Every day, billions of people encounter emotional language while scrolling through social media, reading online reviews or following breaking news. A glowing product recommendation can create enthusiasm before a purchase, while an angry post can trigger suspicion, outrage or a decision to look elsewhere. New research from the University of South Florida suggests that these reactions are not driven by a single psychological process. Instead, emotional expressions in user-generated content can activate several distinct responses at once, sometimes pushing people toward and away from the same product, brand or idea.
The study, published in MIS Quarterly, introduces the Tripartite Reactions to Emotions theory, or TRE theory, a framework designed to explain how people process emotional content online. The theory separates the influence of an emotional post into three pathways: reactions to the subject being discussed, reactions to the person expressing the emotion and the direct transfer of the emotion itself. By distinguishing these pathways, the researchers aim to clarify why identical posts can produce complex or apparently contradictory effects among readers.
The first pathway involves what researchers describe as an object-focused reaction. When users read an emotional review or social media message, they may form an impression of the product, destination, political issue or organization mentioned in the content. The emotional tone can act as a signal about the subject’s qualities, even when the writer provides limited factual information. A highly enthusiastic review may make a restaurant appear attractive or trustworthy, whereas an intensely negative account can make a product seem defective or unsafe. These judgments concern the object of the message rather than the individual who wrote it.
The second pathway is directed toward the communicator. Online readers do not simply evaluate what a post says; they also assess the person who says it. An emotional message may make its author appear passionate, sincere and personally invested, or it may make the writer seem biased, unreliable or excessively hostile. These impressions can influence whether readers accept, question or dismiss the information. In technical terms, the perceived credibility of the source can moderate the effect of the message, altering how much weight readers assign to the emotional claims contained within it.
The third pathway is emotional contagion, in which people experience some of the emotion expressed by another person. Digital communication lacks many cues present in face-to-face interaction, but emotional language, punctuation, word choice and narrative detail can still transmit affective states. A furious post may increase a reader’s irritation, while an uplifting account may generate enthusiasm or optimism. This process does not require readers to agree with the author’s conclusions. People can absorb the emotional atmosphere of a message even while remaining skeptical about its factual accuracy or the credibility of its source.
The interaction among these three reactions helps explain why online emotional content can have results that seem inconsistent. Consider an angry review of a consumer product. The reader may infer that the product itself has serious flaws, producing a negative attitude toward it. At the same time, the reviewer’s aggressive language may reduce the reader’s trust in the source, weakening the persuasive power of the review. The reader may also become angry through emotional contagion. The result could be a message that makes the product less appealing, makes the reviewer less believable and nevertheless intensifies the reader’s emotional response.
This combination creates what the researchers describe as a simultaneous push-and-pull effect. Emotional content may discourage someone from buying a product because of the impression formed about the product, while also causing the person to discount the message because of a negative judgment about the author. In another situation, a reader might distrust a glowing review as promotional or exaggerated but still feel excited about the experience being described. Conventional models that treat emotional content as having one overall effect may overlook these competing psychological processes.
Dezhi Yin, lead author of the study and a professor at the University of South Florida’s Muma College of Business, said that recognizing the three reactions can help explain why emotional posts are often powerful and surprising. The framework could be useful to researchers studying online behavior, as well as to platform designers, marketers and policymakers trying to understand how digital information spreads. It offers a way to measure whether a message changes perceptions of the subject, alters judgments of the communicator, produces an emotional response or generates several of these outcomes simultaneously.
The theory may also have implications for the design and governance of online platforms. Recommendation systems frequently prioritize content that attracts attention, and emotional posts are often highly engaging because they provoke rapid reactions and repeated sharing. If a platform measures only clicks, comments or viewing time, it may fail to distinguish between users who are persuaded by a message and users who are merely angered by it. Applying the TRE framework could encourage more precise analysis of online influence, including whether emotional content changes beliefs, behavior, source credibility or mood.
The paper by Yin, Samuel Bond of the Georgia Institute of Technology and Han Zhang of Hong Kong Baptist University presents TRE theory as a shared framework for studying emotional expressions in user-generated content. Its central message is that an online post is not simply a package of information with a positive or negative effect. It is a social signal that can shape perceptions of an object, judgments about a communicator and the emotional state of an audience. As emotional content continues to dominate digital attention, understanding these separate but interacting reactions may become essential for predicting what people buy, believe and do online.
Subject of Research: People
Article Title: Tripartite Reactions to Emotions (TRE) Theory: The Impact of Emotional Expressions in User-Generated Content
News Publication Date: 11-Aug-2026
Web References: MIS Quarterly article; TRE Theory publication record
References: MIS Quarterly. DOI: 10.25300/MISQ/2025/18570
Image Credits: USF; image of Dezhi Yin, University of South Florida
Keywords: Emotional contagion, social media, online reviews, user-generated content, social psychology, digital communication, consumer behavior, source credibility, emotional expressions, TRE theory
