An ideological asymmetry in the diffusion of moralized content on social media among political leaders

William J. Brady, Julian A. Wills, Dominic Burkart, John T. Jost, Jay J. Van Bavel*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

114 Scopus citations

Abstract

Online social networks constitute a major platform for the exchange of moral and political ideas, and political elites increasingly rely on social media platforms to communicate directly with the public. However, little is known about the processes that render some political elites more influential than others when it comes to online communication. Here, we gauge influence of political elites on social media by examining how message factors (characteristics of the communication) interact with source factors (characteristics of elites) to impact the diffusion of elites' messages through Twitter. We analyzed messages (N = 286,255) sent from federal politicians (presidential candidates, members of the Senate and House of Representatives) in the year leading up to the 2016 U.S. presidential election-a period in which Democrats and Republicans sought to maximize their influence over potential voters. Across all types of elites, we found a "moral contagion" effect: elites' use of moral-emotional language was robustly associated with increases in message diffusion. We also discovered an ideological asymmetry: conservative elites gained greater diffusion when using moral-emotional language compared to liberal elites, even when accounting for extremity of ideology and other source cues. Specific moral emotion expressions related to moral outrage-namely, moral anger and disgust-were impactful for elites across the political spectrum, whereas moral emotion expression related to religion and patriotism were more impactful for conservative elites. These findings help inform the scientific understanding of political propaganda in the digital age, and the antecedents of political polarization in American politics.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)1802-1813
Number of pages12
JournalJournal of Experimental Psychology: General
Volume148
Issue number10
DOIs
StatePublished - Oct 2019

Funding

This research was presented by William J. Brady at the Princeton Neuroscience and Social Decision Making meeting, the Boston Area Moral Cognition Group (BAM) meeting, and the 2018 Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP) Annual Convention. William J. Brady, Julian A. Wills, John T. Jost and Jay J. Van Bavel designed research; William J. Brady, Julian A. Wills, and Dominic Burkart performed research; William J. Brady, Julian A. Wills, John T. Jost, and Jay J. Van Bavel planned analyses; William J. Brady analyzed data; William J. Brady wrote the paper and all authors contributed to revisions. This research was supported by the National Science Foundation (Awards SES-1349089, SES-1248077, and SES-1248077-001) as well as the Global Institute for Advanced Study (GIAS) and Research Investment Fund (RIF) at New York University. We thank Jino Kwon, Miaohan Wang, and Stephanie Leung for assistance with variable coding. We are also grateful to members of the NYU Social Perception and Evaluation Lab (@vanbavellab), the Brown Social and Affective Neuroscience Lab, and the Yale Crockett Lab for their comments and suggestions.

Keywords

  • Emotion
  • Morality
  • Politics
  • Social media
  • Social networks

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Experimental and Cognitive Psychology
  • General Psychology
  • Developmental Neuroscience

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