Emotional states can be transferred to others via emotionalcontagion, leading people to experience the same emotionswithout their awareness. Emotional contagion is well establishedin laboratory experiments, with people transferring positive andnegative emotions to others. Data from a large real-world socialnetwork, collected over a 20-y period suggests that longer-lastingmoods (e.g., depression, happiness) can be transferred throughnetworks [Fowler JH, Christakis NA (2008) BMJ 337:a2338], al-though the results are controversial. In an experiment with peoplewho use Facebook, we test whether emotional contagion occursoutside of in-person interaction between individuals by reducingthe amount of emotional content in the News Feed. When positiveexpressions were reduced, people produced fewer positive postsand more negative posts; when negative expressions were re-duced, the opposite pattern occurred. These results indicate thatemotions expressed by others on Facebook influence our ownemotions, constituting experimental evidence for massive-scalecontagion via social networks. This work also suggests that, incontrast to prevailing assumptions, in-person interaction and non-verbal cues are not strictly necessary for emotional contagion, andthat the observation of others’ positive experiences constitutesa positive experience for people.
Description:
Emotional states can be transferred to others via emotionalcontagion, leading people to experience the same emotionswithout their awareness. Emotional contagion is well establishedin laboratory experiments, with people transferring positive andnegative emotions to others. Data from a large real-world socialnetwork, collected over a 20-y period suggests that longer-lastingmoods (e.g., depression, happiness) can be transferred throughnetworks [Fowler JH, Christakis NA (2008) BMJ 337:a2338], al-though the results are controversial. In an experiment with peoplewho use Facebook, we test whether emotional contagion occursoutside of in-person interaction between individuals by reducingthe amount of emotional content in the News Feed. When positiveexpressions were reduced, people produced fewer positive postsand more negative posts; when negative expressions were re-duced, the opposite pattern occurred. These results indicate thatemotions expressed by others on Facebook influence our ownemotions, constituting experimental evidence for massive-scalecontagion via social networks. This work also suggests that, incontrast to prevailing assumptions, in-person interaction and non-verbal cues are not strictly necessary for emotional contagion, andthat the observation of others’ positive experiences constitutesa positive experience for people.