Understanding interaction rituals: The impact of interaction ritual chains of the live broadcast on people's wellbeing

Lu Meng; Yijun Zhao; Yushi Jiang; Yongyue Bie; Jingpeng Li

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1041059

Understanding interaction rituals: The impact of interaction ritual chains of the live broadcast on people's wellbeing

Front Psychol. 2022 Oct 27:13:1041059. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1041059. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Lu Meng¹, Yijun Zhao², Yushi Jiang¹, Yongyue Bie¹, Jingpeng Li¹

Affiliations

¹ School of Economics and Management, Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu, China.
² Marketing Department, School of Business, Renmin University of China, Beijing, China.

Abstract

With the global pandemic of COVID-19, it has been striking psychological burdens on individuals. Under this background, more and more people get wellbeing by watching live broadcasts. However, the psychological mechanism behind this phenomenon is still a black box. This study finds that when people watch a live broadcast and interact with anchors and other people, an interaction ritual chain is formed, and emotional energy is generated, thus making people experience and understand the meaning of the live interaction ritual chains. Under the effect of the meaning transfer model, people will generate wellbeing. Specifically, the basic meaning of live interaction (emotional meaning and functional meaning) drives people's generation of wellbeing. The meanings of self-participation, self-display, self-concept, and self-renewal play a role in mediation in enhancing people's wellbeing with the basic meaning of live broadcast interaction.

Keywords: COVID-19; interaction ritual theory; live-broadcast; meaning transfer model; wellbeing.