From technology to interaction: How ritual interaction drives participation intention in immersive digital environments.

Despite rapid advances in immersive technologies (AR, VR, and MR), many digital experiences struggle to sustain user participation. Prior research emphasizes technological realism while overlooking how structured interactions shape meaning-making and motivation. Drawing on interaction ritual chains (IRC) theory, this study introduces ritual interaction (RI)-comprising contextual elements, ritual symbols, scripted processes, and shared emotion-to examine its impact on participation intention. Using PLS-SEM, results show that RI influences participation through a sequential psychological process: it enhances immersion, which strengthens presence, ultimately driving participation intention. Immersion plays a more proximal role than presence. Moderation analysis indicates that experience type strengthens the effect of RI on immersion in culture-based, but not nature-based, environments. By shifting focus from technological affordances to interactional structure, this study highlights how structured interaction can motivate participation and informs the design of immersive systems while contributing to human-computer interaction and mediated social behavior research.