How do emotions in a social media post influence who shares it?
Yifan Yu, assistant professor of information, risk, and operations management at the University of Texas at Austin’s McCombs School of Business, examines this.
Faculty Bio:
Yifan Yu’s research centers on (1) the economics of artificial intelligence and machine learning; (2) business analytics leveraging online unstructured data (i.e., text, images, videos, networks, behavioral sequences); and (3) data analytics to facilitate volunteerism, sustainable operation, and social justice. I apply machine/deep learning, network analysis, econometric/game-theoretical modeling, and lab/field experimental methods to tackle questions in these fields.
He has published in numerous research journals and spent several years as a research analyst or applied scientist for tech companies such as Amazon and Tencent (WeChat). Before I started a career in academic research, I worked in management consulting firms, venture capital, and private equity companies. He also established an online platform company with two partners in 2015 and worked as an entrepreneur for two years.
Transcript:
Not all feelings travel the same way online.
We analyzed nearly 400,000 articles shared on a large social network, tracking how each post spread among more than six million people. Rather than counting clicks, we mapped each “cascade” — its size, how deep it traveled from person to person, how wide it became at any level, and how “viral” it was through peer-to-peer sharing.
Specific emotions predicted what happened. Content expressing anxiety, love, or surprise reached more people and penetrated deeper into networks. Anger, sadness, and even joy were tied to smaller, shallower cascades.
Why? Emotions are social signals. Anxiety invites advice and coordination. Love affirms bonds. Surprise provokes curiosity. Anger and sadness often trigger caution or withdrawal. Joy tends to be self-contained — good news for the poster, less reason for others to pass along.
These patterns can vary. The same emotion can travel differently by age and gender, and among close friends versus acquaintances. But our findings reveal a deeper truth: emotions shape the architecture of information flow.
Some specific feelings pull people in and propel ideas outward. Understanding these dynamics gives us new insight into how influence, attention, and connection emerge in today’s social networks.
Read More:
[Informs PubsOnLine] - Emotions in Online Content Diffusion
