Online ‘Likes’ Spur Positive View in Herding Effect, Study Finds

Positive opinions are more influential than negative ones, at least on the Internet.

If an article is “liked” on a website such as Facebook or Reddit, new readers are more likely to approve of it, according to a study published in the journal Science. While the positive reactions create a “herding” effect, the authors said, negative views don’t appear to affect people the same way.