Does Culture Shape Affective Virality on Social Media?

Join the Cyber Policy Center for Does Culture Shape Affective Virality on Social Media?  , a conversation with Jeanne Tsai, moderated by Nate Persily, co director of the Stanford Cyber Policy Center. This session is part of the Fall Seminar Series, a series spanning October through December, hosted at the Cyber Policy Center. Sessions are in-person and virtual, with in-person attendance offered to Stanford affiliates only. Lunch is provided for in-person attendance and registration is required. This session will take place in Encina Commons, Moghadam Conference Room #119, 615 Crothers Way.

Although social media is quickly becoming the primary form of communication across the globe, researchers still know little about the role that culture plays in this communication. In this talk, Tsai will first describe decades of research documenting cultural differences in ideal affect (the affective states that people value and ideally want to feel). She'll then present her current work suggesting that these cultural differences in ideal affect are reflected in the types of affective content that people produce and are most influenced by in others’ posts on social media. Finally, she'll will discuss her future research directions as well as the potential implications these differences might have for our understanding of the psychological and social effects of social media world-wide.

About the Speaker

Jeanne L. Tsai is currently Professor and Vice Chair of Psychology in the Department of Psychology at Stanford University, Director of the Stanford Culture and Emotion Lab, and the Yumi and Yasunori Kaneko Family University Fellow in Undergraduate Education. She received her B.A. in psychology from Stanford, her Ph.D. in clinical psychology from UC Berkeley, and did her post-doctoral work at UCSF in minority mental health. Her research examines the cultural shaping of emotion and its implications for communication, health, decision-making, person perception, and resource sharing in a variety of applied settings. Her work is currently funded by the National Science Foundation, and various interdisciplinary initiatives at Stanford. Tsai just completed her second term as associate editor of Emotion. She is fellow of the Association for Psychological Science, the American Psychological Association Division 8, the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, and the Society for Experimental Social Psychology. At Stanford, she has received the Dean’s Award for Distinguished Teaching twice, and the Asian American Activities Center Faculty Award. Her work has been described in various national news outlets including NPR, National Geographic Magazine, Psychology Today, World Economic Forum, Harvard Business Review, The Atlantic, and the Washington Post.