Learning First Aid Knowledge Not Only for the Self But Also for Others: Toward a Collective Protection Motivation Theory

The practice of learning first aid knowledge on social media has gained considerable attention as a strategy for improving public health. Yet despite this recognition, the practice has not drawn commensurate academic attention. Different from individual health protection behavior, first aid knowledge learning is a collective preventive health behavior due to its collective attributes of protecting the health of others. To address the behavior, we extend the protection motivation theory (PMT) with a mixed-methods approach. Specifically, our qualitative study allows us to clarify the motivations for the behavior, confirm the applicability of PMT in this new context, and identify self- and collective cognition as well as other contextualized factors. The subsequent quantitative study validates the effect of these motivations, with the results indicating that collective cognition shows stronger effects than self-cognition in such a collective behavior context, and emotions (i.e. anticipated regret) play a significant mediating role between cognitive appraisals and protective behaviors. This study extends the health behavior literature and expands PMT by validating self- and collective dimensions. It also offers practical guidelines to practitioners on how to motivate individuals to learn first aid knowledge on social media.