Understanding the dark side of gamified interactions on short-form video platforms: Through a lens of expectations violations theory

Short video games saw explosive growth and due to their rich content and strong communication features have provided a new marketing platform for corporate commercial activities. However, few studies have examined how to implement a gamification strategy on short-form video platforms. Based on Expectation Violation Theory, this study explored the impacts of three aspects of users' gamification interaction expectation violations on negative use behavior. By collecting and analyzing two waves of data with 320 matched samples, this study revealed that reward expectation violation, achievement expectation violation, and competition expectation violation of users' gamified interactions could predict negative use behaviors. Psychological resistance and emotional exhaustion mediated the effects of gamification expectation violations on users' negative use behav-iors. Further, moral licensing negatively moderated the influence of gamification expectation violations on psychological resistance, but the moderation effect of moral licensing between gamification expectation viola-tions and emotional exhaustion was not significant.

Automated summary

Short video games have become popular and provide a new marketing platform for corporate commercial activities. This study investigates how to implement a gamification strategy on short-form video platforms. The results show that users' expectation violations in gamified interactions predict negative use behaviors, with psychological resistance and emotional exhaustion mediating the effects. Moral licensing negatively moderates the influence of expectation violations on psychological resistance, but not on emotional exhaustion.