Why Do They Help People with AIDS/HIV Online? Altruistic Motivation and Moral Identity

With the help of information and communication technologies, people can enjoy online social services, especially some stigmatized groups. In China, it is popular for AIDS patients to seek help online since the anonymity of cyberspace can protect people from stigmas and mocking evaluations. This arti...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of social service research Vol. 46; no. 3; pp. 345 - 360
Main Author Hu, Yumeng
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published London Routledge 03.05.2020
Taylor & Francis LLC
Subjects
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome
AIDS
Altruism
Asian cultural groups
Behavior
Communications technology
Content analysis
Egoism
Helping behavior
High risk
HIV
HIV/AIDS
Human immunodeficiency virus
Humanitarianism
Identity
Information technology
Internet
Kindness
moral identity
Morality
Motivation
Patients
Risk behavior
Social services
Sympathy
Volunteers
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Summary:With the help of information and communication technologies, people can enjoy online social services, especially some stigmatized groups. In China, it is popular for AIDS patients to seek help online since the anonymity of cyberspace can protect people from stigmas and mocking evaluations. This article conducts a content analysis on 216 volunteers' applications in an AIDS forum and measures their online helping behavior after application to explore what motivates volunteers to help AIDS patients online, how it affects them, and why the moral implication attached to AIDS fails to prevent them. The author indicates that helping behavior may be inspired by varied motivation from altruism to egoism, including kindness, values, sympathy, reward, atonement and benefit. Among them, the closer to altruism the motivation is, the more likely it is to be mentioned, while the "reward" motivation has the most significant effect. This article then examines volunteers' moral identity of AIDS, arguing that the moral identity of humanitarianism can counteract the moral criticism of high-risk behavior related to AIDS. Future research in this area should examine the relationship between motivation and moral identity, the change in different phases, and compare different helping situations to encourage more forms of social services and supportive behavior.
ISSN:0148-8376
1540-7314
DOI:10.1080/01488376.2019.1575321