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Becoming popular: Interpersonal emotion regulation predicts relationship formation in real life social networks
Niven,K., Garcia, D., van der Löwe,I., Holman, D., & Mansell, W
Frontiers in Psychology. 2015;6.
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Abstract
Building relationships is crucial for satisfaction and success, especially when entering new social contexts. In the present paper, we investigate whether attempting to improve others’ feelings helps people to make connections in new networks. We contrast two distinct types of interpersonal emotion regulation (IER) strategies: cognitive (which change a person’s thoughts about his or her situation or feelings in order to regulate affect) and behavioral (which use behavior to reassure or comfort in order to regulate affect). In Study 1, linguistic analysis of the tweets from over 8000 Twitter users from formation of their accounts revealed that use of behavioral IER strategies was associated with greater popularity in terms of the number of followers gained, while use of cognitive strategies was negatively associated with popularity. In Study 2, a social network study following new networks of people for a twelve-week period indicated that behavioral IER strategies predicted growth in popularity, as indicated by other network members’ reports of spending time with the person, in work and non-work interactions. Cognitive strategies, in contrast, predicted an increase in non-work popularity, but only when they were used by people high in agreeableness. Our findings have implications for our understanding of how new relationships are formed, and the role played by IER.