Helping by Clicking Motives Scale Study1
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Date
2025
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Abstract
A number of aid campaigns can be found on the Internet that often involve only clicking on a “like” icon or button. Helping by clicking can be called a kind of passive helping, defined as helping without making much effort. What seems important in this phenomenon is the motivation behind such help. The main aim of the study was to develop a measure of motivations to engage in helping on the Internet. It included Sample 1 with N = 349 subjects. A list of 38 statements was compiled for further analysis. The latent structure of construct measured by the HCMS was examined separately for the two samples, using exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), revealing two factors: intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. The authors drew on two theories: the motivation to help theory and the cognitive evaluation theory. The validation study yielded a 14-item version of a method that, to the authors’ knowledge, is the world’s first research measure of motives for helping by clicking.
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helping by clicking, the motivation to help theory, the cognitive evaluation theory