#11410. Contagion of Offensive Behavior for Transient Interactions in Online Commenting Platforms

August 2026publication date
Proposal available till 01-06-2025
4 total number of authors per manuscript0 $

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Journal’s subject area:
Human Factors and Ergonomics;
Computer Science Applications;
Human-Computer Interaction;
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Abstract:
Online aggression is an increasingly significant problem in Internet-based communication systems (e.g., commenting platforms) with potentially negative effects on online participation and quality of online discourse. Among other demographics, young adults report experiencing online aggression at alarming rates. In this paper, we examine the short-term effects of exposure to different levels of online aggressive behavior, and investigate whether it leads to an increase in online aggression among 118 young adults. Even when individuals knew comments were synthetic (and not generated by actual peers), exposure to higher levels of aggressive comments resulted in a statistically significant increase in user aggression. Surprisingly, our results show that anonymity neither increased nor decreased the aggression response, which could indicate a change in user behavior since the advent of Internet 2.0 technologies or qualms related to experimenter-subject anonymity. Moreover, this mimicking occurs even when the participants know they are participating in an artificial social system.
Keywords:
Online aggression; Internet communication; artificial social system; comments

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