IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/nathum/v3y2019i1d10.1038_s41562-018-0490-5.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The minute-scale dynamics of online emotions reveal the effects of affect labeling

Author

Listed:
  • Rui Fan

    (Beihang University)

  • Onur Varol

    (Northeastern University)

  • Ali Varamesh

    (Indiana University)

  • Alexander Barron

    (Indiana University)

  • Ingrid A. van de Leemput

    (Wageningen University)

  • Marten Scheffer

    (Wageningen University)

  • Johan Bollen

    (Indiana University
    Wageningen University
    Indiana University)

Abstract

Putting one’s feelings into words (also called affect labeling) can attenuate positive and negative emotions. Here, we track the evolution of specific emotions for 74,487 Twitter users by analysing the emotional content of their tweets before and after they explicitly report experiencing a positive or negative emotion. Our results describe the evolution of emotions and their expression at the temporal resolution of one minute. The expression of positive emotions is preceded by a short, steep increase in positive valence and followed by short decay to normal levels. Negative emotions, however, build up more slowly and are followed by a sharp reversal to previous levels, consistent with previous studies demonstrating the attenuating effects of affect labeling. We estimate that positive and negative emotions last approximately 1.25 and 1.5 h, respectively, from onset to evanescence. A separate analysis for male and female individuals suggests the potential for gender-specific differences in emotional dynamics.

Suggested Citation

  • Rui Fan & Onur Varol & Ali Varamesh & Alexander Barron & Ingrid A. van de Leemput & Marten Scheffer & Johan Bollen, 2019. "The minute-scale dynamics of online emotions reveal the effects of affect labeling," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 3(1), pages 92-100, January.
  • Handle: RePEc:nat:nathum:v:3:y:2019:i:1:d:10.1038_s41562-018-0490-5
    DOI: 10.1038/s41562-018-0490-5
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-018-0490-5
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/s41562-018-0490-5?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Wang, Chuanbiao & Liu, Ruiying & Wang, Yan, 2023. "The spread dynamics model of the interaction between rumors and derivative rumors in emergencies under the control strategy," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 175(P2).
    2. Jianghao Wang & Yichun Fan & Juan Palacios & Yuchen Chai & Nicolas Guetta-Jeanrenaud & Nick Obradovich & Chenghu Zhou & Siqi Zheng, 2022. "Global evidence of expressed sentiment alterations during the COVID-19 pandemic," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 6(3), pages 349-358, March.
    3. Charlotte Out & Martijn Goudbeek & Emiel Krahmer, 2020. "Gradual positive and negative affect induction: The effect of verbalizing affective content," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(5), pages 1-20, May.
    4. Jiayin Pei & Zhi Lu & Xiaoming Yang, 2022. "What drives people to repost social media messages during the COVID‐19 pandemic? Evidence from the Weibo news microblog," Growth and Change, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(4), pages 1609-1626, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:nathum:v:3:y:2019:i:1:d:10.1038_s41562-018-0490-5. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.