from Hacker News

Anger spreads faster than joy on social networks

by Shenglong on 9/16/13, 4:39 PM with 19 comments

• by pg on 9/16/13, 4:54 PM

  I've noticed this on HN too. When otherwise lightweight stories get a lot of upvotes, the most common cause (probably more than 90% of the time) is that they're something users are indignant about. The more clickbaitish news sites know about this phenomenon and deliberately milk it.

• by j_baker on 9/16/13, 6:43 PM

  This shouldn't be surprising, psychologists have known this for a couple of decades. See mood contagion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_contagion

  Anger, being a highly negative, high energy-level emotion, is very contagious.

  People respond differentially to positive and negative stimuli, and negative events tend to elicit stronger and quicker emotional, behavioral, and cognitive responses than neutral or positive events. Thus, unpleasant emotions are more likely to lead to mood contagion than are pleasant emotions. Another variable that needs to be taken into account is the energy level at which the emotion is displayed. As higher energy draws more attention to it, the prediction is that the same emotional valence (pleasant or unpleasant) expressed with high energy will lead to more contagion than if expressed with low energy.

• by kevincrane on 9/16/13, 5:38 PM

  This is relatively unsurprising to me, but it's cool to see a study done about it. Think about how quickly faux outrage will spread throughout Twitter or Facebook. How many people do you know posted articles expressing their "disgust" at Miley Cyrus during the VMAs (anger)? Now how many people posted anything congratulatory about their favorite bands that won awards at that same show (happiness)?

• by tokenadult on 9/16/13, 8:25 PM

  The study was conducted on microblog networks in China. The people who use the networks have plenty to be angry about, and few other channels for expressing dissent.

  The fine article submitted here correctly notes that this is not a finding about the West, and so the first thing to do to find out how general this phenomenon is is to study the West directly. "Of course, it would be interesting to see whether the same effect can be observed in western networks such as Twitter. That should be relatively straightforward to find out given the growing interest in sentiment analysis and the increasingly effective tools available to carry it out." So, yes, let's see what we find out when other social networks are put to the same test. And let's see what is found in China someday when China has a free press and an open political system.

• by UnfalseDesign on 9/16/13, 7:19 PM

  "Nothing travels faster than the speed of light with the possible exception of bad news, which obeys its own special laws." -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"

  Switch out "bad news" with "angry news."

• by pessimizer on 9/16/13, 5:47 PM

  Why would you spread messages of sadness and disgust? I can also see why you would spread messages of joy to friends and family. I can see why you would spread messages of anger to everyone - because you're informing people of situations that you hope to correct.

  Tweet SAD: "My rotten car broke down for the last time today. I guess it's the bus for me #YOLO"

  Tweet DISGUST: "When I was in line at Starbucks yesterday, the guy behind me puked on my shirt. Ugh. #YOLO"

  Tweet JOY: "Looking at the sunset on a Thai beach with the one I love. Thailand has changed me forever. #YOLO"

  Tweet ANGER: "Our wonderful police force have gunned down a black man looking for help after crawling out of a car wreck! #YOLO"

  Only one I'd consider retweeting is the last.

• by JonSkeptic on 9/16/13, 6:09 PM

  >Anger spreads faster than joy on social networks.

  News like this really pisses me off.