Online discussions about politics and current events play a growing role in public life, and they can foster positive outcomes (e.g., civic engagement and political participation) and negative outcomes (e.g., hostility and polarization). The present research examines how the use of doubtful (vs. confident) language influences behavior in online discussions of current events. We examine the effects of doubtful language on comment popularity (i.e., recommendations from other users) and the use of emotional language in subsequent replies. We examine data from 1.9 million user comments from the New York Times website. Comments containing doubtful language were less popular, receiving fewer user recommendations. Additionally, replies to doubtful comments were less emotional (containing fewer positive emotions and fewer negative emotions). These results suggest that although doubtful authors are less likely to be recommended by other users, they may play an important role in helping to foster civility in online discussions.

关于政治和时事的在线讨论在公共生活中发挥着越来越大的作用，它们可以促进积极的结果（例如公民参与和政治参与）和消极的结果（例如敌意和两极分化）。目前的研究调查了使用可疑（与自信）语言如何影响在线时事讨论中的行为。我们检查可疑语言对评论流行度（即来自其他用户的推荐）的影响以及在后续回复中使用情感语言。我们检查了来自《纽约时报》的190 万条用户评论的数据网站。包含可疑语言的评论不太受欢迎，收到的用户推荐也较少。此外，对可疑评论的回复较少情绪化（包含较少的积极情绪和较少的消极情绪）。这些结果表明，虽然可疑作者不太可能被其他用户推荐，但他们可能在帮助培养在线讨论中的礼貌方面发挥重要作用。