What Makes People Share Posts on Social Media?

A new study published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General analyzed the behavior of over 3,000 individuals to explore the psychology behind sharing information online. It turns out that the answer is quite straightforward: people share information that they feel is meaningful to themselves or to the people they know. This finding is key to crafting effective messaging for social causes, says Danielle Cosme, Ph.D., a research director at the Annenberg School for Communication’s Communication Neuroscience Lab. Knowing the psychological ingredients that make a person share a post on social media can help scientists share facts about climate change or public health officials dispel myths about vaccines. Read more from Annesberg here.