Sense of Community (SOC) is vital to individual and collective well-being. Although social interactions have moved increasingly online, still little is known about the specific relationships between the nature of these interactions and Sense of Virtual Community (SOVC). This study addresses this gap by exploring how conversational structure and linguistic style predict SOVC in online communities, using a large-scale survey of 2,826 Reddit users across 281 varied subreddits. We develop a hierarchical model to predict self-reported SOVC based on automatically quantifiable and highly generalizable features that are agnostic to community topic and that describe both individual users and entire communities. We identify specific interaction patterns (e.g., reciprocal reply chains, use of prosocial language) associated with stronger communities and identify three primary dimensions of SOVC within Reddit -- Membership & Belonging, Cooperation & Shared Values, and Connection & Influence. This study provides the first quantitative evidence linking patterns of social interaction to SOVC and highlights actionable strategies for fostering stronger community attachment, using an approach that can generalize readily across community topics, languages, and platforms. These insights offer theoretical implications for the study of online communities and practical suggestions for the design of features to help more individuals experience the positive benefits of online community participation.

翻译：社区感（SOC）对个人和集体的福祉至关重要。尽管社交互动日益转向线上，但关于互动性质与虚拟社区感（SOVC）之间的具体关系仍知之甚少。本研究通过大规模调查2,826名来自281个不同子版块的Reddit用户，探讨在线社区中会话结构与语言风格如何预测SOVC，以填补这一空白。我们开发了一个分层模型，基于自动可量化且高度泛化的特征（这些特征与社区主题无关，并同时描述个体用户和整个社区）来预测自我报告的SOVC。研究发现，特定的互动模式（如互惠回复链、亲社会语言的使用）与更强的社区感相关，并识别出Reddit内SOVC的三个主要维度：成员身份与归属感、合作与共同价值观、联系与影响力。本研究首次提供量化证据，证明社交互动模式与SOVC之间的关联，并提出可操作的策略以增强社区依恋，该方法可跨社区主题、语言和平台进行泛化。这些见解为在线社区研究提供了理论启示，并为设计帮助更多人体验在线社区参与积极益处的功能提供了实用建议。