New research out of Stanford says that people may feel more alone than they really are. Four studies were undertaken to explore the relationship between perception and emotional states in self and others. The conclusions suggest we attribute fewer negative emotions to others.
The studies each focused an different aspects of this phenomenon, revealing key insights about the dynamic:
- Negative emotions are more private than positive emotions.
- People underestimate the prevalence of negative experiences.
- People underestimate negative emotions and overestimate positive ones for well-known peers.
- Lower estimates of negative experiences predict greater loneliness; Higher estimates for positive experiences predict lower life satisfaction.
The underestimating/overestimating of peer emotions is tied to how much a person suppresses her own negative emotions.
The blogs and other media are probably doing some overestimating of their own by spotlighting these comments from the discussion:
… [S]ocial networking sites (e.g., facebook.com) may exacerbate common misperceptions of others’ emotional lives because of the complete control that users have over the public image they project to the world through their photo albums, status updates, friendship networks, and so forth.
This has been misinterpreted in headlines like Slate’s, “The Anti-Social Network: By helping other people look happy, Facebook is making us sad.”
There are some important caveats to note with this research. First, the sample targets first-year college students. The world view and relational fluency of adults with just 18 years under their belts is probably a significantly different context than older adults with larger and more diverse social networks. Second, there is also a likely difference between what negative perceptions a person might disclose to someone else about a peer and what that person might actually perceive on their own. Third, as that same Slate article points out: “This is correlation, not causation, mind you; it could be that those subjects who started out feeling worse imagined that everyone else was getting along just fine, not the other way around.”
While it is unlikely that Facebook is “making us sad,” this research does offer an opportunity to reflect on the impact design choices have on our ability to both share and recognize negative experiences. It is clearly an important ingredient for bonding and self-worth to understand that your troubles are not the only troubles in the world. Yet Facebook only offers a “Like” button, perhaps implicitly incentivizing reporting of news that will be liked. This doesn’t prevent social sharing services from being used in a more authentic manner, but it does reinforce the unhealthy belief that negative experiences shouldn’t be shared.
Authenticity is vital to self-affirmation, which in turn has been shown to lower defenses and open minds. On the surface, online profiles and status updates appear to be self-promotional, curated works that only show the best or even ideal experiences. However, the social aspect to sharing personal information in this manner serves as a safeguard against dishonesty—a worse outcome than being perceived as flawed is not being trusted by peers. People tend to be accurate about how they reflect their lives online.
The work done by Stanford shouldn’t be taken as justification against using social media, which some of the recent media articles seem to suggest. Instead, it might be a call to use it more frequently and authentically to let others know you are as human as they are.
References:
- Jordan, A.H., Monin, B., Dweck, C.S., Lovett, B.J., John, O.P., and Gross, J.J. (2011). Misery has more company than people think: Underestimating the prevalence of others’ negative emotions. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 37(1), pp. 120-135.
- Toma, C.L. (2010). Affirming the self through online profiles: Beneficial effects of social networking sites. CHI 2010, pp 1749-1752.
Thanks to Mark Baltzegar for the tip.