Trolling is in the Eye of the Beholder: An Attributional Approach to Predicting Perceptions of Trolling and Vigilantism in Online Games

While perpetuated by the few, trolling in online video games is an increasingly common phenomenon. To understand how trolling behaviors gain momentum and spread throughout a community, this study examined when players perceive trolling and why such perceptions compel retaliatory actions. Participants evaluated staged gameplay that offered multiple auxiliary cues to a player’s underlying motivations which included the rules of the video game, the target of the behavior, and the norm of the community. Results suggest that players attribute motivations associated with trolling to others’ behaviors by weighing the implications of various auxiliary cues accompanying the behaviors. Additionally, perceptions of trolling mediated participants’ reported desire to reciprocate harassment. The current study proposes that a more productive approach to understanding the effects and resulting consequences of trolling may be through exploring players’ reactions to behaviors and their attributions of others’ motivations.