Perpetrators in League of Legends: Scale Development and Validation of Toxic Behavior

Abstract

Toxic behavior (TB)-a form of releasing frustration and anger in a detrimental way-is a common phenomenon in online games. Despite its importance, a validated questionnaire measuring TB is yet missing. In this paper, we apply a comprehensive procedure for scale development by using two difference sources of items. In the first one, the item pool is adapted from an existing scale. In the second one, the act frequency approach is applied to generate a pool of items. We evaluated both scales based on survey data from 380 online gamers. Both instruments are juxtaposed based on their psychometric properties. The results indicate that the adapted scale performs better in the context of our study than the scale generated from the act frequency approach and is, thus, the preferable choice. With a validated measurement scale in place, we discuss how future research can benefit from the TB scale proposed here.

Towards a unified theory of toxic behavior in video games

“…Based on the total number of participants, we created ordinal ranks of toxicity for the coded and self-reported data and correlated both variables. The results showed a correlation of approximately 90%, which we consider as a clear sign of the validity of the self-reported level of toxicity, consistent with the original literature (Kordyaka et al , 2019).…”

Dark Participation in Games

“…Blackburn and Kwak (2014) provide a list of "toxic" behavior that includes only seven categories, whereas Saarinen (2017) notes only five kinds of "toxic" behaviors. Kordyaka et al (2019) are the only known authors to attempt to differentiate "toxic" behavior in terms of their presentation or premeditation by noting some behaviors may occur repeatedly or temporarily. However, in their work they describe toxic behavior vaguely as "a behavior generating anger and frustration in players harming communication and contributing to spreading a bad mood" (p. 2487).…”

Understanding toxicity in multiplayer online games: The roles of national culture and demographic variables

“…Gaming can be an enjoyable, harmonious pastime, and the social functions of these games bring people together for meaningful interactions [2,3]. However, negative behaviors such as cyberbullying or toxic behavior (TB) pose a threat to positive online social outcomes [4,5]. Since TB can ruin the gaming experience for others, it can even lead to loss of revenue for some game developers whose game suffers greatly, as it can deter new players from playing the game [4,6].…”

“…TB in online games differs from cyberbullying in that it is: (1) impulsive and of short duration; and (2) a reaction to in-game frustration [4,5]. In the context of MOBA games such as Dota 2, TB can manifest through gameplay (e.g., intentionally stealing resources from teammates) and through team communication in the form of verbal and written abuse [4].…”