Trolls Without Borders: A Cross-Cultural Examination of Victim Reactions to Verbal and Silent Aggression Online

Abstract

Trolling—the online exploitation of website, chat, or game mechanics at another user's expense—can and does take place all over cyberspace. It can take myriad forms, as well—some verbal, like trash-talking an opponent in a game, and some silent, like refusing to include a new player in a team effort during an in-game quest. However, despite this variety, there are few to no studies comparing the effects of these differing trolling types on victims. In addition, no study has yet taken into account users' offline cultural context and norms into the trolling victim experience. To fill this gap in the literature, the present study put participants from three culturally-distinct countries—Pakistan, Taiwan, and the Netherlands—in a simulated trolling interaction using the Cyberball game. Participants were either flamed (read: harshly insulted) or ostracized by a member of their own cultural group (ingroup) or a minority member (outgroup), and the participants' emotional responses, behavioral intentions toward the other players, and messages sent during the game were taken as indicators of their response to the trolling. Results showed that our Taiwanese sample used the most reactive aggression when trolled and our Dutch sample was the most passive. In addition, ostracism generally produced the desire to repair relationships, irrespective of cultural context, and perpetrator culture (ingroup or outgroup) only produced an effect in the behavioral intentions of our Pakistani sample. Overall, it would appear that online and offline culture interact to produce the variety of responses to trolling seen in extant literature. Additional implications for future research into computer-mediated communication and online aggression are also discussed.

I'd better say something! How empathy shapes bystander psychological reactance and intervention to online trolling of service organizations

“…To date, most of the empirical and conceptual work related to online trolling has focused on what factors contribute to individuals being, or becoming, a “troller” (Bentley and Cowan, 2021; Brewer and Kerslake, 2015; Craker and March, 2016; March, 2019; Masui, 2019; Howard et al. , 2019; Sest and March, 2017) or of those being trolled (Akhtar and Morrison, 2019; Cook et al. , 2021; Fichman and Sanfilippo, 2015).…”

“…, 2019; Lopes and Yu, 2017). The second stream of online trolling research investigates the impact these behaviors have upon victims (Akhtar and Morrison, 2019; Cook et al. , 2021; Fichman and Sanfilippo, 2015), also referred to as the “trolled” (Sanfilippo et al.…”

“…This discussion has led to multiple different conceptualizations and proposed types of online trolls with some proposing two types (Sanfilippo et al. , 2018), while others propose three (Cook et al. , 2021; Thacker and Griffiths, 2012), four (Bishop, 2014; Tham and Wang, 2017), and five types (Kyriacou, 2016) (see Table 2).…”

“…In relation to understanding perpetrators, research has investigated psychological factors as well as demographic factors (gender and age), which lead to increased likelihood of engaging in online trolling (Hossain et al, 2022;Howard et al, 2019;Lopes and Yu, 2017). The second stream of online trolling research investigates the impact these behaviors have upon victims (Akhtar and Morrison, 2019;Cook et al, 2021;Fichman and Sanfilippo, 2015), also referred to as the "trolled" (Sanfilippo et al, 2018), which in the current study is a service organization. The third key stream of literature in online trolling is only just emerging and focuses on the bystander or observers who have experienced, or are witnessing, online trolling take place (Sanfilippo et al, 2018), which in the current study is the consumer witnessing a service organization being trolled.…”

Irritability and rejection‐elicited aggression in adolescents and young adults

“…First, most studies testing relations between rejection and aggression do not quantify behavioral responses to specific instances of aggression (see Quarmley et al., 2022 for review). Such studies largely test relations between affective response to social rejection and trait aggression (Blinkhorn, Lyons, Collier, & Almond, 2020; Cook et al., 2021; Gorka, Phan, Hosseini, Chen, & McCloskey, 2018) or ask participants to imagine how they would respond if they could aggress against a rejecting peer (Achterberg et al., 2017; DeWall et al., 2013; Stoltz, van Londen, & Deković, 2013; van Nieuwenhuijzen et al., 2006; van Nieuwenhuijzen, Orobio de Castro, Wijnroks, Vermeer, & Matthys, 2004). However, humans are notoriously poor at predicting their future behavior (Balcetis & Dunning, 2013; Balcetis, Dunning, & Miller, 2008; Epley & Dunning, 2000) and often aggress in situations they imagined they would not (Anderson & Bushman, 2002).…”