Online Disinhibition: Reconsideration of the Construct and Proposal of New Model (Japanese)

On the Internet, behaviors that differ from those in real-life situations sometimes appear. The online disinhibition theory, pioneered by Suler(2004), has been frequently cited in empirical studies as a theory to explain this mechanism. However, the construct of online disinhibition has not yet reached a consensus. This study aimed to explore an appropriate construct of online disinhibition for psychological research, and propose a model to explain how online disinhibition works. First, we pointed out that previous studies have dealt with online disinhibition from three perspectives. After discussing contributions and limitations of each perspective, we argued that psychological research had better to deal with online disinhibition from the perspective of mental state. Next, we reviewed three significant models about how online disinhibition works: the “benign/toxic disinhibition model”, the “online disinhibition/ behaviors model”, and the “online disinhibition and deindividuation model”. Finally, in order to solve the limitations of these models, we proposed the “motivation-based online disinhibition model”, as an improved model.