Examining the antecedents of online disinhibition

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to integrate psychological dimension, social dimension, and environmental dimension – six internet psychological characteristics (dissociative anonymity, invisibility, asynchronicity, solipsistic introjection, dissociative imagination, and minimization of status and authority), deindividuation, social influence (subjective norm and descriptive norm), and containment theory (inner containment and outer containment) – to propose an innovative model which can make up for deficiencies in previous studies of the toxic online disinhibition effect.

Design/methodology/approach

On the basis of 530 valid responses collected from an online survey questionnaire, partial least squares technology was used to examine the research model.

Findings

The result shows that dissociative anonymity has a significant impact on deindividuation and toxic disinhibition. In addition, asynchronicity and dissociative imagination have a direct effect on toxic disinhibition. Besides, in social influence, the authors found that subjective norm is a stronger predictor of toxic disinhibition than descriptive norm. Moreover, in containment theory, the result shows that inner containment can effectively reduce toxic disinhibition but not outer containment.

Originality/value

This study can provide academics and practical side empirical evidence as to what factor would cause toxic disinhibition and provides an innovative view regarding the relationship between social influence and containment theory on toxic disinhibition.

Citation

Wu, S., Lin, T.-C. and Shih, J.-F. (2017), "Examining the antecedents of online disinhibition", Information Technology & People, Vol. 30 No. 1, pp. 189-209. https://doi.org/10.1108/ITP-07-2015-0167