Quick summary: Repeated online provocation often serves as a misdirected attempt to secure social acknowledgement rather than a simple desire to cause harm. Understanding this underlying motivation provides mental health professionals and digital platform designers with a clearer framework for addressing persistent negative online interactions. By addressing the root psychological need for contact, interventions can be better tailored to support digital well-being and reduce the prevalence of repetitive cyber harassment.
Have you ever noticed someone repeatedly returning to the social media profile of a person they claim not to like? They read the posts, leave comments, provoke a response and then argue with the people who engage with them. A few days later, they return and do much the same thing again.
It is easy to interpret this as nothing more than hostility or disagreement. But when the same pattern keeps appearing, another question becomes worth asking: what is the person actually getting from the conflict?
That question led me to develop what I call the conflict-as-contact hypothesis. The hypothesis is deliberately cautious. In some cases, repeated provocation may continue not simply because someone wants to express an opinion or attack another person, but because conflict reliably produces something else they value: attention, acknowledgement and human contact.
Being disliked is different from being invisible
Research has long shown that social exclusion can have profound consequences. Kipling Williams’ research on ostracism identified four fundamental psychological needs that can be threatened when people feel ignored or excluded: belonging, self-esteem, control and meaningful existence.
This provides an interesting way of thinking about people who feel chronically lonely, overlooked or socially invisible. Establishing positive relationships usually requires reciprocity, effort and some degree of vulnerability. You need another person who is willing to engage with you, and you generally need to offer something in return.
Conflict can provide a much quicker route to interaction, particularly online. A provocative comment can attract a response within seconds. The response might be angry or dismissive. Someone might tell you that you are wrong, challenge your views or even criticise you personally. Yet, whatever the emotional quality of the exchange, one thing has happened: someone has noticed you.
That distinction may be psychologically important. The emotion is negative, but the contact is real.
What does loneliness have to do with trolling?
There is already evidence suggesting that loneliness deserves consideration when examining provocative behaviour online.
In a study involving 513 participants, Keita Masui found loneliness to be a positive predictor of internet trolling. The finding was more nuanced than the suggestion that lonely people simply become trolls. Loneliness particularly amplified trolling among people who were already high in Machiavellianism and psychopathy.
That study does not establish that loneliness causes trolling, nor does it provide direct evidence for the conflict-as-contact hypothesis. It does, however, raise an important possibility about the social function of provocative behaviour.
For some people, could the response they receive after provoking others become rewarding precisely because it provides a sense of acknowledgement?
The conflict-attention-reinforcement loop
Consider a hypothetical example. We can call her Maria.
Maria regularly follows a public figure online, despite having no personal relationship with this person. She leaves a provocative comment and receives a response. She replies, somebody else joins the discussion, and before long several people are responding to her and talking about what she has said.
If we focus only on the emotional content of the exchange, Maria is receiving criticism and disapproval. Yet something else is happening at the same time. She has become visible. Her comment has generated interaction, and other people are now paying attention to her.
If this pattern occurs repeatedly, an association could potentially develop between provocation and social contact: I provoke, and people respond.
In my research, I describe this proposed mechanism as the Conflict-Attention-Reinforcement Loop:
Conflict → Attention → Acknowledgement → Reinforcement
Importantly, the person does not have to consciously think, “I am lonely, so I will create conflict.” Behaviour can be strengthened by its consequences without the individual having a clear understanding of why they keep repeating it.
This is one reason the social function of behaviour can sometimes be more revealing than the stated reason for it. A person may say they are simply correcting someone, defending their opinion or expressing their anger, while the interaction itself may also be providing attention and acknowledgement.
Not every conflict means someone needs attention
This distinction matters because disagreement should not automatically be pathologised. The conflict-as-contact hypothesis is not a diagnosis, and it is not an argument that everyone who behaves provocatively online is lonely or seeking attention.
Sometimes people argue because there is a genuine problem that needs to be challenged.
Imagine a colleague who objects to an important decision at work. He explains his concerns, other people consider them, the issue is discussed and perhaps the original decision is changed. Once the problem has been addressed, the disagreement ends.
That is very different from a recurring pattern in which one dispute is resolved only for another to appear almost immediately, recreating the same interpersonal dynamic. When the subject of the argument continually changes but the pattern of provocation and engagement remains remarkably consistent, it may be useful to look beyond the immediate disagreement.
Instead of asking only what the two people are arguing about, we can also ask what the interaction repeatedly produces. Does it consistently generate attention, engagement, acknowledgement or a sense of connection for one of the people involved?
Those questions do not provide a diagnosis, but they can offer another way of understanding behaviour that otherwise appears irrational or unnecessarily hostile.
What happens if we change the response?
This is where the hypothesis becomes particularly interesting because it creates a possibility that can be tested.
If prolonged attention helps maintain repeated provocation, what happens when acknowledgement is provided without the prolonged conflict?
Rather than becoming involved in another 30-minute argument, someone might respond briefly with, “I hear you”, or, “I understand your position.” The person has been acknowledged, but the interaction no longer provides the same extended cycle of disagreement and attention.
The conflict-as-contact hypothesis proposes that this could affect what happens next. If acknowledgement is one of the factors maintaining the behaviour, changing the way acknowledgement is provided should influence the subsequent pattern of interaction.
If the behaviour continues unchanged, then other explanations become more plausible.
This is an important limitation. At present, the conflict-as-contact hypothesis remains a hypothesis awaiting empirical testing. The available evidence can help establish why the idea is worth investigating, but it cannot establish that this mechanism explains repeated online provocation in general.
Understanding behaviour does not mean accepting abuse
Trying to understand what may be driving someone’s behaviour does not require us to tolerate harassment, aggression or abuse. Understanding and permission are entirely different things.
In some situations, the healthiest response is a clear boundary. Blocking, disengaging or refusing to participate in an escalating argument can be entirely appropriate, particularly when someone’s behaviour has become abusive.
Understanding the possible function of repeated conflict can nevertheless help us recognise when we are inadvertently reinforcing a pattern that is going nowhere. If every provocation produces another lengthy argument, the person provoking may continue receiving exactly the response that keeps the interaction going.
There is also a broader point here about how we interpret difficult behaviour. We tend to focus on the stated subject of an argument because that is what is visible. Yet the subject may not always explain why the interaction keeps recurring. Sometimes the more revealing question is what the interaction itself provides.
A person who repeatedly enters other people’s lives through conflict may not necessarily be seeking the conflict for its own sake. In some cases, the conflict may be functioning as a form of contact, particularly when other forms of social connection are limited.
That possibility should not be mistaken for an established explanation. It is a question for research.
And perhaps that is the question worth asking when an online conflict keeps returning, even after the original disagreement should have been settled:
Are we still trying to solve a disagreement, or has the disagreement itself become the relationship?
Dr Stoyana Natseva is a psychology professor, researcher, author, and founder of Happy Life Academy, focusing on identity and human behaviour. She developed the conflict-as-contact hypothesis to explain acknowledgement-seeking in repeated online provocation.
