Emotional contagion in nonhuman animals: A review

Abstract

Emotional contagion, the emotional state‐matching of an individual with another, seems to be crucial for many social species. In recent years evidence on emotional contagion in different animal species has accumulated. However, despite its adaptative advantages and its presumed simplicity, the study and direct demonstration of this phenomenon present more complexities than previously thought. For these reasons, a review of the literature on emotional contagion in nonhuman species is timely to integrate current findings. In this paper thus, we carry out a comprehensive review of the most relevant studies on emotional contagion in animals and discuss the main problems and challenges of the field. We conclude that more research is needed to broaden our understanding of the mechanisms and functions of emotional contagion and the extent to which this process is present in a wide variety of species. Furthermore, the comparative study of emotional contagion would benefit from the use of systematized paradigms including both behavioral and physiological measures and the simultaneous recording of the responses of the interacting individuals to reliably assess an emotional state‐matching between them and reliable controls. This article is categorized under: Cognitive Biology > Evolutionary Roots of Cognition Psychology > Comparative Psychology Psychology > Emotion and Motivation

Collective Emotional Contagion in Zebrafish

“…Although emotional contagion was initially believed to be a prerogative of mammals and birds, recent empirical evidence demonstrates that simpler animals (Rose, 2002;Rose et al, 2014), are able to share emotions as well (Oliveira et al, 2017;Silva et al, 2019;Pérez-Manrique and Gomila, 2021). Our study complements these efforts and provides evidence of emotional contagion in the form of a reduction of anxiety-related behaviors propagating from a single, Citalopram-treated zebrafish to a group of untreated conspecifics.…”

“…Emotional contagion can influence social decision making and overall group performance through the spread of positive or negative emotions, which impact morale, motivation, and rapport. While this phenomenon has been widely documented across several taxa such as mammals (Langford et al, 2006;Zoratto et al, 2018) and birds (Adriaense et al, 2019), limited evidence of its occurrence has been reported in fish (Pérez-Manrique and Gomila, 2021). In an effort to contribute to a better understanding of emotional contagion, we studied how anxiety-related behavior can be propagated in groups of zebrafish by pharmacologically manipulating the behavior of a focal individual in the shoal.…”

“…In fish, evidence of emotional contagion is not as vast as in other species (Pérez-Manrique and Gomila, 2021). It has been argued that fish possess limited cognitive capabilities that compromise their ability to experience and react to the distress and suffering exhibited by conspecifics (Rose, 2002;Rose et al, 2014).…”

Investigating the mechanistic role of painful self-experience in emotional contagion: an effect of auto-conditioning?

“…Emotional contagion describes the tendency for emotional states to transmit from one individual to another leading to a convergence of emotional states (Decety & Ickes, 2011; Hatfield et al, 1993; Keysers et al, 2022). Emotional contagion has been documented to be widespread in the animal kingdom and is considered a pre-cursor to empathy (Pérez-Manrique & Gomila, 2022).…”

“…Emotional contagion has been documented to be widespread in the animal kingdom and is considered a pre-cursor to empathy (Pérez-Manrique & Gomila, 2022).…”