WHY DO PEOPLE RETWEET A TWEET?: ALTRUISTIC, EGOISTIC, AND RECIPROCITY MOTIVATIONS FOR RETWEETING

Abstract

The present study investigated underlying motivations of Twitter users for retweeting with a presumption that retweeting is a prosocial behaviour. Accordingly, retweeting were predicted to occur when an individual was motivated for prosocial reasons. In this study, prosocial motivations were classified into three categories of egoistic, altruistic, and reciprocity motivations. In addition, behavioural intention was taken as part of predicting variables of actual retweeting behavior and was investigated with other motivation variables. Participants were actual Twitter users who were recruited on Twitter, and data collection was done through an online survey. The results showed that altruistic motivation among three prosocial motivations could predict actual retweeting behaviour through behavioural intention. In addition, the differential effects of reciprocity motivation was found to vary depending on the sizes of the followers and the followees.