In front of promoting adversity, positivity and solidarity Social media The engagement has been found in a new study, regardless of political affiliation.
Research from University of cambridgeLater this week is ready to be published in the proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, it suggests that in the time of political upheaval, the users get away from a moment. Violation And turn to the messages of unity.
Lecturer in Psychology and Senior Author of Studies at Cambridge University. John Rosenbik said: “We did not know whether the moments of political instead of existence crisis would trigger solidarity in one country, which would be deeply polarized as the United States.
“In the time of crisis, Ingroup Love can matter more to us than hatred on social media.”
The university’s social decision -making laboratory analyzed over 62,000 posts from American politicians, commentators and Facebook accounts before and after major crises, while researching how they transferred online behavior.
After US President Attempt to kill Donald TrumpRepublican-focused posts increased by 53 percent more engagement on posts indicating unity and shared identity, just before the shooting.
In contrast, Republican posts attacking Democrats saw a decline of 23 percent points a few days ago.
The same trend can be seen with Democrats, whose positions express solidarity after their leader Joe Biden out of the election race91 percent more engagement than those who did not – a jump of 71 percent marks in the period before their exit.
The same Cambridge Lab published a study in 2021 that revealed that hostile social media posts against a rival conceptual side usually meet twice as shares that promote one’s own side.
Malia Marx, the main author of Cambridge’s Psychology Department and the study, said: “Negative feelings such as anger and resentment with hostility against political groups, usually rocket fuels for social media engagement. You can expect it to hop that it is expected to go to Hyperdrive during the crisis and external threat.
“However, we found the opposite. It seems that political crisis does not hate so much hatred, but reduces love.”
Last year, the Cambridge team published a study with 1.6 million. Ukrainian social media posts In the first and after months Russia’s attack In February 2022.
It identified a similar trend, seeing a spike for “inguinal solidarity” positions after the invasion, which got 92 percent more engagement on Facebook and 68 percent more on Twitter. Hostile positions for Russia got a little extra engagement.
“Researchers argue that the findings of the latest studies are even more amazing, given the severity of danger to Ukraine and the nature of its population,” the report states.
Yara Kyrychenko said for the study of co-writer and PhD candidate at Cambridge’s Social Decision-Making Lab: “Social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook are seen rapidly as creating a toxic information environment that intensifies social and political partitions, and now there are many research to support it.”
“Nevertheless we see that a rally-round-flag can create a rally-chain effect in moments of crisis, when someone handles as a major driver of emotional and psychological preference online for one’s own group.”
