2026-10-11T17:51:00Z https://www.scidb.cn/oai

10.57760/sciencedb.psych.00752 2025-08-15T16:11:23Z

2025-08-15 Prototype Analysis of Online Prosocial Behaviors on Social Media: Conceptual Representation from the Perspective of University Students doi:10.57760/sciencedb.psych.00752 en Based on prototype theory, this study explores university students’ conceptual representation of online prosocial behaviors on social media. Through three substudies: behavioral features were generated via open-ended questionnaires and focus group interviews; centrality ratings distinguished core and peripheral features; a recognition task experiment validated the prototypicality advantage effect. Results indicated that: (1) 51 behavioral items were identified and categorized into five dimensions—altruistic behaviors, social participation behaviors, relationship maintenance behaviors, law-abiding behaviors, and self-expression behaviors, with relationship maintenance and altruistic behaviors as key dimensions, and social participation emerging as a novel dimension; (2) 23 central category members (e.g., rational celebrity following, protecting others’ rights) and 26 peripheral members were established; (3) the recognition experiment revealed superior cognitive processing for central members. These findings demonstrate a multidimensional cognitive structure among university students, emphasizing norm compliance and interpersonal maintenance as core features, while the social participation dimension highlights youths’ inclination toward public engagement via social media, offering a theoretical foundation for developing measurement tools. online prosocial behaviors ; prototype theory; conceptual representation; social media; university students zhang jiemin PUBLIC https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ dataset Science Data Bank