Why Do People Sometimes Wear an Anonymous Mask? Motivations for Seeking Anonymity Online.

Anonymous environments are more accessible than ever. As such, it is important to understand not only how anonymity can change human behavior but also why people are motivated to seek anonymity in online spaces. In four studies, we investigated differences in motivations for seeking anonymity online and their associations with related dispositional factors and online behavior. We found that some people were motivated to seek anonymity to self-express or behave toxically. Both motivations to seek anonymity were associated with low self-concept clarity and high Machiavellianism but differed in their relation to traits such as self-consciousness and psychopathy. Further analyses suggested that people selectively engage in behaviors in anonymous online environments, in line with the specific gratifications they seek through anonymity. We conclude that people seek anonymity to pursue self- or other-related goals that are otherwise more difficult or costly to pursue when identifiable.

A functionalist approach to online trolling.

Online trolling is often linked to sadism and psychopathy. Yet, little research has assessed why people high in these traits seek online environments to achieve their nefarious goals. We employ a functionalist approach to examine whether people high in sadism and psychopathy are motivated to seek the affordances of online environments (e.g., anonymity) to reveal their malevolent self-aspects by engaging in trolling behavior. A sample of 515 university undergraduates (Mage = 20.47) read vignettes depicting trolling incidents and rated the acceptability of the perpetrators' actions and whether they had ever written similar comments. Participants then completed measures of psychopathy, sadism, and toxic anonymous motivations. We find that toxic anonymous motivations partially mediate the relationship between psychopathy and sadism, and online trolling. Whereas trolling is often understood through its underlying personality traits, toxic motivations to seek anonymity may be a more proximal predictor of who is likely to troll online.

Compassionate Goals, Facebook Use, and Subjective Well-Being: Examining the Roles of Relationship Maintenance and Connectedness.

Past research found that compassionate goals were associated with more responsive behaviors on Facebook, which in turn were associated with greater social capital. The current study aimed to examine whether compassionate goals were associated with greater well-being, through greater efforts to visibly attend to Facebook friends and feeling more connected to Facebook friends. We predicted that there would be an indirect effect of compassionate goals on satisfaction with life through Facebook relationship maintenance behaviors and Facebook social connectedness. Two hundred sixty-two adult Facebook users completed an online questionnaire containing measures of compassionate goals, Facebook relationship maintenance behaviors, Facebook social connectedness, satisfaction with life, and various control variables (Big Five personality traits, self-image goals, frequency and duration of Facebook use, number of Facebook friends, age, and gender). A serial mediation analysis revealed a significant indirect effect of compassionate goals on satisfaction with life through Facebook relationship maintenance behaviors and Facebook social connectedness. Higher levels of compassionate goals predicted more Facebook relationship maintenance behaviors, more Facebook relationship maintenance behaviors predicted greater Facebook social connectedness, and greater Facebook social connectedness predicted higher satisfaction with life. The indirect effect was significant with and without controlling for other aspects of Facebook use, self-image goals, Big Five personality traits, gender, age, and recruitment method. These findings replicate and extend past research by establishing new pathways and outcomes associated with compassionate goals. Overall, this study contributes important insights into supportive and beneficial ways of using social media.

Self-Regulation as a Mediator of the Associations Between Passion for Video Games and Well-Being.

Video games can satisfy people's basic psychological needs of autonomy, competence, and relatedness. This may lead them to develop a passion for the activity, which can be harmonious or obsessive. These different types of passions are associated with different well-being outcomes: harmonious passion (HP) is associated with positive effects such as Satisfaction with Life (SWL), obsessive passion (OP) is associated with adverse effects such as psychological distress. Although time spent playing video games has sometimes been found to be a predictor of poor well-being, there is a lack of understanding in its role in explaining the relationship between passion and well-being compared with other factors. Self-regulation is an important factor in predicting habits, including video game play. In this cross-sectional study (N = 182), we investigated whether self-regulation or playtime better mediated the associations between different passion orientations and well-being (i.e., SWL, global subjective well-being, and psychological distress) among video game players. A path analysis revealed that people with higher HP for video games reported higher levels of self-regulation and those with higher OP for video games reported lower levels of self-regulation. Our findings also indicate that self-regulation provides a more comprehensive explanation for the relationship between passion and well-being. Overall, this study provides further support for the importance of self-regulation as a determinant of well-being in video game players rather than more arguably surface-level metrics such as time spent playing. These findings have implications for game developers and clinicians who design interventions for individuals who may experience unregulated video game play.

The Disinhibiting Effects of Anonymity Increase Online Trolling.

Research assessing online trolling-a behavior designed to trigger or antagonize other users for entertainment-has largely focused on identifying individual differences that underlie the behavior. Less attention has been given to how situational factors influence trolling, such as the disinhibiting effects of anonymity. In this study, we evaluated the roles of both individual differences and levels of anonymity in online trolling. We assessed these through experimentation, a relatively novel approach in trolling research. Australian undergraduate students (n = 242, 167 women, 75 men, Mage = 21.18) were allocated to one of three conditions: an anonymous condition where they were not visible to one another, an identifiable condition where they were visible to one another, or an external condition where they completed the study outside of a controlled laboratory environment. Participants first read a short news article before interacting in an online group discussion where participants could chat freely. The first comment participants wrote was later coded for trolling. Participants also completed assessments of psychopathy, sadism, and a global assessment of trolling. As predicted, participants in the anonymous condition trolled more than those in the identifiable condition. No differences were seen between these two conditions and the external condition. Analyses also revealed that sadism and global trolling were positively associated with trolling in the chat room, but psychopathy showed no association. These results demonstrate the importance of both individual differences and the disinhibiting effects of anonymity when investigating the complex nature of trolling.

Why people listen: Motivations and outcomes of podcast listening.

The aim of this preregistered study was to identify dispositional predictors of podcast listening and examine the associations between aspects of podcast listening, dispositional predictors, and psychological outcomes. Three hundred and six adults from a range of countries completed an online questionnaire that assessed individual difference predictors (the Big Five personality factors, curiosity, need for cognition, need to belong, age, and gender), aspects of podcast listening (amount, format, setting, device, and social aspects), and potential outcomes (autonomy, competence, relatedness, meaning, mindfulness, and smartphone addiction). As predicted, openness to experience, interest-based curiosity, and need for cognition positively predicted podcast listening. Contrary to predictions, need to belong negatively predicted podcast listening, and time spent listening to podcasts was not associated with autonomy, competence, relatedness, meaning, mindfulness, or smartphone addiction. However, certain aspects of podcast listening (e.g., parasocial relationships and social engagement) were related to positive outcomes and to our predictor variables. Furthermore, neuroticism negatively predicted podcast listening. Overall, the findings support the idea that informational motives can play a role in podcast listening, and that some aspects of listening are associated with positive outcomes.

Feedback Sensitivity as a Mediator of the Relationship Between Attachment Anxiety and Problematic Facebook Use.

Past research has revealed positive associations between attachment anxiety and problematic social networking site (SNS) use and between attachment anxiety and sensitivity to feedback on an SNS. The aim of this study was to examine whether feedback sensitivity could account for the association between attachment anxiety and problematic SNS use. Two hundred eighty-three adults completed an online survey containing measures of adult attachment style in close relationships, sensitivity to feedback on Facebook, problematic Facebook use, and various control variables (Big Five personality traits, self-esteem, and demographics). A mediation analysis revealed the predicted indirect effect of attachment anxiety on problematic Facebook use through feedback sensitivity. Higher levels of attachment anxiety predicted greater sensitivity to feedback on Facebook, which in turn predicted higher levels of problematic Facebook use. Full mediation was observed with the control variables (attachment avoidance, extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, openness to experience, self-esteem, age, and gender) in the model, and partial mediation was observed without the control variables. These findings replicate past research on attachment anxiety and extend our understanding by establishing a positive association between sensitivity to comments and likes on Feedback and problematic Facebook use.

Interpersonal Goals as Predictors of Facebook Use, Social Capital, and Envy.

This study sought to examine whether interpersonal goals can help us understand who engages in social-capital-building responsive behaviors and envy-eliciting passive behaviors on Facebook. One hundred eighty-eight adults completed measures of interpersonal goals (compassionate and self-image), Facebook use (posting, responding, and searching), social capital sources and benefits, social comparison, and envy, along with various control measures. Serial mediation analyses revealed that compassionate goals significantly predicted four distinct social capital benefits (offline participation, emotional support, horizon broadening, and networking value) through greater Facebook responding and sources of social capital. Furthermore, self-image goals significantly predicted envy through greater Facebook searching and social comparison. These effects were significant with and without controlling for age, gender, Facebook friends, Facebook frequency, Facebook hours, self-esteem, attachment style, social desirability, and the other interpersonal goal and Facebook behaviors. Consistent with research on interpersonal goals in offline interactions, compassionate goals predicted more responsive behaviors and better social outcomes, while self-image goals predicted a competitive mindset and negative emotion. These findings extend the social networking site (SNS) literature by identifying a relevant new individual difference associated with SNS use and key outcomes related to well-being.

The burden of online friends: the effects of giving up Facebook on stress and well-being.

People occasionally choose to cut themselves off from their online social network by taking extended breaks from Facebook. This study investigated whether abstaining from Facebook reduces stress but also reduces subjective well-being because of the resulting social disconnection. Participants (138 active Facebook users) were assigned to either a condition in which they were instructed to give up Facebook for 5 days or continue to use Facebook as normal. Perceived stress and well-being, as well as salivary cortisol, were measured before and after the test period. Relative to those in the Facebook Normal condition, those in the No Facebook condition experienced lower levels of cortisol and life satisfaction. Our results suggest that the typical Facebook user may occasionally find the large amount of social information available to be taxing, and Facebook vacations could ameliorate this stress-at least in the short term.

The effect of ad hominem attacks on the evaluation of claims promoted by scientists.

Two experiments were conducted to determine the relative impact of direct and indirect (ad hominem) attacks on science claims. Four hundred and thirty-nine college students (Experiment 1) and 199 adults (Experiment 2) read a series of science claims and indicated their attitudes towards those claims. Each claim was paired with one of the following: A) a direct attack upon the empirical basis of the science claim B) an ad hominem attack on the scientist who made the claim or C) both. Results indicate that ad hominem attacks may have the same degree of impact as attacks on the empirical basis of the science claims, and that allegations of conflict of interest may be just as influential as allegations of outright fraud.

Replication Rate, Framing, and Format Affect Attitudes and Decisions about Science Claims.

A series of five experiments examined how the evaluation of a scientific finding was influenced by information about the number of studies that had successfully replicated the initial finding. The experiments also tested the impact of frame (negative, positive) and numeric format (percentage, natural frequency) on the evaluation of scientific findings. In Experiments 1 through 4, an attitude difference score served as the dependent measure, while a measure of choice served as the dependent measure in Experiment 5. Results from a diverse sample of 188 non-institutionalized U.S. adults (Experiment 2) and 730 undergraduate college students (Experiments 1, 3, and 4) indicated that attitudes became more positive as the replication rate increased and attitudes were more positive when the replication information was framed positively. The results also indicate that the manner in which replication rate was framed had a greater impact on attitude than the replication rate itself. The large effect for frame was attenuated somewhat when information about replication was presented in the form of natural frequencies rather than percentages. A fifth study employing 662 undergraduate college students in a task in which choice served as the dependent measure confirmed the framing effect and replicated the replication rate effect in the positive frame condition, but provided no evidence that the use of natural frequencies diminished the effect.

Declining loneliness over time: evidence from american colleges and high schools.

We examined changes in loneliness over time. Study 1 was a cross-temporal meta-analysis of 48 samples of American college students who completed the Revised UCLA Loneliness Scale (total N = 13,041). In Study 1, loneliness declined from 1978 to 2009 (d = -0.26). Study 2 used a representative sample of high school students from the Monitoring the Future project (total N = 385,153). In Study 2, loneliness declined from 1991 to 2012. Declines were similar among White students (d = -0.14), Black students (d = -0.17), male students (d = -0.11), and female students (d = -0.11). Different loneliness factors showed diverging trends. Subjective isolation declined (d = -0.20), whereas social network isolation increased (d = 0.06). We discuss the declines in loneliness within the context of other cultural changes, including changes to group membership and personality.

Positive affect increases secondary control among causally uncertain individuals.

Secondary control (acceptance of and adjustment to negative events) is thought to promote positive affect. We examined the opposite path: could positive affect increase secondary control, particularly among individuals high in causal uncertainty, who stand to benefit from it the most? In two studies, participants completed a causal uncertainty scale, thought about a problem while listening to affect-inducing music or no music, and then completed items that assessed secondary control. In Study 1, the music induced positive or negative affect. In Study 2, the music induced affect that was high or low in activation and positive or negative in valence. In both studies, we found that positive affect-inducing music increased secondary control among high causal uncertainty participants. Furthermore, trait affect did not account for the effects of causal uncertainty, and music did not influence primary control. These findings show that secondary control can fluctuate as a function of state affect.

Attitudes toward others depend upon self and other causal uncertainty.

People who are high in causal uncertainty doubt their own ability to understand the causes of social events. In three studies, we examined the effects of target and perceiver causal uncertainty on attitudes toward the target. Target causal uncertainty was manipulated via responses on a causal uncertainty scale in Studies 1 and 2, and with a scenario in Study 3. In Studies 1 and 2, we found that participants liked the low causal uncertainty target more than the high causal uncertainty target. This preference was stronger for low relative to high causal uncertainty participants because high causal uncertainty participants held more uncertain ideals. In Study 3, we examined the value individuals place upon causal understanding (causal importance) as an additional moderator. We found that regardless of their own causal uncertainty level, participants who were high in causal importance liked the low causal uncertainty target more than the high causal uncertainty target. However, when participants were low in causal importance, low causal uncertainty perceivers showed no preference and high causal uncertainty perceivers preferred the high causal uncertainty target. These findings reveal that goal importance and ideals can influence how perceivers respond to causal uncertainty in others.

Coping with causal uncertainty through alcohol use.

OBJECTIVE: We examined whether individuals use alcohol in order to cope with causal uncertainty (i.e., doubt about the causes of events). We predicted that higher levels of causal uncertainty would be associated with stronger coping motives, which, in turn, would predict more problems with alcohol. We also examined age as a moderator, with the expectation that stronger associations would be found among younger adults. METHOD: Two hundred sixty-three adults who drank alcohol at least occasionally completed questionnaires assessing causal uncertainty, correlates of causal uncertainty, motives for drinking, alcohol consumption, and alcohol-related problems. RESULTS: Moderated mediation analyses revealed that among younger adults, causal uncertainty had a significant indirect effect on problems with alcohol through coping with depression and enhancement motives. Among older adults, there were no significant associations between causal uncertainty and alcohol motives or problems. The effect via the coping with depression motive held even after controlling for alcohol consumption and the major cognitive and affective correlates of causal uncertainty, whereas the effect via the enhancement motive became nonsignificant. CONCLUSIONS: Our results are consistent with the idea that younger adults use alcohol to cope with causal uncertainty, putting them at greater risk for alcohol-related problems.

Causal uncertainty and psychological well-being: the moderating role of accommodation (secondary control).

Causal uncertainty about one's own outcomes (CU-Own) is associated with negative affect, depression, and a lack of perceived primary control. We predicted that accommodation, or secondary control, would act as a psychological buffer for high-CU-Own individuals, reducing negative affect and depression.We tested this hypothesis in two studies: one cross-sectional (Study 1) and one longitudinal (Study 2). Participants completed measures of CU-Own, harmony control, and depression in Study 1 and measures of CU-Own, harmony control, flexible goal adjustment, and negative affect in Study 2. Analyses reveal that the CU-Own-depression and CU-Own-negative affect associations were weaker when harmony control or flexible goal adjustment was high. Additional analyses in Studies 1 and 2 examined the roles played by primary control, locus of control, optimism, pessimism, and causal importance. Implications for the CU and accommodation literatures are discussed.

An on-line look at automatic contrast and correction of behavior categorizations and dispositional inferences.

The current study examined on-line behavior recategorization as a mechanism underlying corrections for contextual influences in dispositional inferences. After watching an initial comparison video that portrayed either a successful or unsuccessful performance on a spatial ability task, cognitive load and no load participants watched and made real-time ratings of a target performance. The comparison video was expected to exert a contrastive influence on participants' automatic impressions of the performance (behavior categorizations) and the child's intelligence (dispositional inferences). Load participants' on-line and post-video performance and ability ratings showed this expected effect, as did no load participants' initial on-line performance ratings. However, no load participants' later on-line and post-video ratings did not. These findings support the notion that corrections for contextual influence can occur at the level of behavior identification as perceivers encode behavioral cues.