How Social Status Influences “Affect Language” in Tweets

Abstract

Background: We studied the “affect language” (emotional content) in over 2000 Tweets of 50 famous celebrities across a one-month period. Method: The 140-character language bursts were analyzed with the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC), which provided percentage of language used to represent various emotional states. Results: Lower-status celebrities (i.e., those with fewer followers) used more positive emotion in their Tweets compared to higher-status celebrities, although negative emotional content did not vary by celebrity status. There was no statistically significant difference between sexes on emotional content. Conclusion: Our results suggest that social status may be more important to public use of affect language than sex of the celebrity.