Mechanisms Of Individual's Participation Behaviors In Online Charity From The Trust And Empathy Perspective

The rapid development of the Internet in China has profoundly affected the country's charities,which many people support through online donations(offer financial help)and charity information forwarding(a new behavior of participating in online charities via social media).However,the development of online charities has been accompanied by many problems,such as donation scams and fake charity information,which adversely affect social kindness and trust.The purpose of this paper is to understand people's online donation and forwarding behaviors and to explore the mechanisms of such behaviors from the perspective of rational-based trust and emotional-based empathy.This study developed a research model based on the heuristic-systematic model(HSM)and message appeal theory.287 valid samples were received via an online survey and the PLS-SEM analysis was conducted to test the model.Results indicated that multicollinearity and common method bias are not serious problems for the proposed model and the data have good reliability and validity.Results found that(1)online donation intention is motivated by a dual-process of rational-based trust and emotional-based empathy;(2)online charity information forwarding is triggered only when trust is built,while there is no significant correlation between emotional-based empathy and forwarding intention;and(3)content quality,initiator credibility and platform reputation are three critical paths to promote trust;in addition,individual's empathy can be motivated by emotional appeal approach.The results of the mediation effects showed that trust is a full mediator of the relationships between content quality and behavioral intentions and between initiator credibility and behavioral intentions.Trust was also a partial mediator of the relationships between platform reputation and behavioral intentions.In addition,the influence of emotional appeal on donation intention was partially mediated by empathy.This study makes several important theoretical contributions to the literature.First,we introduced message appeal theory to extend HSM by integrating rational appeal as a systematic factor and emotional appeal as a heuristic factor,therefore developed a dual-process approach to understand people's online participation behaviors from the perspective of rational-based trust and emotional-based empathy.Second,most studies in the charity literature focused on drivers of donation behavior but ignored forwarding behavior.This study considered forwarding behavior and contributes to the literature by demonstrating different mechanisms of trust and empathy on donation and forwarding behaviors.Third,this research provided a comprehensive understanding of individuals' trust formation in the context of online charity.This research also has several practical implications to motive online trust and empathy.It is helpful to promote people's donation and forwarding behaviors,and then promote the vigorous development of online charities.