When and how to share? The role of inspiration.

Abstract

Sharing what we know with others has an important role in facilitating people's social learning and communication across settings. To advance the understanding of when and how people share, the present study examined the role of inspiration, an emotion that contains strong motivational elements, on people's sharing tendencies in three studies. Study 1 showed a positive association between the inspiring level of a given message and its likelihood of being shared. Study 2 replicated the finding with carefully controlling for the effect of positivity of a given message. Study 3 further provided evidence that inspiration shaped how people share. The results showed that participants shared inspiring messages in a more innovative way than when they shared less inspiring messages. The present research has implications for how to promote the sharing process in different settings through the role of inspiration.