The Analysis of Emotionality Linked to Identifiable Names on Facebook Confession Pages

Location

CSU Ballroom

Start Date

20-4-2015 2:00 PM

End Date

20-4-2015 3:30 PM

Student's Major

Psychology

Student's College

Social and Behavioral Sciences

Mentor's Name

Kathy Bertsch

Mentor's Email Address

kathy.bertsch@mnsu.edu

Mentor's Department

Psychology

Mentor's College

Social and Behavioral Sciences

Second Mentor's Name

Rachel Burlet

Second Mentor's Department

Psychology

Second Mentor's College

Social and Behavioral Sciences

Description

Anonymous social media such as Yik Yak, Secret and Facebook confessions pages are speculated to contribute to cyberbullying, yet research to date has not systematically analyzed the specific content of such anonymous social media. Specifically, Facebook confession pages are created by students for a particular school and contain the school name, mascot and or city and state of the school. Students follow the page, and post through a 3rd party survey tool—which allows a Facebook administrator to post their comments anonymously. The purpose of this study is to analyze Facebook confession pages to determine whether posts with identifiable names differ in emotionality to posts without identifiable names. An archival Facebook confessions data set from high schools in the United States was used (Bertsch, Burlet & Conrad, 2014). Posts (n=1560) from a two-month period were coded for identifiable names. The Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) software was used to identify the emotionality (e.g. positive and negative emotions, anger, anxiety, sadness) of each post entered. Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) was then used to calculate the difference in positive and negative emotionality for posts with names compared to posts without names. Results show the degree to which anonymous posts include positive versus negative emotionality and whether posts with identifiable names were more negative than posts without identifiable names. Posts with identifiable names and negative emotionality are theorized to potentially contribute to cyberbullying.

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Apr 20th, 2:00 PM Apr 20th, 3:30 PM

The Analysis of Emotionality Linked to Identifiable Names on Facebook Confession Pages

CSU Ballroom

Anonymous social media such as Yik Yak, Secret and Facebook confessions pages are speculated to contribute to cyberbullying, yet research to date has not systematically analyzed the specific content of such anonymous social media. Specifically, Facebook confession pages are created by students for a particular school and contain the school name, mascot and or city and state of the school. Students follow the page, and post through a 3rd party survey tool—which allows a Facebook administrator to post their comments anonymously. The purpose of this study is to analyze Facebook confession pages to determine whether posts with identifiable names differ in emotionality to posts without identifiable names. An archival Facebook confessions data set from high schools in the United States was used (Bertsch, Burlet & Conrad, 2014). Posts (n=1560) from a two-month period were coded for identifiable names. The Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) software was used to identify the emotionality (e.g. positive and negative emotions, anger, anxiety, sadness) of each post entered. Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) was then used to calculate the difference in positive and negative emotionality for posts with names compared to posts without names. Results show the degree to which anonymous posts include positive versus negative emotionality and whether posts with identifiable names were more negative than posts without identifiable names. Posts with identifiable names and negative emotionality are theorized to potentially contribute to cyberbullying.

Recommended Citation

Schabert, Trevor. "The Analysis of Emotionality Linked to Identifiable Names on Facebook Confession Pages." Undergraduate Research Symposium, Mankato, MN, April 20, 2015.
https://cornerstone.lib.mnsu.edu/urs/2015/poster_session_B/42