The Effect Of Secure Attachment On Internet Altruistic Behavior And Its Mechanisms

Previous research based on attachment theory has found that secure attachment affects an individual’s altruistic behavior.Internet altruistic behavior is an extension of reality altruism in cyberspace,and there is a lack of research on the mechanisms influencing security attachment and online altruistic behavior.In addition,most current research on Internet altruism is based on the perspective of the donor,but Internet altruism,as a pro-social behavior that occurs in the context of online interpersonal interaction,is inevitably influenced by the factors of the seeker.Therefore,this study attempts to integrate attachment theory and the social information processing model to explore the influence mechanism of Internet altruistic behavior based on the dual perspective of“donors and seekers”,in order to enrich the study of Internet altruistic behavior,so as to promote the creation of clear cyberspace and provide an empirical basis for the positive role of the Internet.This study uses a combination of questionnaire and experimental methods to explore the mechanisms of Internet altruistic behavior through three studies with college students as the research target and tries to address the following questions: examine whether secure attachment positively influences Internet altruistic behavior from the perspective of the donor(Study 1),examine how secure attachment influences Internet altruistic behavior from the perspective of the donor(Study 2),examine when secure attachment influences Internet altruistic behavior from the perspective of the seeker(Study 3).The study found that:(1)Secure attachment positively influences Internet altruistic behavior.Individuals with high secure attachment had higher Internet altruistic behavior compared to those with low secure attachment.(2)Positive empathy partially mediates the relationship between secure attachment and Internet altruistic behavior.Individuals with higher levels of secure attachment also had higher levels of positive empathy and were more likely to engage in Internet altruistic behavior.(3)Whether seekers use emoji symbols or not has a significant moderating effect on helpers’ Internet altruistic behaviors in the path of “positive empathy--Internet altruistic behaviors”.Specifically,the predictive effect of positive empathy on Internet altruistic behavior was significant in the condition without emoji symbols,and in the condition with emoji symbols,the predictive effect of positive empathy on Internet altruistic behavior was also significant.Conclusion: From the donor’s perspective,secure attachment initiation and positive empathy were effective in increasing Internet altruistic behavior,and positive empathy mediated the relationship between secure attachment and Internet altruistic behavior.From the seeker’s perspective,emoji symbols moderated the relationship between positive empathy and Internet altruistic behavior.