ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Cognition
This article is part of the Research TopicCognitive Mechanisms Underpinning Pro-Social Behavior Across CulturesView all 18 articles
The Stereotypical Effect of Gendered Nicknames on Prosocial Behavior in Online Interactions: A Chain Mediation Model
Provisionally accepted
- 1School of Humanities and Management, Hunan University of Chinese Medicine, Changsha, China
- 2School of Psychology, Northwest Normal University, Lanzhou, China
- 3Department of Psychology, Hunan Normal University, Changsha, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Purpose: This study explored how gendered nicknames influence individuals' prosocial behavior in online interactions and examined the chain mediating roles of warmth and social attractiveness. Participants and Methods: An imaginative context paradigm was used to conduct two experiments in which the participants had to rate their willingness to help users with masculine or feminine nicknames. Experiment 2 further introduced warmth, competence, and interpersonal attraction (social and task) as mediators to test a chain mediation model. Results: The participants showed a statistically significant greater willingness to engage in prosocial behavior toward users with feminine nicknames. The mediation analysis revealed that warmth and social attractiveness fully mediated the relationship between gendered nicknames and online prosocial behavior, whereas competence and task attractiveness were nonsignificant. Conclusion: In the online environment, gendered nicknames shape helping tendencies by influencing cognitive and emotional evaluations. Feminine nicknames evoke warmth and friendliness, enhancing social attractiveness and promoting prosocial intentions. These findings support Eisenberg's theory of prosocial behavior and highlight how gender stereotypes subtly affect social interactions online.
Keywords: chainmediation, gendered online nicknames, Prosocial Behavior, Social attractiveness, Warmth
Received: 22 Dec 2025; Accepted: 19 Jan 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 You, Shen, Liu, Tan and Chen. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Yun Chen
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.