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The purpose of this study is to examine how the constructs of false self, preference for online social interaction (POSI), compulsive internet use (CIU), and online disinhibition affect social withdrawal in a social media context. The mediating effects of moral disengagement and cyber aggression are also tested.

Data were collected using an online survey (n = 533) from consumers in Japan. This study used structural equation modeling and PROCESS to examine the proposed relationships.

The study revealed that false self positively affects moral disengagement while online disinhibition positively affects cyber aggression and moral disengagement. Preference for online social interaction and compulsive internet use both positively impacts social withdrawal. Cyber aggression and moral disengagement were established mediators between false self/ Preference for online social interaction/ compulsive internet use/ online disinhibition and social withdrawal.

Although restricted to cyberaggression, owing to the reciprocal relationship between cyber victimization and cyberaggression, cyber victimization can be included for further study. This study expands the understanding of social withdrawal within the context of social media.

Based on the findings, policies and programs that address mental health that build self-esteem, self-confidence and reduce anxiety ought to be undertaken. Managing and formulating guidelines on anonymity should also be taken into consideration.

This research demonstrates the crucial constructs that affect social media users negatively from the aspects of cyberaggression, moral disengagement and social withdrawal. It also establishes the importance of mental health in reducing adverse effects from social media.

To replicate and extend research on psychopathy and intrinsic interpersonal preferences under the broader umbrella of affiliation, intimacy and antagonism, this paper aims to examine motivational correlates of psychopathy in a nonclinical sample (N = 125).

We used a multimethod design, including self-reports, a behavioral task and a physiological assessment of motive dispositions (automatic affective reactions to stimuli of interpersonal transactions measured with facial electromyography).

Results showed that self-reported psychopathy was negatively associated with self-reported intimacy motive. In the same vein, via the social discounting task, this paper found a negative association between psychopathy and a tendency to share hypothetical monetary amounts with very close others. Finally, regarding fEMG findings, multilevel analyses revealed that although individuals with low levels of psychopathy reacted more positively to affiliative stimuli, individuals with high levels of psychopathy reacted equally positively to both affiliative and antagonistic stimuli, and these results were robust across psychopathy measures. Results remained mostly unchanged on the subscale level.

These findings highlight the contribution of multimethod assessments in capturing nuances of motivation. Implicit physiological measures might be particularly sensitive in capturing motive dispositions in relation to psychopathy. Identifying mechanisms that foster positive connections between psychopathic traits and nonprosocial tendencies may be theoretically and clinically informative, with implications for forensic and penal practices.

This paper aims to reflect on the outcomes of a community-based video-conferencing intervention for depression, predating the COVID-19 pandemic. The study investigates the potential implications of its findings for enhancing adherence to digital mental health interventions. The primary objective is to present considerations for researchers aimed at minimising the intention-behaviour gap frequently encountered in digital mental health interventions.

A randomised control feasibility trial design was used to implement a telehealth model adapted from an established face-to-face community-based intervention for individuals clinically diagnosed with depression. In total, 60 participants were initially recruited in association with a local mental health charity offering traditional talking-based therapies with only eight opting to continue through all phases of the project. Modifications aligning with technological advancements were introduced.

However, the study faced challenges, with low uptake observed after an initial surge in recruitment interest. The behaviour-intention gap highlighted technology as a barrier to service accessibility, exacerbated by participant age. Furthermore, the clinical diagnosis of depression, characterised by low mood and reduced interest in activities, emerged as a potential influencing factor.

The limitations of the research include its pre-pandemic execution, during a nascent stage of technological mental health interventions when participants were less familiar with online developments.

Despite these limitations, this study's reflections offer valuable insights for researchers aiming to design and implement telehealth services. Addressing the intention-behaviour gap necessitates a nuanced understanding of participant demographics, diagnosis and technological familiarity.

The study's relevance extends to post-pandemic society, urging researchers to reassess assumptions about technology availability to ensure engagement. This paper contributes to the mental health research landscape by raising awareness of critical considerations in the design and implementation of digital mental health interventions.

Reflections from a pre-pandemic intervention in line with the developments of a post-pandemic society will allow for research to consider that because the technology is available does not necessarily result in engagement.

There is a growing trend among online merchants to conduct help-request marketing campaigns (HMCs), which refers to a kind of marketing campaign that leverages participants' help-request to encourage the subsequent engagement of participants' online friends. The paper aims to investigate how individuals respond to online HMCs in social networking groups (SNGs). Integrating the norm activation model and regulatory focus theory, this paper examines the mediation effects of the two facets of responsibility perception, i.e. perceived causality and perceived answerability.

A field experiment was conducted by organizing a real HMC on WeChat. To manipulate request individuation, experimental confederates were engaged to serve as requesters in the HMC. The actual responses provided by the recipients (subjects) were captured via the HMC pages. The multiple-group analysis was used for data analysis.

Empirical results reveal that request individuation strengthens the effect of relationship closeness on perceived causality but reverses the effect of relationship closeness on perceived answerability from being positive to negative. Except for the negligible impact of perceived answerability on inaction, both perceived causality and perceived answerability affect recipients' reactions to HMCs as expected.

First, social media platforms should promote other-oriented prosocial values when designing features or launching campaigns. Second, the designers of HMCs should introduce a “tagging” feature in HMCs and provide additional bonuses for requesters who perform tagging. Third, HMC requesters should prudently select tagging targets when making a request.

First, this paper contributes to the literature on social media engagement by identifying responsibility as an other-oriented motivation for individuals' social media engagement. Second, this paper also extends our understanding of responsibility by dividing it into perceived causality and answerability as well as measuring them with self-developed instruments. Third, this study contributes to the research on WOM by demonstrating that individuals' response behaviors toward help-requests embedded in HMCs can take the form of proactive helping, reactive helping or inaction.

The rise and popularity of digitalization have made the addictive use in the virtual world more common, which has aroused wide attention from academia and public. Uncovering the underlying mechanism of addictive use is essential to address this serious issue.

By utilizing the context of massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs), this study developed virtual-domain perfectionism of seeking excellence and avoiding failure from the dual process model of perfectionism and identified four affordances in MMOGs from the perspective of technology affordance. The authors surveyed 302 valid samples in MMOGs to empirically test the research model.

The results demonstrate that two processes of virtual-domain perfectionism influence addictive use positively in MMOGs. Technology affordances perform as the antecedents of virtual-domain perfectionism and conduct distinct impacts in MMOGs. Specifically, affordances of interaction and identity are positively related to virtual-domain perfectionism, while achievement affordance is unrelated to virtual-domain perfectionism. Immersion affordance is positively related to virtual-domain perfectionism of seeking excellence and negatively associated with virtual-domain perfectionism of avoiding failure.

This study identified virtual-domain perfectionism and specific MMOGs affordances. The research model provides insights into addictive use in MMOGs by leveraging context and combining lenses. Research findings help elucidate the role of virtual-domain perfectionism on the addictive use from MMOGs affordances with the corresponding technical features.

Compulsive social media use has the potential to reduce well-being. In this study, the authors propose that there are two main paths to compulsive social media consumption. One is behavioral and based on habit; the other is motivational and rooted in the fear of missing out. This study aims to test the antecedents of these two drivers as well as their consequences for the tendency to engage in compulsive social media consumption.

The authors applied a quantitative research design and collected data through a survey of 600 respondents from a representative sample. The authors used structural equation modeling to test their conceptual model and hypotheses. Gender and age were included as moderators to investigate the model’s boundary conditions.

The authors found support for all the suggested relationships in the conceptual model. The findings indicate two main manifestations of compulsive social media use – always being logged in (i.e. the frequency of social media consumption) and excessive use (the intensity of consumption) – that in turn spurred a reinforcer of compulsivity: disconnection anxiety. The findings also indicate two main paths to compulsive social media consumption. One path is behavioral, based on habit, and the other is motivational, based on fear of missing out. Moreover, the authors identified the key antecedents of both paths. Habit formation was observed to be a function of situational cues (technological nudges in the online sphere) and consumer engagement. Fear of missing out was shaped by both injunctive norms (a consumer norm to be online) and descriptive norms (social proof).

Although the antecedents of compulsive social media consumption suggested in this study have a strong and significant effect, the explained variance in the dependent variables being always logged in and excessive social media use indicates that there might be other drivers as well. These should be explored along with moderators other than gender and age to identify the potential boundary conditions of the model.

The main implications of the present work point to the “ease” with which typical or normal social media use may spiral out of control and become compulsive, with adverse implications for consumer health and well-being.

The behavioral and motivational paths to compulsive social media consumption have been less explored and have not yet been studied in conjunction, nor have their antecedents and consequences. Thus, this is a novel approach to understanding how social media use can potentially lead to reduced control and well-being.

This study aims to argue that user’s continued use behavior is contingent upon two perceptions (i.e. the app and the provider). This study examines the moderating effects of user’s perceptions of apps and providers on the effects of security and privacy concerns and investigate whether assurance mechanisms decrease such concerns.

This study conducts a scenario-based survey with 694 mobile cloud computing (MCC) app users to understand their perceptions and behaviors.

This study finds that while perceived value of data transfer to the cloud moderates the effects of security and privacy concerns on continued use behavior, trust only moderates the effect of privacy concerns. This study also finds that perceived effectiveness of security and privacy intervention impacts privacy concerns but does not decrease security concerns.

Prior mobile app studies mainly focused on mobile apps and did not investigate the perceptions of app providers along with app features in the same study. Furthermore, International Organization for Standardization 27018 certification and privacy policy notification are the interventions that exhibit data assurance mechanisms. However, it is unknown whether these interventions are able to decrease users’ security and privacy concerns after using MCC apps.

The New York Times has suggested replacing sustainable fashion with responsible fashion, emphasizing the need for joint efforts by both individual consumers and retailers to take responsibility for their own decisions and actions. This study seeks to investigate the mechanism that activates individuals' personal social responsibility (PSR) and its association with their perceived corporate social responsibility (CSR) from a responsible luxury fashion retailer.

An online experiment was conducted with a nationwide US sample of luxury consumers who were randomly assigned to either individuation or deindividuation groups. Covariance-based structural equation modeling (CB-SEM) and multi-group SEM were employed to test the hypotheses.

Individuals' universalism positively affected PSR, which then enhanced their recognition of a responsible luxury retailer’s CSR and led to a greater willingness to pay a premium. More importantly, the positive effect of universalism on PSR was strengthened when consumers’ unique individuality, rather than their deindividuated state, was emphasized. Moreover, the moderating effect of individuation was indirectly transmitted through PSR to perceived CSR, hence reinforcing the relationship between PSR and CSR.

This study significantly advances existing scholarship on sustainable luxury retailing and adds rigor to deindividuation theory by demonstrating the central role of PSR and the moderating effect of individuation in enhancing recognition of a luxury fashion retailer’s CSR commitments. The findings provide luxury fashion retailers with communication and marketing strategies that highlight consumers' unique individuality to more effectively activate their sense of personal responsibility and thereby increase their recognition of the retailer’s CSR.

Through the lens of self-perception theory, this paper investigates how avatar design (i.e. avatar user similarity) affects users' self-awareness and shapes their task engagement and performance in the Metaverse.

The authors conducted a 2 (avatar user similarity: high vs low) × 2 (task type: procedural vs creative) lab experiment and collected data from questionnaires, the recording of users' behavior during tasks and their actual task performance.

The results show that higher avatar user similarity leads to higher task engagement in general. Furthermore, while a similar avatar promotes users to regulate their behaviors and achieve better performance in a procedural task, high similarity also inhibits users' creativity by invoking habitual thinking, resulting in worse performance in generating original ideas in a creative task.

This study is expected to contribute to the information systems literature by revealing the value of avatar design and providing new perspectives on improving users' experiences in the Metaverse.