Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to examine the asymmetric effect of negative and positive attribute-level, performance (i.e. effort expectancy, performance expectancy, social influence, facilitating conditions, flow experience, and satisfaction) of online social networking (OSN) on behavioral intention. Design/methodology/approach - An investigation of behavioral intention in OSN was conducted, with a total of 482 effective questionnaires collected. The psychometric properties of the measures were investigated and a dummy-variable regression model was applied to estimate the regression coefficients. Findings - The results confirm that the importance of asymmetrical effect is not equivalent for different attributes. Negative performance on performance expectancy, effort expectancy, flow experience, and satisfaction had a larger effect on behavioral intention than positive performance. In contrast, positive performance on social influence and facilitating conditions had a larger effect on behavioral intention than negative performance. Originality/value - This paper adds to the extant literature by offering an empirical investigation of the asymmetric effect of OSN attribute-level performance on behavioral intention. Furthermore, by focusing on the positive-negative asymmetry effect, the proposed model also significantly increases the value of OSN through an understanding of behavioral intention and its antecedents.