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Discrimination and prejudice against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning, intersex and asexual+ (LGBTQIA+) individuals exacerbate social anxiety. Communication via avatars in virtual communities may be an effective strategy to reduce related symptoms. This study measured social anxiety in LGBTQIA+ and non‐LGBTQIA+ individuals among Japanese users of Pigg Party, a massively multiplayer online game, in physical and virtual communities that use avatars for communication. They answered questions on social anxiety in physical and virtual communities and avatar identification (i.e., the degree of identification of the avatar with the self). The number of avatar customizations and amount of communication via avatars (indexed by the number of virtual peers) were collected based on game logs. The results revealed that the LGBTQIA+ group exhibited significantly higher rates of social anxiety in physical but not virtual communities than the non‐LGBTQIA+ group. Moreover, the LGBTQIA+ group displayed higher levels of identification with avatars than the non‐LGBTQIA+ group. Increased identification with avatars and avatar customization correlated with an increased number of communications via avatars, which was consequently linked to reduced social anxiety in physical and virtual communities. These findings suggest that communication using avatars can reduce social anxiety among LGBTQIA+ individuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Habit formation occurs in relation to peer habits and comments. This general principle was applied to gambling abstinence in the context of online self-help forums to quit gambling. Participants in this study, conducted between September 2008 and March 2020, were 161 abstinent and 928 non-abstinent gamblers who participated in online self-help chat forums to quit gambling. They received 269,317 comments during their first 3 years of forum participation. Gamblers had an increased likelihood of 3-year continuous gambling abstinence if they had many peers in the forums. However, they had a decreased likelihood of gambling abstinence if they received rejective comments from the forums. Based on these results, online social network-based interventions may be a new treatment option for gamblers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study clarified the advantages of virtual communities on non‐victim experiences among lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning, intersex, and asexual (LGBTQIA) individuals in Japan. A total of 3504 Pigg Party users, including 1390 LGBTQIA individuals, reported their experiences of victimization, perceived emotional support, and concealment of their gender/sexual identity in both physical and virtual communities. Japanese individuals with multiple minority statuses had more victim experiences than those with a single or without minority status. Furthermore, differences in victim experiences by gender/sexual minority status were lower in the virtual community than in physical communities. Similar tendencies were also confirmed on perceived emotional support and concealment. Virtual communities provided a more bias‐free social resource to Japanese LGBTQIA individuals than physical communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]