Affective Virality on Social Media: The Role of Culture and Ideal Affect

社交媒体平台让世界各地的人们比以往任何时候都更快地表达自己和与他人交流。虽然这种便利性和速度有好处，但也有心理和社会代价。例如，对美国社交媒体用户的研究表明，在社交媒体上表达积极情绪(例如，快乐)会让其他用户感到沮丧、焦虑，并认为他们“错过了机会”，而表达负面情绪(例如，厌恶、恐惧和愤怒)会增加错误信息的传播，并加剧政治两极分化。要应对这些潜在成本，需要了解社交媒体使用的独特文化和情感内容特征。在美国，用户发布更多积极的情感内容，而消极的情感内容与错误信息和政治两极分化密切相关。这项研究测试了一种假设，即这些情绪模式总体上反映了美国的文化价值观，特别是美国人对积极态度的强调。为了测试这些根植于文化的预测，这项研究调查了美国和日本社交媒体上情感内容的流行和传播情况。研究结果可以为开发和部署社交媒体工具提供参考，以对抗情绪内容对用户的有害影响。这项研究特别调查了情绪内容在社交媒体上的流行和传播，以及它与用户福祉、对错误信息的易感性以及美国和日本政治两极分化的关联。研究1使用计算方法比较了情感新闻帖子在美国和日本社交媒体上的传播。研究2a-b使用调查和实验方法来检验用户的文化价值观如何影响情感内容的流行和传播。研究3研究了一种潜在的补救措施，测试允许用户控制他们在社交媒体上接触情感内容的工具是否可以增加他们的幸福感，降低他们对错误信息的易感性，并增加他们对政治外部群体的同理心。这些研究有助于开发防御措施，以抵御社交媒体使用的负面影响。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Social media platforms allow people around the world to express themselves and communicate with others more quickly than ever. While this convenience and speed has benefits, it also has psychological and societal costs. For instance, research on social media users in the United States (US) suggests that expressions of positive emotions (e.g., happiness) on social media can make other users feel depressed, anxious, and that they are "missing out," while expressions of negative emotions (e.g., disgust, fear, and anger) can increase the spread of misinformation and intensify political polarization. Combating these potential costs requires understanding the unique cultural and emotion-content signatures of social media use. In the US, users post more positive emotional content, and negative emotional content is strongly associated with misinformation and political polarization. This research tests the hypothesis that these emotional patterns reflect American cultural values in general and an American emphasis on positivity in particular. To test these culturally-embedded predictions, the research examines the prevalence and spread of emotional content on social media in the US and Japan. Research findings can inform the development and deployment of social media tools to combat the harmful effects of emotional content on users.This research specifically examines the prevalence and spread of emotional content on social media and its association with the well-being of users, susceptibility to misinformation, and political polarization in the US and Japan. Study 1 uses computational methods to compare the spread of emotional news posts in US and Japanese social media. Studies 2a-b use survey and experimental methods to examine how users' cultural values influence the prevalence and spread of emotional content. Study 3 examines a potential remedy, testing whether a tool that allows users to control their exposure to emotion content on social media can increase their well-being, decrease their susceptibility to misinformation, and increase their empathy with political outgroups. These studies contribute to the development of defenses to protect against the negative effects of social media use.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.