Digital communities often face difficulties in limiting inflammatory social exchanges. The present studies test one potential obstacle to combating malicious comments online: that characteristics of specific online environments dull emotional reactions to inflammatory speech. Across four studies, results suggest that online contexts, particularly those lacking social information such as names and profile pictures, attenuate negative reactions to malicious behavior relative to face-to-face contexts. Shifting expectations and perceptions of harm may partly account for varying outrage across face-to-face and digital environments.
BarghJ. A.McKennaK. Y. (2004). The Internet and social life. Annual Review of Psychology, 55, 573–590. doi:10.1146/annurev.psych.55.090902.141922
2.
CrockettM. J. (2017). Moral outrage in the digital age. Nature Human Behaviour, 1, 769–771. doi:10.1038/s41562-017-0213-3
3.
DaftR. L.LengelR. H. (1983). Information richness. A new approach to managerial behavior and organization design. In StawB. M.CummingsL. L. (Eds.), Research in organizational behavior (Vol. 6, pp. 191–233). Greenwich, CT: JAI.
4.
FloresA.JamesC. (2012). Morality and ethics behind the screen: Young people’s perspectives on digital life. New Media & Society, 15, 834–852. doi:10.1177/1461444812462842
5.
FoxJ.TangW. Y. (2014). Sexism in online video games: The role of conformity to masculine norms and social dominance orientation. Computers in Human Behavior, 33, 314–320. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2013.07.014
6.
GibbZ. G.DevereuxP. G. (2016). Missing link: Exploring repetition and intentionality of distress in cyberbullying behaviors within a college population. Translational Issues in Psychological Science, 2, 313–322. doi:10.1037/tps0000083
7.
GrayK.WaytzA.YoungL. (2012). The moral dyad: A fundamental template unifying moral judgment. Psychological Inquiry, 23, 206–215. doi:10.1080/1047840x.2012.686247
8.
GrayK.WegnerD. M. (2009). Moral typecasting: Divergent perceptions of moral agents and moral patients. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 96, 505–520. doi:10.1037/a0013748
9.
HayesA. F. (2013). Introduction to mediation, moderation, and conditional process analysis: A regression-based approach. New York, NY: The Guilford Press.
10.
HmielowskiJ. D.HutchensM. J.CicchirilloV. J. (2014). Living in an age of online incivility: Examining the conditional indirect effects of online discussion on political flaming. Information, Communication & Society, 17, 1196–1211. doi:10.1080/1369118x.2014.899609
11.
InbarY.PizarroD. A.CushmanF. (2012). Benefiting from misfortune: When harmless actions are judged to be morally blameworthy. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 38, 52–62.
12.
KelleyH. H. (1973). The processes of causal attribution. American psychologist, 28, 107–128.
13.
KieslerS.SiegelJ.McGuireT. W. (1984). Social psychological aspects of computer-mediated communication. American Psychologist, 39, 1123–1134. doi:10.1037/0003-066x.39.10.1123
14.
LeeH. (2005). Behavioral strategies for dealing with flaming in an online forum. The Sociological Quarterly, 46, 385–403. doi:10.1111/j.1533-8525.2005.00017.x
15.
LindströmB.JangardS.SelbingI.OlssonA. (2017). The role of a “common is moral” heuristic in the stability and change of moral norms. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. Advance online publication. doi:10.1037/xge0000365
16.
LysonskiS.DurvasulaS. (2008). Digital piracy of MP3s: Consumer and ethical predispositions. Journal of Consumer Marketing, 25, 167–178. doi:10.1108/07363760810870662
17.
McCallC. (2013). Social cognition in the cyborg age: Embodiment and the internet. Psychological Inquiry, 24, 314–320. doi:10.1080/1047840x.2013.839921
18.
MoorP. J.HeuvelmanA.VerleurR. (2010). Flaming on YouTube. Computers in Human Behavior, 26, 1536–1546. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2010.05.023
19.
PooleD. (2007). A study of beliefs and behaviors regarding digital technology. New Media & Society, 9, 771–793. doi:10.1177/1461444807080341
20.
PostmesT.SpearsR.LeaM. (2000). The formation of group norms in computer-mediated communication. Human Communication Research, 26, 341–371. doi:10.1111/j.1468-2958.2000.tb00761.x
21.
RichardF. D.BondC. F.Stokes-ZootaJ. J. (2003). One hundred years of social psychology quantitatively described. Review of General Psychology, 7, 331–363. doi:10.1037/1089-2680.7.4.331
22.
ShifmanL.LemishD. (2010). “Mars and Venus” in virtual space: Post-feminist humor and the Internet. Critical Studies in Media Communication, 28, 253–273. doi:10.1080/15295036.2010.522589
23.
ShortJ.WilliamsE.ChristieB. (1976). The social psychology of telecommunications. London, England: Wiley.
24.
SparrowB.ChatmanL. (2013). Social cognition in the Internet age: Same as it ever was?Psychological Inquiry, 24, 273–292. doi:10.1080/1047840x.2013.827079
TetlockP. E.KristelO. V.ElsonS. B.GreenM. C.LernerJ. S. (2000). The psychology of the unthinkable: Taboo trade-offs, forbidden base rates, and heretical counterfactuals. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78, 853–870. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.78.5.853
27.
UhlmannE. L.PizarroD. A.DiermeierD. (2015). A person-centered approach to moral judgment. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 10, 72–81.
28.
WongD. L.BakerC. M. (1988). Pain in children: Comparison of assessment scales. Pediatric Nursing, 14, 9–17.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
