This week ECF list subscribers were alerted to a report; The Nature of Slacktivism: How the Social Observability of an Initial Act of Token Support Affects Subsequent Prosocial Action.
My personal experience is that most discussion of “Slacktivism” is thinly veiled missive about the damn kids today with their tweets and their internets and back in my day we stopped the Vietnam war with nothing but feet on pavement and ra ra ra.
So I was thrilled by this report’s promise of quantitative evidence of slacktivist behaviour. The authors “make the novel prediction that when the initial act of token support is high in social observability (i.e., it is public), people will be less likely to engage in subsequent meaningful contributions to the cause than when the initial act of token support is low in social observability (i.e., it is private).” “As a result of these impression-management motives already being satisfied, consumers will not be particularly motivated to contribute to the cause when a subsequent request for more meaningful support is made.”
Basically, we’re all motivated both by the desire for kudos and the desire to do good. If your primary motivator in supporting a particular cause is to look (to others) like a good person, you will be less likely to engage meaningfully with the cause than if your primary motivator is to feel like a good person within your own value set. Note that this isn’t a comment about two different types of people, but more an observation that each of us has a little angel and a little socially insecure do-gooder on our shoulders, and causes may make appeals to either.
About the research
If you don’t care how researchers came to their conclusions, skip to the end. This stuff will just bore you.
The hypotheses were tested in a number of experiments. In the first, researchers showed that subjects who were given a free Poppy pin in a sealed envelope were significantly more likely to donate to Remembrance Day than subjects who were given a free Poppy pin to wear. Those who wore the free Poppy pin were not significantly more likely to donate than those who were not given a free Poppy pin at all.
In the second experiment, participants were asked to choose one petition to sign from two alternative charities. One group was asked to sign the petition at the front of a room of students, while the other chose whether or not to sign a petition at their own desk. 45 minutes later, participants were asked to volunteer time stuffing envelopes for a mail campaign for the charity they supprted. Analysis revealed no statistically significant difference in time donated between those who participated in the “token” petition signing in public and those who signed privately, except where perceived value alignment with the chosen cause was also considered.* A further, separate study showed that the public token action significantly met participants’ desire for impression management.
In the final study, researchers asked participants to choose one of two facebook groups to join. The public/private variable was manipulated by setting the groups to “public” versus “closed” settings, but the implications of those settings were wisely spelled out in the “mission statements” of the two groups. Before being asked to volunteer their time, participants were asked to consider how their values aligned or misaligned with the experiment charity group. In this condition, participants who had engaged in public and private token support were equally likely to volunteer their time.
The point
In general, the evidence offered in favour of the hypothesis (that public token action decreases the motivation to take more valuable action) is fairly slim, with only marginal effects observed for a number of experiment conditions.
More valuable is the paper’s overview of motivational theory, and the finding that reminding clicktivists of the “values-aligned” side of their motivation overcomes the (dubious) effect of motive-satisfaction following public token action.
That is, any ‘slactivism’ risks involved in setting up low-barrier, low-engagement activities for your soft supporters are pretty easily overcome by consistently reminding them that they aren’t doing it to impress other people, but for their own connection with your cause.
So if you were hoping for an empirically-sound swipe at online activists, sorry folks, no love here.
*Also considered? The report states that results became significant when value alignment was introduced “as a covariate”. My ANOVA’s a little rusty… the authors certainly could have been clearer in this section.
Perswayzee 