Social sharing of emotions in social media system: results of the analysis of creepypasta`s comments on Reddit

The relevance of the article is explained by the communicative significance and the functions that the social media system has today. American platform Reddit is not only a platform for world-class communication but also it’s a space for possible implementation of offline interaction models. Currently, both the popularity of Reddit and its influence on the physical world are growing. The object of the study is users’ comments to the highly talked creepypasta “My Sleep Paralysis Demon is Actually A Pretty Chill Guy”. This creepypasta is published in NoSleep community that is the most popular subreddit for sharing horror posts. We use a creepypasta as a convenient material for research due to its communicative nature. This is digital fictional content that is perceived as real (through the internal rules of the NoSleep community) and is not temporal. The article studies the process of social exchange of emotions, their re-experience during the description of the event that caused them. The aim of the study is to find out whether Reddit allows the laws of real social interaction to be transferred to the online space. To solve the problem was used a set of methods, chief among them was the intent analysis. Results. The study has shown that user feedback can be represented by one of three forms (or their certain combination): direct emotional feedback that expresses a certain emotion obtained after reading the creepypasta, commenting on a story that is predominantly a rational expression of thoughts about a story, and a personal experience that is a presentation of information about users commenting on creepypasta. Their calculation showed the existence of common features between offline social sharing of emotions and its digital counterpart. The ratio of different forms of comments depends on the degree of discussion of creepy paste and the specifics of the central topic. Creepypasta is currently actively attracting the attention of scientists around the world, but its formation and formation as a genre of the digital environment is mainly studied. This study focused on the specifics of Creepypasta on Reddit, taking into account the internal rules of the community. For further research, it seems promising to study other genres of the digital environment from the perspective of social sharing of emotions.

‘Don’t Worry, Honey: It’s Cooked’: Addressing Food Risk during Pregnancy on Facebook Italian Posts

During pregnancy, women exposed to microbiological risks are more susceptible to contracting specific pathogens, which can lead to serious diseases both in the mother and the foetus. Food-borne diseases can be avoided to a large extent by following good practices of food manipulation and cooking. Safe eating behaviours are influenced by knowledge and perception of food risks and are constructed, among others, online. Pregnant women often use Web 2.0 to obtain and share pregnancy-related information as a strategy of collective coping with emotions through conversations. This paper explores how knowledge and perceptions of food risks during pregnancy are shared among users on Italian Facebook pages and groups. The corpus, including 648,399 items (i.e., posts), was analysed: (a) first, by means of the Reinert method, to verify to what extent issues concerning food risks are debated; and (b) second, through a manual content analysis, to observe how food risks are addressed in terms of contents and social sharing of emotions. The main results show that food risk is not among the most discussed topics, and the least known and debated food risks are the most widespread (e.g., campylobacteriosis). Sometimes, food risks, when addressed, were minimised or denied, and the belief to be ‘less at risk’ than peers for such risk (i.e., optimistic bias) was observed. The results underline the importance, for health institutions, of building a tailored communication strategy on food risks during pregnancy to promote correct food behaviours by exploiting social networks.

As Strong as We Are United: Effects of Intrapersonal and Interpersonal Emotion Regulation on Quality of Life in Women With Breast Cancer

Women diagnosed with breast cancer often experience unpleasant emotions, resulting in higher levels of emotional burden and decreased levels of wellbeing and quality of life. The present correlational and cross-sectional study aims to compare the implementation of two regulatory levels, intrapersonal and interpersonal (as social sharing of emotions), and two types of strategies, antecedent-focused and response-focused, and explore their impact on breast cancer patients’ perception of quality of life. Sixty-eight women previously diagnosed with the disease participated in this study, with a mean age of 63years old (SD=11.58). Data were collected through a self-report questionnaire to assess emotional experience, intrapersonal regulation, social sharing of emotions, and breast cancer-related wellbeing and quality of life. Data yielded that most of the participants regulated their negative emotions within social interactions and made more use of antecedent-focused strategies to cognitively reformulate the emotional episode. Social and family wellbeing were positively associated with antecedent-focused strategies, as well as intrapersonal and interpersonal regulatory levels. Moreover, the occurrence of sharing episodes and social interactions played an important and beneficial role on patients’ perceived quality of life. These findings reinforce the importance of promoting an adaptive intrapersonal regulation among breast cancer patients. Results also suggest that social sharing of emotions is an efficient process to help them to better cope with the psychological and emotional burden of the disease, thus positively influencing the way they perceive their social and family wellbeing, as well as their quality of life.

Online Self-Disclosure and Social Sharing of Emotions of Women with Breast Cancer Using Instagram–Qualitative Conventional Content Analysis

Objectives Women with breast cancer share their experiences and emotions about the illness on Instagram – a tool understudied when it comes to chronic illness. The paper characterizes the women's activities, and both online self-disclosure and social sharing of emotions concepts are used to help explain the women's practices. Methods Using qualitative conventional content analysis, four profiles of women are manually analysed, with posts as the unit of analysis ( n = 811). Based on eleven subcategories, three broad analytical categories are introduced: self-disclosure of negative information (C1), self-disclosure of positive information (C2) and disclosure of information about other people (C3). Results The women post narratives about suffering resulting from cancer, and the fears they experience. Also, the posts relate to positive emotions, joyful life events, self-acceptance, or self-affirmation. While writing, the women share information about people supporting them on their way to recovery. Discussion The activity of women cannot be explained only by their online self-disclosure, where anonymity and lack of offline support are often emphasized. Women on Instagram are not anonymous and report on support by relatives and other people. Rimé's concept of social sharing of emotions is used to explain this phenomenon.

Social Sharing of Emotions and Communal Appraisal as Mediators Between the Intensity of Trauma and Social Well-Being in People Affected by the 27F, 2010 Earthquake in the Biobío Region, Chile

The psychosocial impacts of natural disasters are associated with the triggering of negative and positive responses in the affected population; also, such effects are expressed in an individual and collective sphere. This can be seen in several reactions and behaviors that can vary from the development of individual disorders to impacts on interpersonal relationships, cohesion, communication, and participation of the affected communities, among others. The present work addressed the psychosocial impacts of the consequences of natural disasters considering individual effects via the impact of trauma and community effects, through the perception of social well-being, the valuation of the community and the social exchange of emotions. The aim of this study was to assess the relationship between individual reactions (i.e., intensity of trauma) and the evaluation of social and collective circumstances (i.e., social well-being) after the earthquake of 27F 2010 in Chile, through collective-type intervention variables not used in previous studies (i.e., social sharing of emotions and community appraisal). For this purpose, a descriptive, ex post facto correlational and cross-sectional methodology was carried on, with the participation of 487 people affected by the 2010 earthquake, 331 women (68%) and 156 men (32%), between 18 and 58 years old (M = 21.09; SD = 5.45), from the provinces of Ñuble and Biobío, VIII region, Chile. The measurement was carried out 4 years after the earthquake and the results show that greater individual than collective involvements were found, mainly in the coastal zone of the region. The mediation analysis showed that the relationship between the intensity of the trauma and social well-being occurs through a route that considers social sharing of emotions and community appraisal. These results indicate that the overcoming of individual affectations to achieve social well-being occurs when in the immediate post-disaster phases the affected communities activate shared emotional and cognitive processes, which allow them to jointly face subsequent threats and abrupt changes.

As Strong as We Are United: Effects of Intrapersonal and Interpersonal Emotion Regulation on Quality of Life in Women with Breast Cancer

Background: Women diagnosed with breast cancer are often subjected to negative emotions, resulting in higher levels of emotional burden and decreased levels of well-being and quality of life. The present study aims to compare the implementation of two regulatory levels, intrapersonal and interpersonal (as social sharing of emotions) and explore their impact on breast cancer patients’ perception of quality of life. Methods: Sixty-eight women previously diagnosed with the disease participated in this study, with a mean age of 63 years old (SD = 11.58). Data was collected through a self-report questionnaire to assess emotional experience, intrapersonal regulation, social sharing of emotions and breast cancer-related well-being and quality of life. Results: Data yielded that most of the participants regulated their negative emotions within social interactions and used more antecedent-focused strategies to cognitively reformulate the emotional episode. Moreover, interpersonal regulation had a greater impact on well-being and quality of life than intrapersonal regulation. In particular, the occurrence of sharing episodes and social interactions played an important and beneficial role on patients’ emotion regulation. Conclusions: These findings suggest that social sharing of emotions is an efficient process to help breast cancer patients better cope with the psychological and emotional burden of the disease, thus positively influencing the way they perceive their well-being and quality of life.

Emotions at the Service of Cultural Construction

Emotions signal flaws in the person’s anticipation systems, or in other words, in aspects of models of how the world works. As these models are essentially shared in society, emotional challenges experienced by any individual are of relevance to the community of others. Emotions emerge at the heart of the individual experience, the only place where collective knowledge can be tested against the world. Once felt, emotions generate a cascade of psychological facts: compelling concern, cognitive work, social sharing, and propagation of the social sharing. The larger the fault detected, the more intense the emotion, the more intensive the cognitive work it generates, and the broader the social sharing of the episodic information. Through the social sharing of emotions, common knowledge is updated and enriched.