Impact of emotional contents on viral behaviors

Abstract

The study investigates the types of responses elicited by emotional content on Facebook, ranging from Cute, Funny, Inspiring, Disgust to Angry. The emotion Inspiration was added to the types of emotional content, and the responses Like, Share, Comment, and Parody served as indicators of the degree to which particular content went viral or not. 198 undergraduate students responded to a survey and their responses were analyzed using a linear regression model. The results found that positive content elicits a higher response rate than negative content. There was a marked difference between one group who reacted by only clicking ‘Like’ and the other group who clicked Share, Comment and parody. In particular, the emotions Funny and Inspiration showed high levels of engagement.