Generous Attitudes and Online Participation

Authors

  • Floor Fiers Northwestern University
  • Aaron Shaw
  • Eszter Hargittai

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.51685/jqd.2021.008

Keywords:

generosity, dictator game, online participation, user-generated content

Abstract

Some of the most popular websites depend on user-generated content produced and aggregated by unpaid volunteers. Contributing in such ways constitutes a type of generous behavior, as it costs time and energy while benefiting others. This study examines the relationship between contributions to a variety of online information resources and an experimental measure of generosity, the dictator game. Results suggest that contributors to any type of online content tend to donate more in the dictator game than those who do not contribute at all. When disaggregating by type of contribution, we find that those who write reviews, upload public videos, write or answer questions, and contribute to encyclopedic collections online are more generous in the dictator game than their non-contributing counterparts. These findings suggest that generous attitudes help to explain variation in contributions to review, question-and-answer, video, and encyclopedic websites.

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Published

2021-04-26

Issue

Section

Articles

How to Cite

Fiers, F., Shaw, A., & Hargittai, E. (2021). Generous Attitudes and Online Participation. Journal of Quantitative Description: Digital Media , 1. https://doi.org/10.51685/jqd.2021.008

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