Effects of Negativity Type and Active Involvement on the Likelihood of Responding to Negativity in Stream Live Chats

Abstract

This study explores whether chat negativity and the degree to which live chat rule sets encourage active (vs. passive) involvement influence participants’ willingness to react to negative behavior within video game live streams. Using the Social Identity Model of Deindividuation Effects (SIDE) and an experimental design, this study examines chat participants’ likelihood of calling out and reporting negative behaviors. A 2x3 experimental design manipulated type of negativity (i.e., clear/ambiguous) and framing of community-specific rules of users' role in responding to norm violations (i.e., active involvement/ passive involvement/ control). Results suggest clear negativity was associated with a higher likelihood of calling out/reporting. Active involvement interacted with degree of negativity: when live chat rule sets encouraged active (vs. passive) involvement, participants were more likely to call out clear negativity and less likely to call out ambiguous negativity. Furthermore, there was support for the hypothesis that social identification moderated the relationship between type of negativity and likelihood of response, whereby participants with higher social identification were more likely to respond to clear negativity and less likely to respond to ambiguous negativity. Finally, participants’ perceptions of group norms in the hypothetical communities were affected by prior experience and chat activeness, but not by type of negativity or active (vs. passive) involvement.

Keywords: active involvement, ambiguous negativity, calling out, experiment, live chats, SIDE model