Afshin Gholami Afshin Gholami Seyedsadegh Yousefzadeh Seyedsadegh Yousefzadeh Alexander Pfeiffer Alexander Pfeiffer University of Krems Press 2026 This research examines how supportive, toxic, and neutral social interaction styles influence player performance, motivation, and sense of belonging in competitive esports. Twenty-seven participants completed three five-minute rounds under systematically varied team climates using a within-subjects design. Unknown to participants, teammates were trained confederates enacting one of three behaviors: supportive (encouraging through in-game help and positive chat), toxic (withholding cooperation and criticizing), or neutral (functionally cooperative yet emotionally detached). Condition order was randomized. After each round, participants rated belonging, motivation, fairness, enjoyment, frustration, and competitiveness. Results showed that performance peaked under supportive conditions, followed by toxic, and was lowest in neutral play. Motivation was strongest in supportive and neutral settings, while toxicity increased competitiveness and frustration but lowered engagement. Sense of belonging and cooperative success were highest in supportive contexts and significantly differed across all conditions (p < .05). PDFDocument eng 2026-02-24T09:50:25.740397Z 2026-02-26 esports social climate player motivation emotional engagement team dynamics 658769 b application/pdf http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/