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Characteristics of People Who Engage in Online Harassing Behavior

Published: 28 April 2022 Publication History

Abstract

Conflict in online spaces can often lead to behaviors that may be categorized as “harassment.” We asked 307 U.S. adults to self-report if they have ever engaged in aggressive online conflict. Using logistic regressions, we examine what psychosocial characteristics predict which users would report engaging in behaviors that are commonly labeled as “harassment.” We find that psychological factors such as impulsivity, reactive aggression, and premeditated aggression distinguish those who never thought of, those who only imagined, and those who carried out harassing behavior. Demographic factors other than age do not have significance, contrary to the results of prior studies. Design interventions that address propensities to perpetrate harassment might reduce harm but also raise ethical and moral concerns about the nature of harassment and the disposition toward it.

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cover image ACM Conferences
CHI EA '22: Extended Abstracts of the 2022 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
April 2022
3066 pages
ISBN:9781450391566
DOI:10.1145/3491101
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected].

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Published: 28 April 2022

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Author Tags

  1. aggression
  2. online conflict
  3. online harasser
  4. online harassment

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CHI '22: CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
April 29 - May 5, 2022
LA, New Orleans, USA

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View all
  • (2024)Abusive Partner Perspectives on Technology Abuse: Implications for Community-based Violence PreventionProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36372928:CSCW1(1-25)Online publication date: 26-Apr-2024
  • (2024)Friction Matters: Balancing the Pursuit of Perfect Protection With Target HardeningIEEE Security and Privacy10.1109/MSEC.2023.333397222:1(76-75)Online publication date: 22-Jan-2024

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