Journal Article•
Emotional assimilation: how we are influenced by others' emotions
01 Apr 2004-Cahiers De Psychologie Cognitive-current Psychology of Cognition (Association pour la Diffusion des Recherches en Sciences Cognitives de Langue Francaise)-Vol. 22, Iss: 2, pp 223-245
TL;DR: In this article, the authors report two studies that examine the impact of others' emotional reactions on one's own emotions and conclude that individuals who are exposed to the same emotional event will emotionally assimilate to each other, that is, they tend to experience and express similar emotions, especially when an interdependent self is made salient.
Abstract: Emotions are the building blocks of social relations. This implies not only that our own emotional behavior affects others, but also that others’ emotions have an impact on how we feel. In this paper, we report two studies that examine the impact of others’ emotional reactions on one’s own emotions. We argue that individuals who are exposed to the same emotional event will emotionally assimilate to each other, that is, they tend to experience and express similar emotions, especially when an interdependent self is made salient. In both studies we manipulated interpersonal orientation (independent versus interdependent selves) and the emotional reactions of other persons present in the situation (angry versus sad). After the manipulation of interpersonal orientation, participants were presented with a vignette about a classroom situation in which students are treated unfairly. Both studies generally provide support for the emotional assimilation hypothesis, but also show that the extent of emotional assimilation depends on one’s interpersonal orientation and type of emotion.
Citations
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TL;DR: A model based on appraisal theories of emotion is suggested that posits an inferential mechanism whereby people retrieve, from emotion expressions, information about others' appraisals, which then lead to inferences about other people's mental states.
Abstract: How do people make inferences about other people's minds from their emotion displays? The ability to infer others' beliefs, desires, and intentions from their facial expressions should be especially important in interdependent decision making when people make decisions from beliefs about the others' intention to cooperate. Five experiments tested the general proposition that people follow principles of appraisal when making inferences from emotion displays, in context. Experiment 1 revealed that the same emotion display produced opposite effects depending on context: When the other was competitive, a smile on the other's face evoked a more negative response than when the other was cooperative. Experiment 2 revealed that the essential information from emotion displays was derived from appraisals (e.g., Is the current state of affairs conducive to my goals? Who is to blame for it?); facial displays of emotion had the same impact on people's decision making as textual expressions of the corresponding appraisals. Experiments 3, 4, and 5 used multiple mediation analyses and a causal-chain design: Results supported the proposition that beliefs about others' appraisals mediate the effects of emotion displays on expectations about others' intentions. We suggest a model based on appraisal theories of emotion that posits an inferential mechanism whereby people retrieve, from emotion expressions, information about others' appraisals, which then lead to inferences about others' mental states. This work has implications for the design of algorithms that drive agent behavior in human-agent strategic interaction, an emerging domain at the interface of computer science and social psychology.
191 citations
TL;DR: Significant affect-transfer effects remained even after controlling for participants' perceptions of the other's emotion in addition to all measured appraisals, confirming that affect transfer does not require explicit registration of someone else's feelings.
Abstract: In a diary study of interpersonal affect transfer, 41 participants reported on decisions involving other people over 3 weeks. Reported anxiety and excitement were reliably related to the perceived anxiety and excitement of another person who was present during decision making. Risk and importance appraisals partially mediated effects of other's anxiety on own anxiety as predicted by social appraisal theory. However, other's emotion remained a significant independent predictor of own emotion after controlling for appraisals, supporting the additional impact of more direct forms of affect transfer such as emotion contagion. Significant affect-transfer effects remained even after controlling for participants' perceptions of the other's emotion in addition to all measured appraisals, confirming that affect transfer does not require explicit registration of someone else's feelings. This research provides some of the clearest evidence for the operation of both social appraisal and automatic affect transfer in everyday social life.
157 citations
Book•
26 Apr 2018TL;DR: Van Kleef et al. as discussed by the authors developed the Emotions as Social Information (EASI) theory to understand how emotional expressions influence observers across all domains of life, from close relationships to group settings, conflict and negotiation, customer service, and leader-follower relations.
Abstract: Emotions are an elemental part of life - they imbue our existence with meaning and purpose, and influence how we engage with the world around us. But we do not just feel our own emotions; we typically express them in the presence of other people. How do our emotional expressions affect others? Moving beyond the traditional intrapersonal perspective, this is the first book dedicated to exploring the pervasive interpersonal dynamics of emotions. Integrating existing theory and research, van Kleef develops the Emotions as Social Information (EASI) theory, a groundbreaking comprehensive framework that explains how emotional expressions influence observers across all domains of life, from close relationships to group settings, conflict and negotiation, customer service, and leader-follower relations. His deeply social perspective sheds new light on the fundamental question of why we have emotions in the first place - the social influence emotions engender may very well constitute their raison d'etre.
103 citations
TL;DR: Results of both experiments provided evidence for a social appraisal effect in emotion recognition, which differed from the mere effect of contextual information: Whereas facial expressions were identical in both conditions, the direction of the gaze of the contextual face influenced emotion recognition.
Abstract: The notion of social appraisal emphasizes the importance of a social dimension in appraisal theories of emotion by proposing that the way an individual appraises an event is influenced by the way other individuals appraise and feel about the same event. This study directly tested this proposal by asking participants to recognize dynamic facial expressions of emotion (fear, happiness, or anger in Experiment 1; fear, happiness, anger, or neutral in Experiment 2) in a target face presented at the center of a screen while a contextual face, which appeared simultaneously in the periphery of the screen, expressed an emotion (fear, happiness, anger) or not (neutral) and either looked at the target face or not. We manipulated gaze direction to be able to distinguish between a mere contextual effect (gaze away from both the target face and the participant) and a specific social appraisal effect (gaze toward the target face). Results of both experiments provided evidence for a social appraisal effect in emotion recognition, which differed from the mere effect of contextual information: Whereas facial expressions were identical in both conditions, the direction of the gaze of the contextual face influenced emotion recognition. Social appraisal facilitated the recognition of anger, happiness, and fear when the contextual face expressed the same emotion. This facilitation was stronger than the mere contextual effect. Social appraisal also allowed better recognition of fear when the contextual face expressed anger and better recognition of anger when the contextual face expressed fear.
100 citations
Cites background from "Emotional assimilation: how we are ..."
...Note that the influence of social appraisal should typically be observed in ambiguous situations (see Fischer et al., 2004) because a person is more influenced by others’ appraisals if confronted with an ambiguous emotional event that is difficult to appraise....
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TL;DR: Men and women differed in their anger expressions, despite the fact that they did not differ in anger experience, and social appraisal partly mediated the relation between sex and anger expression.
Abstract: The central objective of this study was to investigate the role of social appraisal in sex differences in anger expression. Anger expression was inferred from the amount of hot sauce given to the person who induced anger. Participants were randomly assigned to a social condition, in which they expected to meet this person, or to a nonsocial condition, in which they had no such expectation. Men and women differed in their anger expressions, despite the fact that they did not differ in anger experience. Women expressed anger to a lesser extent than men, but only in the social condition. Social appraisal partly mediated the relation between sex and anger expression. The role of social appraisal in emotion and appraisal theory is discussed.
100 citations