Identity Management and Reputational Concerns in Responses to Online Harassment: Evidence from a Nationally Representative Survey

• In Event: Putting Social Psychology to Work in Challenging Times

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Online harassment is a serious issue, harming individuals’ wellbeing and undermining civil society through its chilling effect on public discourse. While we know much about the costs of online harassment, we know less about why and how people respond to it. We propose identity and reputation management as two theoretical mechanisms underlying responses to online harassment: People may respond to online harassment to alleviate the emotional distress caused by a damaged identity, or to restore a damaged reputation. We also evaluate contextual factors that we expect to shape these mechanisms, specifically, the type of harassment and one’s relationship to the harasser. We test these ideas drawing on a nationally representative survey data (n = 1,339) collected by Pew. We find, as expected, that people are more likely to respond to harassment when it is more emotionally distressing, and we identify the types of harassment most likely to produce emotional distress. In contrast, we find little evidence that perceived harm to one’s reputation motivates responding to harassment. Theoretically, our work supports the idea that identity plays a role in responses to harassment. Our findings also suggest that, although reputation has been identified as a key driver of offline conflict, it may work differently online. Practically speaking, the results are important for understanding how people respond to harassment and antagonistic behavior in the difficult-to-regulate online environment.

Authors

• Stephen Benard, Indiana University-Bloomington

• Da Eun Jung, Indiana University-Bloomington