Catching fire: What goes viral and why? With Jonah Berger, PhD

February 25, 2026

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5 min read

In 2013, a secret bar called Please Don’t Tell opened inside a hot dog restaurant in New York City. There was no sign on the street. No sign inside the restaurant. To get in, you had to walk into a phone booth, pick up a rotary phone, dial a number, and hope someone answered to ask if you had a reservation. The bar was full every day. Jonah Berger, a professor at the Wharton School, uses this example to illustrate a core principle of why things spread: people share things that make them look good. The bar made its customers feel like insiders, and that feeling—what Berger calls social currency—is one of the most powerful drivers of word of mouth.

The STEPPS Framework: Six Drivers of Sharing

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What you'll learn

1 (00:25) **Introduction: The Mystery of Virality** - Host Kim Mills frames the episode around why some things catch on while others disappear, introducing the guest and the core question.
2 (02:20) **The Science Behind Virality** - Berger explains that virality is not random luck but follows predictable psychological patterns.
3 (03:40) **The STEPPS Framework Defined** - Berger introduces the six psychological drivers of sharing, the core explanatory model of the episode.
4 (04:42) **Social Currency: The "Look Good" Driver** - Berger explains why people share things that make them look smart, special, or in-the-know.
5 (10:49) **Emotion and Stories: The "Feel Something" Driver** - Berger explains how emotion and narrative drive sharing, distinguishing between high-arousal and low-arousal feelings.
6 (12:33) **The New York Times Study: Anger vs. Sadness** - Berger details a key study showing the critical role of physiological arousal in sharing.
7 (18:47) **Are All Six STEPPS Equal?** - Berger discusses how the importance of each driver varies by context, especially online vs. offline.

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Show Notes

Why do some ideas, products, news stories and trends spread like wildfire, while others disappear? Jonah Berger, PhD, discusses the science of what catches on; the psychological forces that drive word of mouth, including social currency and high-arousal emotions like awe and anger; whether online and offline sharing differ; and what his research can tell us about the spread of misinformation.

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