Several states have enacted laws prohibiting transgender athletes from competing in sports that align with their gender identity. The present study seeks to explore the role of negative emotions and their relation to the rise of online discussions surrounding transgender athletes. We examined whether posts expressing anger and fear impacted message engagement through capturing all related posts ( N = 658,207) from September 2017 to September 2022. To determine the stance of tweets that expressed negative emotion, we then conducted a quantitative content analysis of posts expressing anger and fear. Overall, we find that posts expressing anger were associated with increased message engagement, while fear was associated with decreased engagement. Our content analysis revealed that tweets expressing either negative emotion were both in support and in opposition of issues related to transgender athletes. While it may appear that users hold a predominantly negative view towards the topic of transgender athletes due to expressed anger and fear, our study reveals they may in fact have a more diverse range of perspectives on these related issues. Practical implications are discussed.

中文翻译：

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检查 Twitter 上与跨性别运动员相关的讨论：负面情绪对信息参与度的作用


一些州已颁布法律，禁止跨性别运动员参加与其性别认同相符的体育比赛。本研究旨在探讨负面情绪的作用及其与围绕跨性别运动员的在线讨论的兴起的关系。我们通过捕获 2017 年 9 月至 2022 年 9 月的所有相关帖子 (N = 658,207)，检查表达愤怒和恐惧的帖子是否影响信息参与度。为了确定表达负面情绪的推文的立场，我们对表达愤怒的帖子进行了定量内容分析和恐惧。总体而言，我们发现表达愤怒的帖子与信息参与度增加相关，而恐惧则与参与度降低相关。我们的内容分析显示，表达负面情绪的推文既支持又反对与跨性别运动员相关的问题。虽然由于表达的愤怒和恐惧，用户可能对跨性别运动员的话题持有主要的负面看法，但我们的研究表明，他们实际上可能对这些相关问题有更多样化的观点。讨论了实际意义。