Does Physiological Arousal Increase Social Transmission of Information? Two Replications of Berger
Skyler Prowten and colleagues repeated a widely cited experiment by Jonah Berger from 2011, in which undergraduates made more physically aroused, by jogging on the spot, were more likely to email a news article than those who had sat still. The original had forty participants and is often cited as evidence that arousal itself causes sharing. The two replications used the same arousal manipulation with larger groups and updated the outcome to sharing on social media, since that is now where most sharing happens. Neither study found any effect of incidental arousal on willingness to share. The authors conclude that their results cast doubt on the idea that physiological arousal, in the absence of other factors, changes people's decisions to share. The finding concerns arousal separated from content; it does not test whether content that evokes high-arousal emotions is shared more.
Skyler Prowten and colleagues repeated a widely cited experiment by Jonah Berger from 2011, in which undergraduates made more physically aroused, by jogging on the spot, were more likely to email a news article than those who had sat still. The original had forty participants and is often cited as evidence that arousal itself causes sharing. The two replications used the same arousal manipulation with larger groups and updated the outcome to sharing on social media, since that is now where most sharing happens. Neither study found any effect of incidental arousal on willingness to share. The authors conclude that their results cast doubt on the idea that physiological arousal, in the absence of other factors, changes people's decisions to share. The finding concerns arousal separated from content; it does not test whether content that evokes high-arousal emotions is shared more.
Written from the abstract as retrieved from OpenAlex on 6 October 2026.
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Prowten, S. D., Walker, E., London, B., Pearce, E. N., Napoli, A., Chenevert, B., Clevenger, C. T., & Smith, A. R. (2024). 'Does physiological arousal increase social transmission of information? Two replications of Berger (2011).' Psychological Science, 35(9), 1025-1034. Two replications, N = 111 and N = 160, with the sharing measure updated to social media, finding no effect of incidental arousal on willingness to share; the original, Berger (2011), Psychological Science 22(7), 891-893, had N = 40. Abstract checked at OpenAlex 2026-10-06. doi:10.1177/09567976241257255
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https://doi.org/10.1177/09567976241257255
DOI: 10.1177/09567976241257255