Bystander Intervention in Response to Toxic Behavior in Online Gaming: A Naturalistic Observational Study

While a rapidly growing body of studies have observed bystander intervention in offline aggressions, comparatively little is known about bystander intervention in online gaming settings involving toxic encounters. Addressing this research gap, we systematically observe online bystander interventions in an online gaming context. Data were collected from 77 naturally occurring encounters involving toxic behaviors, captured by screen-recordings within the multiplayer game, League of Legends. Results reveal a range of bystander intervention behaviors, encompassing both pro-social and hostile actions. Further, we found that hostile interventions were much more common than pro-social interventions, with the latter having a relatively rare occurrence. These findings suggest that the high rates of pro-social intervention observed in offline aggression studies may not generalize to online gaming environments. Additionally, the current study serves as a demonstration of the methodological value of directly video-observing online bystander behavior.