Evil in Social Networks

Unfortunately, social networks (especially twitter) seem to have become breading grounds for the kind of situations, behaviors and emotions I am precisely interested in. It does not seem very difficult to find similar examples of hatred, revenge, hostility and evil in the context of the social networks (obviously together with many more brighter examples from the positive and beneficial sides of using these technologies), and that is why I had already been considering the possibility to run some studies on humiliation / dehumanization in this context. Knowledge coming from this area may easily help us to improve not only our understanding of the dynamics of humiliation, but also to develop the psychosocial interventions required to minimize their negative impact on the victims. I have also the feeling that social networks could be the perfect environment to study a topic that I have included in my PhD agenda, the emotion contagion (see Goldenberg, 2020), to explain how humiliation and other related collective emotions (shame, embarrassment, anger, guilt, pride,…) spread and intensify within groups.

One of my studies investigates the differential reactions to devaluations of our collective identity (in this particular case, our political orientation) depending on the source of the attack, either the in-group or the out-group. First preliminary results are theoretically quite appealing and I wonder whether political messages being exchanged within the social networks could help us to go beyond the lab into the real world in search for a better understanding of the dynamics of humiliation and evil, and even help us to predict tendencies for instance toward extreme behaviors, or collective action. That would be a perfect complement to the studies I plan for next academic year about collective humiliation in the context of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, likely to be the most ecological part of my doctoral thesis.

Additionally, I do find that some related topics (1, digital technologies impact on social connectedness and social isolation; 2, social perception of digital technologies, with focus on humanizing and dehumanizing perceptions and their impact on humans’ sense of connection with digital technologies; 3, school setting and family environment; and 4, social change and digital interventions to promote a healthier use of digital technologies) will all broaden and enrich my views on my own research topics, as my work also relates to social influence (persuasion, conformity), social perception (theory of mind, trust, and morality), all kind of humiliations in general (social exclusion, bullying, domestic violence, etc. and their translations into the internet), and its effects on wellbeing (e.g., psychopathological symptoms such as general and social anxiety and depression) and the consideration of the possible interventions.