The Morality Behind Supporting Crowdfunding Campaigns for Eco-Hacktivists

Figures & data

Table 1. PCA component loadings for enviro-mous.

Items	Components
	1	2	3
Component 1: Moral Altruism (a = .92) 5.73% sum of squared % of variance*
EM1 Actions were right	.83	.42	.21
EM2 Made the company clean up in the right way	.75	.29	.10
EM4 Actions were right for Ireland	.81	.47	.14
EM5 Actions protect Irish waters and environment	.75	.36	.08
EM8 Trust EM to use money to clean up the oceans	.82	.10	.37
EM9 Trust EM to use excess £10 million for other environmental issues	.81	.12	.39
EM12 Are good people	.81	.32	.29
EM14 Have the qualities of virtuous people	.80	.29	.32
Component 2: Morally Perceived Subjective Norms (a = .71) 2.62% sum of squared % of variance
EM6 Irish people support EM and their actions	.45	.86	.07
EM7 Irish people would reject EM (R)	.17	.85	−.02
EM13 Considered good people by others	.41	.56	.30
Component 3: Morally Questionable Motives (a = .34) 1.73 sum of squared % of variance
EM10 Hack for other purposes (R)	.12	.11	.80
EM11 Ulterior motives (R)	.50	.01	.67
Eliminated Items
EM3 Actions were irresponsible (R)
EM15 EM members are dishonest (R)

Extraction: Principal Component Analysis. Rotation: Promax with Kaiser Normalization.

*When components are correlated, sum of squared loadings cannot be added to obtain a total variance.

Table 2. PCA factor loadings for spokesperson.

Item	Components
	1	2
Component 1: Virtue Morality (a = .87) 35.89% sum of squared % of variance
Spoke6 Intelligent is this person	.81	.27
Spoke7 Well informed is this person	.77	.41
Spoke8 This person has been educated	.82	.21
Spoke9 Respect this person	.71	.48
Spoke10 Criticize this person (R)	.56	.01
Spoke11 Respect this person’s opinion	.62	.47
Component 2: Moral Social Connectivity (a = .86) 31.92% sum of squared % of variance
Spoke1 Would like this person	.52	.64
Spoke2 Follow this person on social media	.32	.80
Spoke4 Do something similar to this person	.04	.84
Spoke5 Like or share this person’s post	.29	.84
Eliminated item
Spoke3 Agree with this person

Extraction: Principal Component Analysis. Rotation: Varimax with Kaiser Normalization. Rotation converged in 3 iterations.

Table 3. PCA factor loadings for Commentator.

Items	Components
	1	2
Component 1: Virtue Morality (a = .91) 43.34% sum of squared % of variance
Commentator1 Would like this person	.70	.52
Commentator3 Agree with this person	.73	.46
Commentator6 Intelligent is this person	.82	.31
Commentator7 Well informed is this person	.81	.37
Commentator8 This person has been educated	.80	.30
Commentator9 Respect this person	.76	.41
Commentator10 Criticize this person (R)	.54	−.38
Commentator11 Respect this person’s opinion	.79	.29
Component 2: Moral Behavioral Intentions (a = .88) 28.93% sum of squared % of variance
Commentator2 Follow this person on social media	.34	.83
Commentator4 Do something similar to this person	.23	.79
Commentator5 Like or share this person’s post	.34	.83

Extraction: Principal Component Analysis. Rotation: Varimax with Kaiser Normalization. Rotation converged in 3 iterations.

Table 4. Zero-order correlations.

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
1 Gender ID
2 Age	−.13*
3 Social Media Use	.08	−.21**
4 Clean water	.16**	−.05	.09
5 EM-Altruism	.01	−.12*	.08	.25**
6 EM-Perceived subjective norms	−.03	.01	.03	.12*	.43**
7 Spoke-Virtue	.02	−.03	.05	.26**	.71**	.39**
8 Spoke-Social	−.05	−.04	.06	.14**	.67**	.34**	.67**
9 Comm-Virtue	.08	−.09	.05	.23**	.67**	.32**	.76**	.62**
10 Comm-Behavioral intention	−.06	−.07	.11*	.04	.50**	.23**	.44**	.76**	.64**
11 Willing to donate	.02	−.22**	.13*	.09	.50**	.16**	.42**	.59**	.47**	.53**

*Significant at .05 level (2-tailed) **Significant at .01 (2-tailed).

Table 5. Willingness to donate to environmental hacktivists through crowdfunding coefficients.

Model	1*				2*
Predictor	β	t	sig	CI(95%)	β	t	sig	CI(95%)
Age	−.20	−3.77	<.001	−.06, −.02	−.16	−3.69	<.001	−.05, −.01
Social Media Use	.09	1.61	.11	−.06, .56	.05	1.22	.22	−.09, .40
Clean Water	.07	1.33	.18	−.05, .27	−.03	−.57	.57	−.17, .10
EM-Altruism					.19	2.91	.004	.01, .05
EM-PSN					−.08	−1.72	.09	−.08, .01
Spoke-Virtue					−.03	−.38	.70	−.04, .03
Spoke-Social Con.					.34	4.18	<.001	.05, .14
Comm-Virtue					.07	.85	.40	−.02, .04
Comm-Beh intention					.15	2.02	.05	.00, .10
R^2	.06				.42
Adjusted R^2	.05				.41

*p < .001.

EM=Enviro-mous; PSN=Perceived subjective norms; Spoke=Spokesperson; Con=Connectivity; Comm=Commentator; Beh=Behavioral.

Figure 1. Pre-existing beliefs and willingness to donate without mediators in the Model.

Direct and Indirect Effects of Pre-existing Environmental Beliefs with Meditators in the Model

All coefficients are standardized. Analyzed by Process v4.0 (Hayes 2012). Bootstrapping was 5,000, and the CIs were set at 95%.

Table

Item	Category
In general, do you feel Enviro-mous’ actions were right?	Moral subjectivism
(2) Do you think Enviro-mous made the company clean up in the right way?	Moral subjectivism
(3) How much do you feel Enviro-mous’ actions were irresponsible? (R)	Moral subjectivism
(4) Do you think Enviro-mous’ actions were right for Ireland?	Cultural relativism
(5) Do you think Enviro-mous’ actions helped protect Irish waters and environment?	Cultural relativism
(6) Do you feel Irish people would support Enviro-mous and their actions?	Cultural relativism
(7) Do you think Irish people would reject Enviro-mous’ hacking? (R)	Cultural relativism
(8) Do you trust Enviro-mous to use the money to clean up the oceans?	Ethical trust
(9) Do you trust Enviro-mous to use the excess £10 million to clean up other environmental issues?	Ethical trust
(10) Do you think Enviro-mous will hack for other purposes in the future? (R)	Ethical trust
(11) Do you feel Enviro-mous has ulterior motives than making the government pay for the cleanup? (R)	Ethical trust
(12) Do you feel Enviro-mous members are good people?	Virtue morality
(13) How much do you think Enviro-mous members would be considered “good people” by others?	Virtue morality
(14) Do you think Enviro-mous members have the qualities of virtuous people?	Virtue morality
(15) How much do you feel EM members are dishonest? (R)	Virtue morality

Items 1–2, 4–5, 8–9, 12, and 14 were on the Altruism component. Items 6, 7, and 13 were on the Perceived subjective norms component. Items 10–11 were on the Questionable motivations component.

Table

How much do you think you would like this person?

(2) How likely would you be willing to follow this person on social media?

(3) How much do you agree with this person?

(4) How much do you think you would do something similar to this person?

(5) How likely would you be to like or share this person’s social media post?

(6) How intelligent do you think this person is?

(7) How well-informed do you think this person is?

(8) Do you feel this person has been educated?

(9) How much do you respect this person?

(10) How much would you criticize this person’s social media post? (R)

(11) How much do you respect this person’s opinion?

Items 6–11 were on the Virtue component. Items 1–2 and 4–5 were on theSocial connectivity component.

Table

Opinion Items for the Commentator
How much do you think you would like this person?
(2) How likely would you be willing to follow this person on social media?
(3) How much do you agree with this person?
(4) How much do you think you would do something similar to this person?
(5) How likely would you be to like or share this person’s social media post?
(6) How intelligent do you think this person is?
(7) How well-informed do you think this person is?
(8) Do you feel this person has been educated?
(9) How much do you respect this person?
(10) How much would you criticize this person’s social media post? (R)
(11) How much do you respect this person’s opinion?

Items 1, 3, and 6–11 were on the Virtue component. Items 2 and 4–5 were on the Intentional behavioral component.

Hayes, A. F. 2012. PROCESS: A Versatile Computational Tool for Observed Variable Mediation, Moderation, and Conditional Process Modeling [White paper]. (http://www.afhayes.com/public/process2012.pdf).

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Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.