What Drives Gift-giving Intention in Live Streaming? The Perspectives of Emotional Attachment and Flow Experience

Gift-giving is popular in live streaming, and many users irrationally send virtual gifts to their favorite live streamers. Based on the attachment and flow theories, we applied the stimulus-organism-response model to explore the influence of live streamer characteristics (trustworthiness, expertise, attractiveness) and live scene characteristics (telepresence, instant feedback, interactivity, entertainment) on users' gift-giving intention through emotional attachment and flow experience. Four hundred and three valid responses to a survey questionnaire were analyzed. Findings of the research results include three aspects. First, live streamer characteristics (trustworthiness and attractiveness) can stimulate users' emotional attachment to a live streamer, thus promoting users' gift-giving intention. Second, live scene characteristics (telepresence and entertainment) can stimulate users' flow experience in live streaming. Third, users' flow experience influences their emotional attachment to live streamer.

Automated summary

The research findings indicate that the characteristics of live streamers (trustworthiness and attractiveness) can stimulate users' emotional attachment, leading to an increase in gift-giving intention. Additionally, the characteristics of live scenes (telepresence and entertainment) can stimulate users' flow experience during live streaming. Furthermore, users' flow experience has an impact on their emotional attachment to live streamers.