Abstract

Background: Online game firms frequently encourage gamers to build teams, aiming to increase their cohesion and commitment. We know little about how to increase players’ cohesion, how commitment can be created, and how cohesion may change subsequent communication. Hence, using relational cohesion theory (RCT), we examined how positive emotions are related to relational cohesion, commitment, and positive interpretation of information.

Methods: We extended RCT by proposing a new concept, namely, positive interpretation of information (PII), as an outcome variable in our model, which incorporates RCT to examine how task cohesion and relational cohesion may affect subsequent communication. Empirical results based on responses from 697 online gamers support our model.

Results: We found that positive emotions (pleasure-satisfaction and interest-excitement) are positively associated with relational cohesion and therefore linked to increased task cohesion. Both cohesions are positively associated with PII and commitment to online gaming teams.

Conclusions: We extended the understanding of RCT to show that equal power does not increase the agreement frequency. Moreover, the new concept, PII, can be a new outcome of relational cohesion.

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