The offline roots of online hostility: Adult and childhood administrative records correlate with individual-level hostility on Twitter

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Rasmussen, Stig Hebbelstrup Rye; Bor, Alexander; Petersen, Michael Bang
• 署名单位: Aarhus University; Central European University
• 刊物名称: PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0027-11111
• DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2412277121
• 发表日期: 2024-10-29
• 关键词: behavior

摘要

Reducing hostility in social media interactions is a key public concern. Most extant research emphasizes how online contextual factors breed hostility. Here, we take a different perspective and focus on the offline roots of hostility, that is, offline experiences and stable individual-level dispositions. Using a unique dataset of Danish Twitter users (N = 4,931), we merge data from administrative government registries with a behavioral measure of online hostility. We demonstrate that individuals with more aggressive dispositions (as proxied by having many more criminal verdicts) are more hostile in social media conversations. We also find evidence that features of childhood environments predict online hostility. Time spent in foster care is a strong correlate, while other indicators of childhood instability (e.g., the number of moves and divorced parents) are not. Furthermore, people from more resourceful childhood environments-those with better grades in primary school and higher parental socioeconomic status-are more hostile on average, as such people are more politically engaged. These results offer an important reminder that much online hostility is rooted in offline experiences and stable dispositions. They also provide anuanced view of the core group of online aggressors. While these individuals display general antisocial personality tendencies by having many more criminal verdicts, they also come from resourceful backgrounds more often than not. Significance Using a dataset linking administrative government data to the online behavior of Danish Twitter users, this study estimates the associations between hostility in social media interactions and offline individual-level dispositions and childhood environments. The study shows that users with many more criminal verdicts, more time spent in foster care, better primary school grades, and higher childhood socioeconomic status are more hostile on social media, in part, because such factors predict online engagement in political discussions, which is a major correlate of hostility. This research not only broadens our understanding of the drivers behind social media aggression but also suggests that interventions to reduce online hostility must consider the complex interplay of online and offline lives.