Measuring Emotional Arousal in Clickbait: Eye-Tracking

Measuring Emotional Arousal in Clickbait:

Eye-Tracking Approach
Full papers
Supavich (Fone) Pengnate
Department of Accounting, Finance and Information Systems
College of Business
North Dakota State University
fone.pengnate@ndsu.edu

Abstract
This study investigates the influence of online news and clickbait headlines on online users’ emotional
arousal and behavior. An experiment was conducted to examine the level of arousal in three online news
headline groups—news headlines, clickbait headlines, and control headlines. Arousal was measured by
two different measurement approaches—pupillary response recorded by an eye-tracking device and self-
assessment manikin (SAM) reported in a survey. Overall, the findings suggest that certain clickbait
headlines can evoke users’ arousal which subsequently drives intention to read news stories. Arousal
scores assessed by the pupillary response and SAM are consistent when the level of emotional arousal is
high.

Keywords

News headlines, clickbait headlines, arousal, intention, eye-tracking.

Introduction
What makes users click on online news headlines? This study investigates this question by examining the
effects of online news media on users’ emotional response and intention to read news stories. In the
online context, news media providers have developed several strategies that attempt to make online users
visit their websites so that they can make profit from advertising. One of the traditional strategies is to
create news headlines that catch users’ attention by incorporating sensational, provoking, and gossip-like
content (Deci 1971; Grabe et al. 2001; Schaffer 1995; Uribe and Gunter 2007).
This study aims to examine a type of tabloid headlines that is widely spread in social media websites—
clickbait. We define a clickbait headline as an extremely exaggerated news headline hyperlink that entices
users to click to continue reading an online article. In general, clickbait headlines rely on forward-
reference technique (Yang 2011) which is a narrative strategy that provides just enough information to
create curiosity and suspense, which subsequently arouse users to click on a headline to further read the
full story to fulfill their curiosity. In general, the true goal of such clickbait headline is to direct online
users to a website that collects the view stats or number of clicks which are further used to generate
income from the website’s advertising.
Since the primary intent of clickbait headlines is to generate clicks, the headlines and their content are
often misleading, unverified, and seldom corrected. Clickbait headlines that circulate rumors and
misinformation have repeatedly posted danger to both public and business sections. For example, in
2008, a fraudulent Internet report claiming that Apple CEO, Steve Jobs, had suffered a serious heart
attack was spread throughout social media. The story caused a panic on Wall Street which consequently
led to approximately 10 percent drop in Apple’s stock price (Sandoval 2008). More recently, there was a
social media story reporting that a 3-year-old disfigured girl was asked to leave a KFC restaurant because
her appearance was scaring customers (Jenkins 2014). The story was created as a clickbait headline and
circulated through social media sites. It was later found to be a fake story; however, the company’s
reputation was already damaged.

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 Measuring Emotional Arousal in Clickbait: Eye-Tracking

While previous studies have investigated the effects of news headlines on user response (e.g., Gibbons et
al. 2005; Kim et al. 2010), research specific to the area of clickbait headlines still remains
underdeveloped. Specifically, it is not clear how such headlines are perceived by online users. In general,
clickbait headlines are written with provocative writing style. However, studies in the journalism domain
report that, if readers feel that the news headlines are overly exaggerated, they tend to ignore and avoid
reading the headlines (Loewenstein 1994). In addition, in the information systems (IS) domain, some
online users also consider clickbait headlines as spams (Doyle 2014), and this could result in decreasing
value of online news networks as a whole (Tandoc 2014). Therefore, this study aims to provide insights
into online users’ perceptions of clickbait headlines, especially emotional arousal, which is considered as a
key factor in determining user behavior (Grabe et al. 2000; Kim et al. 2010).
In addition, in order to assess emotional arousal, past studies have primarily relied on self-reported
measures. Such passive measurement approach has been found to valid only in certain circumstances
(e.g., individual differences must be measured) and the subjects have to be aware of and are capable of
reporting their momentary emotional states (Mauss and Robinson 2009). Consequently, the second goal
of this study is to employ an innovative approach, pupillary response observation, to assess arousal.
Users’ average pupil diameter is used as an indicator of arousal and the results are then compared with
the self-reported measure.

Literature Review
Clickbait Headlines
Clickbait headlines can be considered as a tabloid version of online news headlines. However, clickbait
headlines are different from news headlines in the way that news headlines generally provide “hard news”
content (e.g., politics, crimes, science, and economics) while clickbait headlines often contain “soft news”
content (e.g., entertainment, gossip, and fiction). Clickbait headlines are typically written using forward-
referring narrative strategy that provokes curiosity and then postpones what the story is about. This can
entice users to click on the headlines to further read the full stories and allow media websites to generate
click views to earn revenue from advertising. Since the content is often divorced from the headlines, the
proliferation of social networking websites, such as FacebookTM and TwillterTM, has provided
opportunities for clickbait to be advertised and shared. The tactics used to create clickbait are typically
considered deceptive and generally problematic (Chen et al. 2015). Few studies in the literature have
examined clickbait headlines and their consequences. For example, Chen et al. (2015) examined methods
to detect clickbait and provide potential cues for recognizing both textual and non-textual clickbait. Blom
and Hansen (2015) investigated techniques used to create and identify clickbait. While the use of clickbait
headlines is increasing and can raise serious ethical and financial issues to individuals or organizations, it
has received little attention in the IS literature. Therefore, this study aims to fill this gap by providing a
better understanding how clickbait headlines are perceived by online users.

Emotional Arousal in Clickbait Headlines

In general, the level of emotional arousal associated with news headlines (especially clickbait) has been
connected to sensationalism (Grabe et al. 2000). Sensationalism refers to the stimulation of unwholesome
emotional responses (Grabe et al. 2000) and has been long used in news publication. According to studies
in journalism, news and clickbait (online version of tabloid news) evoke arousal though sensationalism.
However, both headlines are developed based on different underlying mechanisms. While news headlines
typically rely their content (e.g., hard news) to evoke emotion (Cho et al. 2003; Heath 1996), clickbait
headlines induce arousal through sensational writing style (e.g., as shock and thrill, empathy, and
curiosity) to induce arousal (Blom and Hansen 2015).
In addition to sensationalism, clickbait headlines also entice users to click on the headlines by crating
curiosity. This is achieved by providing just enough information so that users are tempted to fulfill their
curiosity by clicking on the headlines to seek for further information (Grabe et al. 2000). However, the
stories linked to clickbait headlines are often irrelevant and misleading. In addition, several online reports
have suggested that large number of online users consider clickbait headlines as spams and they tend to,
either consciously or subconsciously, ignore such headlines written with sensationalizing style (Caune
2013; El-Arini 2014). Therefore, it is not clear whether clickbait headlines can evoke users’ arousal from

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 Measuring Emotional Arousal in Clickbait: Eye-Tracking

the writing style or deter such emotion by providing deceptive and misleading information. Consequently,
this study aims to provide empirical evidence of arousal in clickbait headlines. Figure 1 presents an
example from Chen et al. (2015) to illustrates a headline presented in two different formats—traditional
news headline and clickbait headline.

Figure 1. Two Headline Formats— (a) News and (b) Clickbait (Chen et al. 2015)

Capturing Emotional Arousal through Eye tracking

According to studies in the psychology literature, the traditional measure of emotional arousal that has
widely been used is a semantic differential scale devised by Mehrabian and Russell (1974). The semantic
differential scale is a self-reported rating scale that consists of a set of bipolar adjective pairs rated along a
Likert scale. Arousal scores are then derived from factor analyses of the measures. This approach heavily
relies on a verbal rating system which makes it difficult to interpret and employ, especially when the
experiment includes a variety of subject populations, such as non-English speaking subjects, children, or
people with language disorder (Bradley and Lang 1994). Consequently, a newer method called Self-
Assessment Manikin (SAM) was developed by Bradley and Lang (1994) to assess the three major affective
dimensions, valence, arousal, and dominance, associated in response to a stimuli. SAM is a nonverbal
measure that uses graphics of a smiling happy figure to a frowning, unhappy figure to represent the three
affective dimensions. This characteristic enables SAM to rapidly capture arousal. Although SAM is found
to be more reliable measure than the semantic differential scale, both measures rely on the self-reported
method which is susceptible to response bias (John and Robins 1994) and they are not able to provide
immediate response of the arousal level being measured.
In order to overcome these limitations, more recent studies have employed an innovative approach to
assess emotional arousal by measuring pupillary changes using an eye-tracking device. Pupillary changes
have been reported be associated with arousal level—pupil diameter increases when people process
emotionally either pleasant or unpleasant stimuli (e.g., Bradley et al. 2008; Partala et al. 2000; Stanners
et al. 1979). Such physiological measures are found to be more effective than self-reported measures since
(1) they are unobtrusive—they do not disturb participants during the measurement, (2) they do no rely on
participants’ own assessment of the emotional experience, and (3) they can spontaneously detect changes
in the arousal level (Desmet 2005). Therefore, in this study, pupil diameter is used to assess arousal. Pupil
diameter is expected to increase when participants feel aroused while reading news or clickbait headlines.

Methodology
Participants
Seventeen undergraduate students (10 males) from a midwestern university participated in the
experiment for a unit course extra credit. All reported normal vision, extensive website experience, and
daily Internet usage for reading online news and checking emails.

Materials
Forty headlines selected from news media websites that contained self-produced news content were used
as the experimental stimuli. The stimuli consisted of 10 news headlines, 15 clickbait headlines, and 15
neutral-arousal headlines (control group). The news headlines and neutral-arousal headlines were
selected from legitimate newspaper websites and public service websites. The news headlines included

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 Measuring Emotional Arousal in Clickbait: Eye-Tracking

hard news content regarding disasters, terrorist attacks, and crimes. This high-arousal content was
chosen for the news headlines so that it can be compared with the arousal level evoked by sensational
writing style in the clickbait headlines. The clickbait headlines were obtained from websites that primarily
aimed at generating online advertising revenue (e.g., www.buzzfeed.com). The clickbait headlines content
contained soft news, such as entertainment, gossip, and fiction. In addition to the news and clickbait
headlines, 15 neutral-arousal headlines were included in the experiment as a baseline control group. All
headlines were forward-reference stories and had approximately equal number of words. The news and
clickbait headlines are presented in Tables 4 and 5.

Measuring Pupil Diameters

Pupil diameters (measured in millimeters) were recorded by a corneal refection-based eye tracker with a
sampling rate of 120 Hz. The eye tracker was mounted on a table and placed in front of a 23-in. LED
computer monitor. The eye tracker had a built-in video camera and infrared light sources pointed at
participants’ left and right eyes.

Procedure
Seventeen experimental sessions were conducted in a laboratory. Each session contained one participant
and lasted approximately 30 minutes. The headlines were displayed on a desktop computer monitor
located at an approximate distance of 40 in. from where the participant was seated.
Upon arrival, the participant signed a consent form and was seated in a recliner in a small, sound-
attenuated dimly lit room. A chinrest was used to maintain a viewing area of the participant. Then, the
participant was instructed to read a series of headlines and was asked “what do you feel about this
headline?” The experiment began with a 9-point calibration sequence by asking the participant to fixate
on nine dots displayed on the computer monitor in a sequential order calibrate the eye tracker. The
tracking precision was then determined. The threshold of the accuracy was 90 percent; otherwise, the
calibration process was repeated until the accuracy reached the threshold.
Following five practice trials, eight headline sets including two sets of new headlines, three sets of
clickbait headlines, and three sets of neutral-arousal headlines (control) were presented in random order.
Each set included five headlines. Each headline was displayed for 4 seconds. There was a 6-second delay
between each set of the headlines.
After all the headlines presented, the chinrest were then removed and the participant was asked to fill out
a post-experimental questionnaire which included a 5-point SAM arousal measure ranging from “Calm
(1)” to “Excited (5)” and a 7-point Likert scale to measure intention to later read the news story ranging
from “Strongly Disagree (1)” to “Strongly Agree (7)”. The experimenter then debriefed and thanked the
participant.

Results
Mean Differences between the Three Headline Groups
Two samples were removed from the dataset due to device errors. Pupil data that were obscured due to
blinking or software or hardware errors were identified and removed from the dataset. For each headline,
a 1-sec pre-trial was removed from the dataset after the headline onset as the subjects were reading the
headline.
Consequently, the average pupil diameter is derived from the average of the left and right pupil diameters
in a window from 2 to 4 sec. after headline onset. Table 1 presents the means and standard deviations
across the three headline groups. The means of SAM arousal scores and intention are statistically
significant different across the three headline groups. However, the p-value does not reach the significant
level of 0.05 for pupil diameter.

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Variable Headline Group Mean Std. Dev. p-val.

News 4.0484 0.6603
Pupil diameter Control 4.0070 0.6914 0.367
Clickbait 3.9831 0.6463
News 3.26 1.077
Arousal (SAM) Control 2.13 1.113 < 0.001
Clickbait 2.42 1.183
News 5.24 1.340
Intention Control 3.76 1.697 < 0.001
Clickbait 3.94 1.975
Table 1. Mean Differences between Headline Groups

Pupil Diameter and SAM Arousal Measure Evaluation

Pearson correlation was conducted to investigate the relationships between pupil diameter and arousal
measured by SAM on the overall dataset which consists of the three headline groups. While the
correlation is in the expected direction—pupil diameter size is positively correlated with arousal (SAM)
and intention, the correlation is not statistically significant at the level of 0.05. Table 2 exhibits the
correlations between pupil diameter, arousal (SAM), and intention. The correlation between arousal
(SAM) and intention is statistically significant at the 0.05 level.

Pupil Diameter Arousal (SAM)

Arousal (SAM) 0.041 (p = 0.343)
Intention 0.079 (p = 0.064) 0.760 (p = 0.000)*
Table 2. Correlations between Pupil Diameter,
Arousal, and Intention (*p < 0.05)

The relationships between pupil diameter, arousal (SAM), and intention were further investigated using
linear regression analysis. The results (Table 3) reveal that, both pupil diameter and arousal (SAM)
appear to be statistically significant predictors of intention to read.

Predictor Standardized Coefficient Sig.

Arousal (SAM) 0.765 0.000*
Pupil Diameter 0.110 0.000*
Table 3. Linear Regression Results (*p < 0.05)

Further analysis was carried out to evaluate the mean differences between pupil diameter and arousal
(SAM) for each headline. Result from a series of t-test analysis on the means of pupil diameter and
arousal (SAM) are presented in Table 4 and Table 5. Non-significant p-values represent consistency
between the two arousal measures—SAM and pupil diameter.
According to the results, in the news headline group, arousal (SAM) and pupil diameter are consistent in
seven out of 10 headlines (No8, N07, N10, N06, N01, N04, and N05). In the clickbait headline group, only
one out of 15 headlines (C05) that the arousal measures are consistent. These results indicate that both
pupil diameter and SAM perform relatively well in assessing high arousal. Note that the headlines
presented in the tables are sorted descending based on the SAM arousal scores.

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 Measuring Emotional Arousal in Clickbait: Eye-Tracking

News Headlines Pupil

# SAM Sig.
(Major Source of Arousal: Content) Diameter

N08 North Korea prepares for possible missile launch: Yonhap 3.79 4.0251 0.546

N07 Paris massacre: At least 128 die in attacks 3.64 4.0308 0.278
Obama says stands with France in hunting down those behind
N10 3.57 3.9903 0.180
Paris attack
Exclusive: U.S. delivers ammunition to Syrian Arab fighters
N06 3.50 4.0450 0.061
battling Islamic State
N01 People screaming clawing to get away 3.43 4.0946 0.063

N04 8 dead babies found in German apartment, police say 3.43 4.0540 0.116
10 killed after French high-speed train derails and crashes into
N05 3.43 4.0538 0.102
canal
College student from California studying abroad killed in Paris
N02 3.14 4.0921 0.025*
attacks
N09 Italy buries first quake victims 2.50 4.0192 0.000*
About 1,500 Mormons resign from church in protest of same-sex
N03 2.21 4.0788 0.000*
policy
Table 4. Means of Arousal (SAM) and Pupil Diameter: News Headlines (* p<0.05)

Clickbait Headlines Pupil

# SAM Sig.
(Major Source of Arousal: Sensational Writing Style) Diameter
Road workers found this mysterious box underground. They
C05 3.18 4.0095 0.059
decided to look inside and…
C06 This is the personality trait that most often predicts success… 2.33 4.0184 0.000*

C04 Why Apple should kill off the Mac… 2.64 4.0140 0.003*

C15 Why using shortcut keys can save you hundreds of dollars a day… 2.64 3.8669 0.002*

C07 The three deadliest drugs in America are all totally legal… 3.07 4.0072 0.008*

C11 Scientists have figured out what makes women attractive… 2.55 3.9695 0.001*
A man falls down and cries for help twice. The second time, my jaw
C02 2.64 4.0140 0.003*
drops…
What happens when a horse discovers a kiddie pool? You won’t
C08 2.50 4.0289 0.000*
believe it...
Cupcakes kept disappearing from the counter. So they set up a
C01 2.27 4.0485 0.004*
hidden camera – Wow...
C09 8 things you should never feed to dogs and cats… 2.27 3.9960 0.002*
Watch the first 15 seconds. That’s all I ask. You’ll be hooked after
C10 2.21 3.9826 0.000*
that, I swear…
C14 See how one man made $$$ in his bedroom… 2.21 3.9324 0.000*
I left my husband & daughter at home and this happened! I can’t
C03 2.18 4.0280 0.000*
believe it…

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 Measuring Emotional Arousal in Clickbait: Eye-Tracking

This marketer boosted a Facebook post: what happens next is

C12 2.00 3.9510 0.001*
awful…
C13 Health insurance companies hate this new trick… 1.79 3.9358 0.000*

Table 5. Means of Arousal (SAM) and Pupil Diameter: Clickbait Headlines (* p<0.05)

Discussion and Conclusion

In general, this study provides empirical evidence of arousal evoked by clickbait headlines. The results
indicate that pupillary response can be used as an indicator of arousal, specifically at a high level. These
results are consistent with previous studies in the journalism literature (e.g., Bradley et al. 2008; Stanners
et al. 1979). However, this research extends the existing studies by investigating arousal in a differently
type of online news headlines context—clickbait.
Regarding the pupillary response, the findings suggest that pupillary response can effectively assess
arousal in the online news context. However, when the level of arousal is low, arousal measured by pupil
diameter is not consistent with SAM measure. Therefore, these results provide an opportunity for future
work to address the reliability issues of arousal measures in this area.
The major theoretical contribution of this study is the investigation of the relationships between arousal
and intention in the clickbait headline context. The results indicate that clickbait headlines can evoke
emotional arousal, which subsequently influences intention to read news story. This preliminary study
provides empirical evidence of the influences of clickbait headlines on users’ emotional and behavioral
responses, which should be further explored.
With regard to contributions to practitioners, the findings of this study are of interest to online news
media managers. The results suggest that, while online users express negative perceptions toward
clickbait headlines, they are still interested in clicking through the headlines. This is captured by the
statistically significant relationship between arousal and intention to read in the clickbait headline group.
Therefore, if clickbait headlines are properly written with the right language and tone, they can potentially
lead to favorably outcomes for online media websites.
As with all experimental studies, there are limitations for this study. A major challenge of the eye tracking
research is that eye-tracking systems generally involve a number of recognized costs. The systems are
often expensive, not easily accessible, and time-consuming to employ (Masciocchi and Still 2013).
Nevertheless, newer and less expensive eye-tracking systems are being developed to help overcome these
employment costs (e.g., www.grinbath.com). Another limitation of eye tracking approach is that pupillary
response cannot indicate distinct emotions but only generalized emotional states—only underlying
dimensions are identified, e.g., pleasantness and arousal (Desmet 2005). Therefore, in order to measure
mixed emotions, additional physiological instruments, such as blood pressure responses, skin responses,
brain waves, and heart responses, are necessary.
According to the popularity of social media websites, clickbait headlines have become totally pervasive.
Whereas such headlines can provide news media websites with opportunities to generate revenue,
adopting clickbait headlines can negatively affect their users’ perceptions toward the websites. Therefore,
it is important for media websites to develop effective strategies that are both effective and efficient in
attracting online users. This study investigates how different types of online news headlines influence
users’ emotions as well as how pupillary response can be used as an indicator of emotional arousal. The
results of this study are of interest to several types of users (e.g., researcher, online news consumers, news
analysts, and online content managers) to a better understanding of emotional arousal in the online
media context.

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