
Experimental evidence of massive-scale emotional contagion thru social networks (2014) - pseudolus
https://www.pnas.org/content/111/24/8788
======
hirundo
Here's a simple mechanism for emotional contagion:

1\. _Mirroring_ is the behavior in which one person unconsciously imitates the
gesture, speech pattern, or attitude of another. --
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirroring](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirroring)

2\. The _facial feedback hypotheisis_ is that one's facial expression directly
effects their emotional experience --
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facial_feedback_hypothesis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facial_feedback_hypothesis)

So you subconsciously imitate expressions and gestures from characters in
media, even text, which activates corresponding emotional states. The states
persist long enough to propagate to people you interact with, like ripples.

It's just that the faster mirroring, feedback and propagation of bits over
atoms are generating waves rather than ripples. Beware of tsunamis.

~~~
082349872349872
see also
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuleshov_effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuleshov_effect)

~~~
zwirbl
Thank you for this link! I haven't heard about this particular effect before,
but it shows the importance of context very well I think

------
vmh1928
What's old is new again.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_Popular_Delusion...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_Popular_Delusions_and_the_Madness_of_Crowds)

Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds is an early study of
crowd psychology by Scottish journalist Charles Mackay, first published in
1841 under the title Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions.[1] The book
was published in three volumes: "National Delusions", "Peculiar Follies", and
"Philosophical Delusions".[2

------
goblin89
> When positive expressions were reduced, people produced fewer positive posts
> and more negative posts; when negative expressions were reduced, the
> opposite pattern occurred.

More precisely, this research appears to show how emotions expressed in
Facebook posts get mimicked by connections. Should this be taken as literally
reflecting people’s underlying emotional states[0]? I’d accept that they
correlate to a degree, but not completely, especially not on a platform that
mandates real names.

[0] Anecdotally, I could be on balance in a happy state but express annoyance
at minor aspects of life in my posts. In fact, the existence of things to
complain about is a sign things are going relatively well (when things are
looking down on a fundamental level, going on record with _that_ under a real
name is risking to alienate IRL connections, and minor nuisances of life seem
too insignificant to be worth mentioning).

Conversely, seeing more negative posts would make me feel compelled to _post_
more of the same, but on balance _feel_ better about my own situation after
seeing what emotions others have to deal with.

~~~
mennis16
Yes if I'm remembering correctly this study was published by Facebook data
science after some psych lab published a study that went semi-viral suggesting
people were more _unhappy_ when their network made mostly happy posts (which
was explained by jealousy/comparing self to others).

I remember thinking both studies had limitations, the main one here being that
the interpretation is a stretch and to me was obviously trying to push back on
the original popular narrative.

Point being, I agree it is definitely plausible that seeing positive posts
encourages more showing off rather than actual happiness. I would be
interested if anyone is aware of any more recent follow-up studies?

------
aaron695
I wish we didn't have to rely on tweets that are possibly lies and certainly
have bias, but I found this pretty interesting.

It's a travesty the scientific comment can't and won't comment on it. So
random tweets are what we have.

"7 out of 9 teenage girls at this school have detransitioned since lockdown
and one is considering it." <snip bias>

[https://twitter.com/transgendertrd/status/127768841560624742...](https://twitter.com/transgendertrd/status/1277688415606247424)

------
acd
I think AI recommendations algorithms are too unregulated. Say a person is
having or had for example a depression. Recommendation algorithms for
advertising tech wants customer to stay on site and view content to sell
advertising. So potentially recommendations algorithms could recommend videos
or content that transfers depressed or other emotional states to viewers as
long as it generates ad revenue. Depending on what the algorithms senses what
others in the same emotional state are viewing. What is the legal liability
For transfer these emotions for companies providing these platforms?

On the other side the platform could transfer positive emotions. The issue I
see is that we have unregulated emotional and potentially addiction transfers
directly to consumers brains. What I mean for cigarettes there is warning here
there is nothing but the product is probably as addictive minus health
effects.

~~~
raxxorrax
AI recommendations is something for bored people in my opinion. Sure, you may
stumble upon content you would not have considered, but the examples people
tend to bring up aren't too convincing.

Some might think that showing depressed people some cute dog pics would
lighten them up, but that isn't how it works. On the contrary, the
expectations towards themselves to be happy can be counterproductive.

I believe this is the crux of the matter, since social media tends to load
people with expectations, depression or not and advertisers try to use this
handle to promoted their products.

If a site would try to "transfer positive emotions" I would be seriously
concerned. Humans don't even know what content would be best for an
individual. How would you train an AI? From resonance of other users? No, that
leaves out a lot of context.

But I still don't think AI curators should be regulated, because the quality
of regulation would certainly be horrible.

~~~
satokema_work
In some places though (see: algorithmic views of the primary content e.e.
facebook or twitter, youtube recs), the recommendations can't be disabled.

You cannot avoid the machine entirely, and all it might take is showing a
thumbnail or a preview of something to you.

This sort of thing has led me to getting off those services.

------
jonahss
Are studies of this sort still being done, perhaps privately at Fb or other
social networks?

This study was unethical, and revealed something very scary about the
potential of social networking, but I haven't heard much since then. Did they
stop all research into social behavior, find ethical ways to do it, or just
stop publishing publicly?

~~~
stx
>Are studies of this sort still being done, perhaps privately at Fb or other
social networks?

According to my facebook feed they said no, they don't do anything unethical.
To be serious though this is pretty scary. The power these companies have to
manipulate society is not understood by much of society.

------
tathougies
This is insanity. How did this study pass an ethics council? They admit to
exposing people to negative emotional cues at random?

Their N is 689K. At this point, they are certainly responsible for some number
of suicides.

The authors should be ashamed of themselves. Their salary is being paid by
manipulating people's emotions on purpose. Something is wrong with that.

~~~
dr_dshiv
The issue is that they published it in a journal? Otherwise an ethics board
isnt required for running an A/B test

~~~
thaw13579
Seems like there are several concerns: the journal, a question of whether the
FB usage agreement permitted such a report from being published, and generally
whether it is ethical (separate from the review board question). Some more
discussion:

[http://ulan.mede.uic.edu/alansz/2014/07/an-open-letter-to-
pn...](http://ulan.mede.uic.edu/alansz/2014/07/an-open-letter-to-pnas-about-
their-publication-of-the-facebook-study/)

~~~
dr_dshiv
The ethical question is whether to do A/B tests privately vs to do A/B tests
and publish scientific papers about them.

I would be interested to understand the ethical basis for removing the ability
of companies to run A/B tests.

~~~
thaw13579
And further, whether to do A/B tests or not, and whether the subject consents,
since the test might have negative effect

~~~
dr_dshiv
How should a user consent to a Google A/B test other than agreeing to use the
software that has A/B tests in it? They run 10s of thousands of tests every
day

------
LatteLazy
There's a much wider discussion (educational process?) we need to have as a
society. The idea that your or my opinions are our own, that we came to them
independently or that they're based on facts and logic is basically disproven
at this point.

But people insist on pretending they are and mistakenly believe that facts
change minds.

This is leading to disastrous public policy and significant damage to people's
mental health. These are the issues (directly or indirectly) of our time.
Solving them is the big challenge on the 2000s...

~~~
MrMan
This blindness afflicts people who self-identify as "rational" the most, in my
opinion. They see themselves as strong, independent thinkers who are immune
from efforts to manipulate. No one is immune, the same way no human is
independent in the way that individualists would hope they are.

------
fizixer
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_psychogenic_illness](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_psychogenic_illness)

~~~
sitkack
[https://www.wikihow.com/Do-the-Floss-Dance](https://www.wikihow.com/Do-the-
Floss-Dance)

------
jonahbenton
Needs a (2014)

~~~
pseudolus
The article appeared in a footnote to another post that offers something of a
historical overview of the use of predictive data [0].

[0]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23836500](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23836500)

------
py_samos
Recommendation algorithms have dramatic effects on a user's emotions, beliefs,
vocabulary, and choices.

This applies not only to social networks but also to search engines, content
recommendation, and other applications built on metrics like "relevance" and
"engagement".

------
kingkawn
I think calling it contagion misrepresents that this quality of emotional
transfer is the original internet

------
clairity
> "It's just that the faster mirroring, feedback and propagation of digits
> over atoms are generating waves rather than ripples. Beware of tsunamis."

that's how the hysteria concerning corona has crashed all over our economy and
social infrastructure.

as in, lockdowns won't stop the virus and they're immaterially better than
distancing (with masks for when you can't), but the economic and social costs
(including the politically motivated backlash) are massive, and yet we keep
imposing that enormous cost on ourselves to make us feel like we're doing
something about it, no matter how trivial the effect or how great the costs,
to assuage our irrational fears.

~~~
titzer
> as in, lockdowns won't stop the virus

I wish we could be done with this absolutely false misinformation. Case in
point, New Zealand is COVID free.

~~~
ZephyrBluu
Not completely, we still have a few active cases as far as I'm aware.

We also basically shut down our borders, which I don't think is that feasible
for a lot of other countries.

~~~
titzer
There have been weeks-long stretches within the past month where New Zealand
has had no active cases.

Currently, there are 2, apparently new, according to this:

[https://www.health.govt.nz/our-work/diseases-and-
conditions/...](https://www.health.govt.nz/our-work/diseases-and-
conditions/covid-19-novel-coronavirus/covid-19-current-
situation/covid-19-current-cases)

This is about as close to "eliminated" as you can get; the new cases are all
from incoming international travel.

This directly refutes the OP's statement that lockdowns "won't stop the
virus."

~~~
zaroth
Lucky for them to be a tiny island nation with totally controlled borders.
Long Island alone is almost twice as big.

Early on when New York was surging and Trump suggested limiting inter-state
travel Cuomo suggested that would be akin to a federal declaration of war. [1]

It can be true that strategies that might work for New Zealand could never
possibly work for the continental US.

Hawaii has a similar situation, got new case count down to zero for a few
days, but are dealing with a few cases per day recently.

[1] - [https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/28/donald-
trump...](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/28/donald-trump-
virginia-usns-comfort-travel)

~~~
vmh1928
The good thing about the scientific method is you can decide what you are
doing isn't working and try something else.

