A STUDY ON THE IMPACT OF TIKTOK ANCHORS' EMOTIONAL DISPLAY ON SOCIAL PRESENCE: USING EMOTIONAL CONTAGION AS A MEDIATING VARIABLE

With the rapid development of live-streaming e-commerce, the role of streamers in influencing user behavior has become increasingly prominent. This study investigates the mechanism through which streamers' emotional displays impact users' social presence, drawing on the emotional contagion theory. Through literature review, this research constructs an assessment framework of streamers' emotional display, including positive emotions, emotional authenticity, emotional stability, and emotional resonance capability, with emotional contagion as a mediating variable. The study collected 463 valid questionnaires. The results show that (1) the four dimensions of streamers' emotional display have significant positive effects on users' social presence, with positive emotions (β=0.285) and emotional resonance capability (β=0.276) having the strongest impact; (2) streamers' emotional display significantly promotes emotional contagion, with the model explaining 44.2% of the variance; and (3) emotional contagion plays a significant partial mediating role between streamers' emotional display and social presence, with mediation effects accounting for 34.8%-38.5% of the total effects. The findings enrich the application of emotional contagion theory in live-streaming e-commerce, provide new theoretical perspectives for understanding streamer-user emotional interaction mechanisms, and offer practical guidance for live-streaming platforms to optimize their operations.