Viral outrage: As more people expressed outrage, observers believed it was more normative to express condemnation but also felt the outrage more excessive, thus inspiring more sympathy too

Outraged but Sympathetic: Ambivalent Emotions Limit the Influence of Viral Outrage. Takuya Sawaoka, Benoît Monin. Social Psychological and Personality Science, October 23, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550619853595

Abstract: Viral outrage—the piling up of online condemnation in response to offensive remarks—is a common expression of moral judgment in the digital age. We examined whether viral outrage is effective in convincing observers that an offender is blameworthy. Across seven studies, participants (N = 3,406) saw racist, sexist, or disrespectful posts with accompanying expressions of outrage and evaluated the offender. As more people expressed outrage, observers believed it was more normative to express condemnation but also felt that the outrage was more excessive, thus inspiring both more outrage and more sympathy toward the offender. Greater outrage increased condemnation toward the offender; greater sympathy decreased it. These two processes operated in opposition and suppressed one another. These findings held even when the offense was relatively benign and even when the offender was a high-status public figure. Overall, people’s ambivalent reactions of outrage and sympathy limit the influence of viral outrage in inspiring condemnation.

Keywords morality, outrage, social judgment, punishment, social influence