How emotion type and intensity affect rumor spreading

The implications and contagion effect of emotion cannot be ignored in rumor spreading. This paper sheds light on how decision makers’ (DMs) emotion type and intensity affect rumor spreading. Based on the rank-dependent expected utility (RDEU) and evolutionary game theory (EGT), we construct an evolutionary game model between rumormongers (RMs) and managers (Ms) by considering emotions. We use MATLAB to simulate and reveal the influencing mechanism of DMs’ emotion type and intensity on rumor spreading. The results indicate that the DMs’ strategy choice is not only affected by their own emotion preference and intensity, but also by the other players in rumor spreading. Moreover, pessimism has a more significant influence than optimism on the stability of the evolutionary game, Ms’ emotion is more sensitive to the game results than RMs’ emotion and the emotion intensity is proportional to the evolution speed. More significantly, some earthshaking emotional thresholds are found, which can be used to predict RMs’ behavior, help Ms gain critical time to deal with rumors, and avoid the Tacitus Trap crisis. Furthermore, the evolution results fall into five categories: risk, opportunity, ideal, security and hostility. The results of this work can benefit Ms’ public governance.