Berlin 2012 – scientific programme

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SOE: Fachverband Physik sozio-ökonomischer Systeme

SOE 13: Communication and Language

SOE 13.2: Talk

Wednesday, March 28, 2012, 14:15–14:30, H 0110

The role of emotions in on-line communication — •Antonios Garas, David Garcia, and Frank Schweitzer — Chair of Systems Design ETH Zurich, Kreuzplatz 5, CH-8032 Zurich

Internet has changed the way we communicate over the last years. With people engaged in ever growing number of on-line interactions, questions about the nature of this new form of communication are of particular interest. Is our on-line communication different from other, more traditional, means of communication? How we express our emotions through written text exchange on-line? We show that the frequency of word use is closely related to its emotional content. More precisely, we show that words with a positive emotional content are more frequently used, and they create a bias in human expression. This finding is validated across three different languages, and is related to established psychological hypotheses. Furthermore, we show that people are very persistent in the way they express their emotions on-line. This comes as a surprise, given the high degree of anonymity, but is a hint that social norms are applicable in on-line interactions. We created a model based on simple psychological assumptions, that is able to reproduce the observed stylized facts of on-line communication. Our results can be important for understanding the dynamics of on-line social communities, and allows us to test different hypothesis regarding their emotional impact in on-line communication.