Emotion shapes the diffusion of moralized content in social networks

= 563,312), we observed that the presence of moral-emotional words in messages increased their diffusion by a factor of 20% for each additional word. Furthermore, we found that moral contagion was bounded by group membership; moral-emotional language increased diffusion more strongly within liberal and conservative networks, and less between them. Our results highlight the importance of emotion in the social transmission of moral ideas and also demonstrate the utility of social network methods for studying morality. These findings offer insights into how people are exposed to moral and political ideas through social networks, thus expanding models of social influence and group polarization as people become…

• NS
  National Science Foundation

  Awards: SES-1248077, 1349089, SES-1248077-001, 1248077
• SF
  Society for Personality and Social Psychology