To Like or Not to Like? An Experimental Study on
Relational Closeness, Social Grooming, Reciprocity,
and Emotions in Social Media Liking

To Like or Not to Like? An Experimental Study on
Relational Closeness, Social Grooming, Reciprocity,
and Emotions in Social Media Liking

social media Liking, reciprocity, emotions, relational closeness

We conducted a randomized-controlled experiment with 201 participants to investigate the effects of relationship closeness, emotions, and the
receipt of Likes on reciprocal Liking behaviors. We found that individuals engaged in interchange-oriented social grooming by giving Likes to

close friends regardless of whether they had received Likes from them before. However, when relationship closeness was low, participants mir-
rored their acquaintances’ behavior by reciprocating Likes for Likes. Additionally, high-arousal positive emotions mediated the effects of receiving

Likes on the intention to Like other users’ content, but this result only held true when relational closeness was not accounted for in the model.
Our study explains why people give Likes on social media and what factors shape their Liking intentions. The results of our study contribute to
the existing knowledge of the social norm of reciprocity, social grooming, emotion regulation, relational closeness, and social media Liking.

Kseniya Stsiampkouskaya 1,*, Adam Joinson 1

, Lukasz Piwek 1

https://doi.org/10.1093/jcmc/zmac036

Oxford University Press on behalf of International Communication Association.

2 December 2022

PERI IRAWAN

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