Griefing in virtual worlds: causes, casualties and coping strategies

Abstract

A virtual world is a computer-simulated three-dimensional environment. They are increasingly being used for social and commercial interaction, in addition to their original use for game playing. This paper studies negative behaviour, or 'griefing', inside one virtual world through a series of observations and focus groups with users. Data were collected to identify griefing behaviours and their impact, examine why griefing happens and who the likely targets and perpetrators are, and suggest strategies for coping with it. Findings show that griefing behaviour is common. It is defined as unacceptable, persistent behaviour and is typically targeted at inexperienced residents by those with more knowledge of the virtual world. Community and individual coping strategies are identified and discussed.Keywords: antisocial behaviour, virtual worlds, interpretative phenomenological analysisi sj_330 525..548

Linguistic Analysis of Toxic Behavior in an Online Video Game

“…Toxic behavior, also known as cyberbullying [1], griefing [4], or online disinhibition [7], is bad behavior that violates social norms, inflicts misery, continues to cause harm after it occurs, and affects an entire community. The anonymity afforded by, and ubiquity of, computer-mediated-communication (CMC) naturally leads to hostility and aggressiveness [3,8].…”

Making "Safe"

“…Parents may also view some activities within virtual worlds-such as destruction of in-world property, harassment, and theft-as cyberbullying, while participants in these virtual world communities term it griefing [9,14,20]. In fact, children and adults who participate in these online communities differentiate between trolling, griefing, bullying, and drama [9,11,14,20,33]. However, parents who do not spend time in world tend not to differentiate between these different terms [11].…”

“…Outsiders may view many forms of negative social behavior as cyberbullying, whereas members of a particular community may have distinct classifications for these same behaviors and practices [14,20,33]. Parents may also view some activities within virtual worlds-such as destruction of in-world property, harassment, and theft-as cyberbullying, while participants in these virtual world communities term it griefing [9,14,20].…”

“…For example, parents worry that their children will come to harm through exposure to pornographic and violent content, cyberbullying [9,50,51], trolling [49], griefing (i.e., intentionally breaking objects) [14,20], and sexual predators. Children with autism 1 are three times more likely to be bullied in school than their neurotypical peers (i.e., those not diagnosed with autism) [3,16].…”

The Effect of Anonymity on Virtual Team Performance in Online Communities

“…]에서부터, 기업 내 채팅시스템 [3,24], 원격 토론시스템 [37,56], 그룹 의사결정 지원시스템 (GDSS) [2,27]의 활용에 따른 효과 분석, 개인 들의 온라인 커뮤니티 [34], 가상현실 [7]과, 가 상 팀 활동 [28]에 이르기까지 다양한 차원과 상황에서 본격적으로 이루어졌다 [13,29] AM1. I believed others could not identify my comments AM2.…”