To Like or Not to Like? An Experimental Study on Relational Closeness, Social Grooming, Reciprocity, and Emotions in Social Media Liking
通过201人的随机对照实验，发现人们给亲密朋友点赞是出于社交修饰，不论是否收到对方点赞；而对熟人则倾向于互惠点赞。收到点赞会激发高唤醒积极情感，进而增加点赞意愿，但这一效应在考虑关系亲密程度后消失。
Abstract We conducted a randomized-controlled experiment with 201 participants to investigate the effects of relationship closeness, emotions, and the receipt of Likes on reciprocal Liking behaviors. We found that individuals engaged in interchange-oriented social grooming by giving Likes to close friends regardless of whether they had received Likes from them before. However, when relationship closeness was low, participants mirrored their acquaintances’ behavior by reciprocating Likes for Likes. Additionally, high-arousal positive emotions mediated the effects of receiving Likes on the intention to Like other users’ content, but this result only held true when relational closeness was not accounted for in the model. Our study explains why people give Likes on social media and what factors shape their Liking intentions. The results of our study contribute to the existing knowledge of the social norm of reciprocity, social grooming, emotion regulation, relational closeness, and social media Liking.