Influencing Factors Of Online Donation Behavior: The Perspective Of Information Channels And Recipient Characteristics

Donation behavior has always been one of the hot-spots of psychology.In recent years,with the development of Internet technology,the Internet donation are becoming more and more extensive in our lives,and the psychological and behavioral problems of Internet donation needs to be studied.On the basis of previous study,this study focus on the release approach of information and the feature of recipient for the Internet donation,to explore the factors that affect the Internet donation.In the first study,we want to explore the effect of the release approach of information on Internet donation,and adopted 2*3 mixed experimental design.With the release approach of donation information(Internet,reality)and the publishers of the information(acquaintances released,acquaintances to forward,strangers released)as the independent variable,with the willingness of donation and money as the dependent variable.The results of the study show that the release approach of Internet obtains more willingness of donation and money than the information which has released across the reality approach.For the Internet release approach,the information which is released by strangers obtain the least amount of willingness of donation and money;For the reality release approach,the information which is released by acquaintances obtain the most amount of willingness of donation and money.In the second study,we want to explore the effect of the feature of recipient on Internet donation,and adopted 2*2 within-subject experimental design.With the similarity of age(peers,non-peers)and description of information(emotional description,rational description)as independent variables,with the willingness of donation and money as the dependent variable.The results of the study show that,the main effect of the similarity of age and description of information are all not significant,but interaction between the similarity of age and description of information is significant.In the group which the age remain the same,the willingness of donation and money of the emotional description are significantly less than that of the rational description.In the situation of emotional description,the willingness of donation of the non-peers is higher than that of the peers,and the difference is significant.In the situation of rational description,the peers obtain more money than non-peers,and the difference is significant.In summary,the first study found that the information which is released across Internet will enhance people's willingness to donate and the amount of contributions,which is due to the Internet environment,personal information can be the greatest degree and the influence of the Bystander Effect is reduced.And the information which is released by acquaintances,the subjects are more willing to donate.Because the interpersonal distance affected the level of interpersonal trust,the subjects are more likely to believe the information that released by acquaintances,so more willing to donate.The second study found that it is easier to obtain donation by using a rational way to describe the donation information of peers,because rational description will more likely to lead to Perceived similarity,and empathy is related to perceived similarity,the subjects will more willing to help recipient.And the emotional way to describe the elderly and the child's donation information,will more easily to get help.Relative to young people,the elderly and children are more easily to get help.Meanwhile,in the situation of emotional description,which is more likely to cause the sympathy of the subjects,so the subjects are more willing to contributions.