Abstract
Human’s decision making is not necessarily always planned; their unplanned behaviour—determined by natural personality traits—also contributes to the decision making process. In this study, we investigate factors related to planned and unplanned behaviour to understand why people share political content in online social media. Based on an online survey of 257 social media users, our results demonstrate that the factors representing both planned (i.e., perceived social recognition and altruistic motivation) and unplanned behaviour (i.e., extroversion and impulsiveness) affect people’s political content sharing behaviour. Our study understands that sharing political content is not like sharing other forms of content such as tourist attractions—the former can provoke serious punishment in some countries. Accordingly, trait impulsiveness is negatively associated with political content sharing behaviour. We also found that collective opinion moderates people’s planned behaviour, but not their unplanned behaviour. In other words, personality traits are unaffected by others’ opinions, but traits that humans can control can be shaped by others’.
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Appendices
Appendix 1: Measurement items
Altruistic motivation (AM) {adapted from Shiau and Chau (2015) and Ma and Chan (2014)}
1.1 AM1. I enjoy helping others
1.2 AM2. Have a great deal of interest in other people
1.3 AM3. Care about others
1.4 AM4. Feel empathy and concern for other people
Perceived social recognition (PSR) {adapted from Shiau and Chau (2015)}.
PSR1. Sharing improves my image.
PSR2. Increases prestige when shared.
PSR3. Sharing improves recognition (discarded because of low loading).
PSR4. I earn respect by sharing.
PSR5. Enhances personal status.
Impulsiveness (IMP) {adapted from Park et al. (2016)}.
IMP.1 I usually do things on impulse.
IMP2. I often behave without thinking of the consequences.
IMP3. I often say the first thing I think.
IMP4. I often act on the spur of the moment (discarded because of low loading).
Extroversion (EXT) {adapted from (McCrae and Terracciano 2005)}.
EXT1. Have a wide social circle of friends and acquaintances.
EXT2. Enjoy being the centre of attention.
EXT3. Feel energised when I am around other people.
EXT4. Say things before I think about them.
Sharing behaviour (B) {adapted from Hossain et al. (2016)}.
B1. I share political contents regularly.
B2. In the last month my sharing of political contents has increased compared to before.
B3. I recommend political contents to others.
Collective opinion (CO) {adapted from (Sakamoto et al. 2009)}.
CO1. High numbers of likes/shares/followers are important to me.
CO2. High numbers of likes/shares/followers shape my judgement.
CO3. High numbers of likes/shares/followers receive my higher attention
Appendix 2
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Hossain, M.A., Dwivedi, Y.K., Chan, C. et al. Sharing Political Content in Online Social Media: A Planned and Unplanned Behaviour Approach. Inf Syst Front 20, 485–501 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10796-017-9820-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10796-017-9820-9