Detail:The primary goal of this research program is to understand the dynamics of social - emotion firestorms that drive collective behavior, and to develop strategies to combat them through human or automated interventions. Emotion firestorms, defined as sudden, r apid diffusion of strong emotional content throughout social networks, are important to understand because they arise suddenly, spread widely and rapidly, and serve as essential fuel for conflict in society such as violent protests or riots. This researc h program centers on developing and testing a novel multi - level theory of the social spread of emotion grounded in psychological research into how humans generate and regulate their emotions. In doing so, the theory helps to identify the conditions that pr omote widespread emotional contagion, information cascades (e.g., spread of news, blame attributions, or conspiracy theories), and behavioral cascades (e.g., collective political activism, protests, riots, or violent conflict). This aspect of the project a ddresses the Army Research Office’s goal of advancing basic science in the area of social interaction in complex systems and integration of theories to explain both individual and group behavior.

Publications from this project

Under preparation