Pathways to Virality: Psychophysiological Responses Preceding Likes,Shares, Comments, and Status Updates on Facebook

ABSTRACT

Facebook use has become habitual to social network site (SNS) users, yet little is known about the psychological processes at play while using this platform. This study explored how psychophysiological responses vary as a function of liking, commenting, sharing, or posting status updates interactions on Facebook’s newsfeeds. Participants were instructed to enact common Facebook activities or viral behaviors (like, share, comment, and update a status) in brief segments, while their psychophysiological responses were recorded. Our results showcase different approaches to dealing with psychophysiological responses for undefined, uncontrolled (organic) stimuli. We contrasted Facebook organic use segments that ended with pressing on the like button to those that did not end with liking the Facebook post. In the second method of data analysis, we analyzed psychophysiological data at the participant level using the 10 sec preceding the enactment of the 4 viral behaviors. Our findings showed that, indeed, the pathways leading up to performing online behaviors are diverse, thus indicating different underlying psychological processes. Findings’ theoretical and practical implications are discussed within the broader context of understanding social media behaviors.

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by an internal grant from the Department of Advertising + Public Relations at Michigan State University.

Disclosure statement

No competing financial interests exist.

Notes

1. We reported Huynh-Feldt-adjusted degrees of freedom because the assumption of sphericity was violated.

2. One participant who enacted status updates did not enact the like behavior, hence the decreased degrees of freedom by one.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by an internal grant from the Department of Advertising + Public Relations at Michigan State University.