Why Some Ideas Go Viral—and Most Don’t

What decades of research reveal about why certain content spreads—and how social forces shape what we all see.

Modern-day social media has profoundly changed how information spreads, with algorithms amplifying negativity, outrage, and conspiracy theories…Or has it?

After the invention of the printing press in the 1400s, the bestselling books were religious extremist texts and witch-hunting manuals. In other words, what went “viral” in the Middle Ages wasn’t so different from the salacious conspiracy theories you see flooding social media today.

While studies find that moral outrage and negativity about political opponents go “viral” on social media, this is also true of the offline world. Gossip is common in everyday conversation, mostly negative, and often about people we dislike.

Just as “cancellations” go viral on social media, gossip spread widely in hunter-gather societies, and was similarly centered around other people’s antisocial behavior.

In a new paper called “The Psychology of Virality,” recently published in Trends in Cognitive Sciences, we argue that, just like some viruses are more c…