Do Facebook status updates reflect subjective well-being?

Ministry of Education, Singapore under its Academic Research Funding Tier

Sharing feelings online: Studying emotional well-being via automated text analysis of Facebook posts

Digital traces of activity on social network sites represent a vast source of ecological data with potential connections with individual behavioral and psychological characteristics. The present study investigates the relationship between user-generated textual content shared on Facebook and emotional well-being. Self-report measures of depression, anxiety and stress were collected from 201 adult Facebook users from North Italy. Emotion-related textual indicators, including emoticon use, were extracted form users’ Facebook posts via automated text analysis. Correlation analyses revealed that individuals with higher levels of depression, anxiety expressed negative emotions on Facebook more frequently. In addition, use of emoticons expressing positive emotions correlated negatively with stress level. When comparing age groups, younger users reported higher frequency of both emotion-related words and emoticon use in their posts. Also, the relationship between online emotional expression and self-report emotional well-being was generally stronger in the younger group. Overall, findings support the feasibility and validity of studying individual emotional well-being by means of examination of Facebook profiles. Implications for online screening purposes and future research directions are discussed

The Dark Triad and Facebook Surveillance: How Machiavellianism, Psychopathy, But Not Narcissism Predict Using Facebook To Spy On Others

The Dark Triad of personality – Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy – has been shown to influence a variety of behaviours. Typically, high levels of these traits predict engaging in behaviour at the periphery of what is considered socially normative. Such individuals do not display clinical maladaptation however, and function relatively normally. The Dark Triad's influence extends to the online context, where it predicts questionable behaviour when using social media such as Facebook. For example it can affect the content of users' status updates, or what media they post. In this paper we examine a new concept known as Facebook surveillance. This details the deliberate examination of users' profiles in order to gather information for one's own advantage. We suggest this is distinct with the conventional viewing of ones “feed” (which has little intent), or the stalking of ex-romantic partners (which has a emotive component). We predicted that Machiavellianism and psychopathy would both predict Facebook surveillance, whereas narcissism would not. Furthermore, we postulated that the Machiavellianism-surveillance relationship would be mediated by endorsement of gossip, whereas for psychopathy it would be mediated by intolerance for uncertainty. 259 participants took part in an online survey to measure these traits. Results supported our hypotheses, and suggested two forms of surveillance – Facebook tracking, which was more recreational, and Facebook investigating, which was more deliberate and targeted. Future studies are then discussed which may use more complex measures of narcissism, and gather behavioural and/or qualitative measures of surveillance

The language of positive mental health : findings from a sample of Russian Facebook users

Positive mental health is considered to be a significant predictor of health and longevity; however, our understanding of the ways in which this important characteristic is represented in users’ behavior on social networking sites is limited. The goal of this study was to explore associations between positive mental health and language used in online communication in a large sample of Russian Facebook users. The five-item World Health Organization Well-Being Index (WHO-5) was used as a self-report measure of well-being. Morphological, sentiment, and semantic analyses were performed for linguistic data. The total of 6,724 participants completed the questionnaire and linguistic data were available for 1,972. Participants’ mean age was 45.7 years (SD = 11.6 years); 73.4% were female. The dataset included 15,281 posts, with an average of 7.67 (SD = 5.69) posts per participant. Mean WHO-5 score was 60.0 (SD = 19.1), with female participants exhibiting lower scores. Use of negative sentiment words and impersonal predicates (“should statements”) demonstrated an inverse association with the WHO-5 scores. No significant correlation was found between the use of positive sentiment words and the WHO-5 scores. This study expands current understanding of the association between positive mental health and language use in online communication by employing data from a non-Western sample.peer-reviewe

Innovare la valutazione d’impatto sociale di iniziative culturali. Il caso delle Capitali Europee della Cultura

Questo articolo esplora la possibilità di introdurre delle innovazioni nel campo della valutazione degli im- patti sociali, proponendo di partire da fonti di dati alternative. In particolare, vengono prese in considerazione le analisi degli impatti nel campo delle politiche e delle iniziative culturali, usando come caso esemplificativo il programma delle Capitali Europee della Cultura (ECoC). Il testo si sviluppa in due parti. La prima parte, teorica, affronta un’analisi della letteratura esistente nel campo delle valutazioni d’impatto delle ECoC, con particolare riferimento agli impatti sociali. L’analisi della letteratura evidenzia come, nonostante la numerosità degli studi a riguardo, vi siano alcune tematiche – e impatti – meno indagate di altri, e come l’approccio metodologico sia rimasto pressoché invariato negli anni, con le metodologie qualitative come strumento principale. Una volta evidenziati i limiti – contenutistici e metodologici – degli studi d’impatto delle ECoC, l’articolo prosegue con una parte empirica, basata su una ricerca attualmente in corso. La seconda parte dell’articolo introduce un metodo alternativo per la valutazione degli impatti sociali delle ECoC, con un’attenzione particolare al tema del benesse- re soggettivo. La letteratura recente sottolinea un legame tra il benessere soggettivo e i contenuti pubblicati sui social media. Il metodo proposto in questo articolo si basa proprio sui contenuti testuali spontanei pubblicati sui social media che, insieme ad altre fonti scritte, vengono raccolti e analizzati con algoritmi per l’analisi testuale automatizzata. L’obiettivo è duplice: valutare l’impatto delle ECoC sul benessere individuale (soggettivo) degli utenti e valutare il successo dell’iniziativa nel suo insieme, comparando obiettivi dichiarati e risultati. L’articolo illustra sia il metodo di analisi sia la costruzione del database, soffermandosi sul processo di implementazione e sottolineando criticità e soluzioni, ma anche limiti tuttora in essere. Infine, vengono presentate e introdotte alcune potenzialità future del metodo, che in questo momento è ancora in fase sperimentale

How much do sources of happiness vary across countries?:A review of the empirical literature

This article presents areview of empirical research exploring cross-national differences in the correlates of subjective well-being (SWB). Istart by giving an overview of the concept of SWB across psychological, sociological, and economic literature. Measures of SWB have good cross-cultural validity, yet there is currently little consensus regarding the cultural universality of the definition of happiness. An overview of existing empirical literature points toward robust cross-national differences in mean levels of SWB that are associated with national differences in wealth and other socioeconomic, political, and cultural factors. The degree to which individual-level variables are associated with SWB is also subject to cross-national variations. Many individuals' characteristics contribute to happiness to the extent that they are beneficial, socially desirable, and aspired to in aparticular sociocultural context. These results are discussed in light of two theoretical approaches (institutional and fit hypotheses). Directions for future research are proposed. ZusammenfassungDieser Artikel stellt eine ubersicht der empirischen Forschung uber internationale Unterschiede in den Korrelaten des subjektiven Wohlbefindens (SWB) dar. Zuerst wird eine ubersicht der Konzeptualisierung und Operationalisierung des Konzepts SWB in der psychologischen, soziologischen und okonomischen Literatur gegeben. Obwohl es in der Glucksforschung keine ubereinstimmung uber die interkulturelle Universalitat der Definition von Gluck gibt, ergaben die Messinstrumente von SWB eine gute interkulturelle Validitat. Ein uberblick empirischer Studien zeigt robuste internationale Unterschiede in den Durchschnittswerten von SWB, die mit nationalen Unterschieden im Wohlstand und anderen soziookonomischen, politischen und kulturellen Faktoren zusammenhangen. Der Zusammenhang zwischen Gluck und individuellen Merkmalen unterliegt ebenfalls internationalen Unterschieden. Individuelle Faktoren tragen zum hoheren SWB insofern bei, als sie in einem bestimmten soziokulturellen Kontext sozial erwunscht und angestrebt sind. Die Ergebnisse werden im Licht von 2theoretischen Ansatzen (institutionelle Hypothese und Person-Umwelt-Passungstheorie) diskutiert. Es werden Vorschlage fur zukunftige Forschung gemacht

Effects of cultural tightness-looseness and social network density on expression of positive and negative emotions: A large-scale study of impression management by Facebook users

A*Star; Singapore Management Universit