netherlands

3. Shuang Li

   Shandong University

   Affiliation as printed

   Institute of Governance, Shandong University, PR China

   School of Politics and Public Administration, Shandong University, PR China

   Institute of Governance, Shandong University, PR China School of Politics and Public Administration, Shandong University, PR China

4. Jeroen G. B. Loman

   University of Amsterdam

   Affiliation as printed

   Department of Communication Science, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands

5. Moniek Buijzen

   Radboud University Nijmegen · Erasmus University Rotterdam

   Affiliation as printed

   Behavioural Science Institute, Radboud University, The Netherlands

   Erasmus School of Social and Behavioural Sciences, Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands

   Behavioural Science Institute, Radboud University, The Netherlands Erasmus School of Social and Behavioural Sciences, Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands