Self-presentation and emotional contagion on Facebook: new experimental measures of profiles' emotional coherence

Abstract

Social Networks allow users to self-present by sharing personal content, and emotions expressed in a post affect the subsequent posts, eliciting a congruent emotion. The main goals of this research were to investigate the emotional coherence between wall posts and their comments on SNSs and to evaluate the association between the profiles' General Emotional Coherence and self-presentation styles from a sample of adolescent's Facebook profiles (n = 50; Mage = 16.95; 50% female). Two new experimental metrics were developed, describing the emotional load (positive and negative) of posts and comments, and the mood correspondence between them. The combination of these measures was used to define the profiles' "General Emotional Coherence". Results confirm how publishing an emotional post corresponds to receiving comments with a coherent mood. The more "emotionally coherent" profiles are characterized by a typical self-presentation style (more posts, more comments and likes).