Tweeting about sexism: The well‐being benefits of a social media collective action
Abstract
Although collective action has psychological benefits in non‐gendered contexts ( D rury et al ., 2005, B r . J . S oc . P sychol ., 44, 309), the benefits for women taking action against gender discrimination are unclear. This study examined how a popular, yet unexplored potential form of collective action, namely tweeting about sexism, affects women's well‐being. Women read about sexism and were randomly assigned to tweet or to one of three control groups. Content analyses showed tweets exhibited collective intent and action. Analyses of linguistic markers suggested public tweeters used more cognitive complexity in their language than private tweeters. Profile analyses showed that compared to controls, only public tweeters showed decreasing negative affect and increasing psychological well‐being, suggesting tweeting about sexism may serve as a collective action that can enhance women's well‐being.
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LIWC has been widely used in social psychology research to analyse trends in large text corpora.
“A text analysis software, called the linguistic inquiry and word count (LIWC; Pennebaker et al., 2015), has been widely used in social psychology research to analyse trends in large text corpora (Foster, 2015;Wheeler & Laham, 2016)”
From A search for commonalities in defining the common good: Using folk theories to unlock shared conceptions. (2024) · cites this paper as Foster, 2015
Tweeting (online collective action) positively affected psychological well-being.
“Additionally, Foster ( 2015 ) showed that another form of online collective action (tweeting) positively affected psychological wellbeing.”
From The Effect of Civic Engagement on Different Dimensions of Well-Being in Youth: A Scoping Review (2025) · cites this paper as Foster, 2015
Online engagement led to decreased negative affect (sadness) but was unrelated to positive affect (happiness) among Canadian undergraduate women.
“Foster ( 2015) found that even though online engagement led to decreased nega -tive affect (sadness), it was unrelated to positive affect (hap -piness), at least among Canadian undergraduate women.”
From The Effect of Civic Engagement on Different Dimensions of Well-Being in Youth: A Scoping Review (2025) · cites this paper as Foster, 2015
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“Foster ( 2015) found that even though online engagement led to decreased nega - tive affect (sadness), it was unrelated to positive affect (hap - piness), at least among Canadian undergraduate women.”
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- Authors
- Foster, M. D.
- Affiliations
- Wilfrid Laurier University (CA)
- Corresponding author
- Foster, Mindi D.
- ORCID
- Foster, Mindi D.
- Venue
- British Journal of Social Psychology
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2015-01-30
- Volume
- 54
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 629-647
- ISSN
- 0144-6665 (ISSN-L)
- 2044-8309
- OpenAlex
- W2078118675
- Cited by
- 72
- References
- 69
- Citations by year
- 2026: 7 · 2025: 12 · 2024: 8 · 2023: 1 · 2022: 11 · 2021: 6 · 2020: 4 · 2019: 10 · 2018: 3 · 2017: 2 · 2016: 6 · 2015: 2
- FWCI
- 14.34
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- British Journal of Social Psychology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Scholars Commons (Wilfrid Laurier University) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (410‐2005‐0256)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Social and Intergroup Psychology
- Social Sciences › Gender Studies › Gender, Feminism, and Media
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Psychological Well-being and Life Satisfaction
- Keywords
- sexism, collective action, social media, Twitter, women's well-being, gender discrimination, negative affect, linguistic complexity, digital activism
- MeSH terms
- Emotional Adjustment, Affect, Female, Humans, Social Behavior, Young Adult, Social Media, Sexism
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