“Participating in a mood meter may attenuate positive responses to human-interest stories” claim Jessica Gall Myrick and Bartosz W. Wojdynski.

A newly published study examined the effects of the presence and valence of a “mood meter” posted alongside an online human-interest story. The results show that the presence of a mood meter generally led to lower attitudes toward and recall of story facts. Participants who read the story without a mood meter experienced greater elevation in response to the story than did those who saw a mood meter showing others’ positive responses.

The study has been published as an online first article of the journal New Media and Society and the abstract is a available for free.

Picture: Meter Shelf #1 by lungstruck Licence: CC BY 4.0