Social media users’ affective, attitudinal, and behavioral responses to virtual human emotions

Virtual humans’ communication of emotions in social media posts are considered heuristics of human behavior. The current study extends the Cognitive-Functional Model of Emotions to virtual influencers and investigates how social media users engage with virtual human emotions. In an experiment (N = 362), non-emotional and emotional (i.e., happy, sad, and lust) social media posts are examined for their influence on Generation Z and Millennial (18–40 years old) users’ affective responses and subsequent attitudinal and behavioral outcomes within the moderation of eeriness based on the uncanny valley paradigm. Findings indicate affective responses and attitudes are serial mediators between a virtual human’s display of emotion and social media users’ behavioral intentions, and eeriness was a significant moderator. Lust has the strongest effect, followed by happiness, sadness, and no emotion. This research elevates the Cognitive-Functional Model to discrete virtual human emotions with approach tendencies. Implications for understanding the impact of virtual humans’ emotions and sexual appeal on social media users’ engagement are discussed.