Critical Behavioral Traits Foster Peer Engagement in Online Mental
  Health Communities
Aseem Srivastava Tanya Gupta Alison Cerezo Sarah Peregrine Lord Md Shad Akhtar Tanmoy Chakraborty
Online Mental Health Communities (OMHCs), such as Reddit, have witnessed a
surge in popularity as go-to platforms for seeking information and support in
managing mental health needs. Platforms like Reddit offer immediate
interactions with peers, granting users a vital space for seeking mental health
assistance. However, the largely unregulated nature of these platforms
introduces intricate challenges for both users and society at large. This study
explores the factors that drive peer engagement within counseling threads,
aiming to enhance our understanding of this critical phenomenon. We introduce
BeCOPE, a novel behavior encoded Peer counseling dataset comprising over 10,118
posts and 58,279 comments sourced from 21 mental health-specific subreddits.
The dataset is annotated using three major fine-grained behavior labels: (a)
intent, (b) criticism, and (c) readability, along with the emotion labels. Our
analysis indicates the prominence of ``self-criticism'' as the most prevalent
form of criticism expressed by help-seekers, accounting for a significant 43%
of interactions. Intriguingly, we observe that individuals who explicitly
express their need for help are 18.01% more likely to receive assistance
compared to those who present ``surveys'' or engage in ``rants.'' Furthermore,
we highlight the pivotal role of well-articulated problem descriptions, showing
that superior readability effectively doubles the likelihood of receiving the
sought-after support. Our study emphasizes the essential role of OMHCs in
offering personalized guidance and unveils behavior-driven engagement patterns.