I can see that you’re happy but you’re not my friend

Abstract

In the current study, I experimentally examined whether close relationship between a sender displaying affect and a receiver observing it fosters concordant affective reactions to the sender’s emotional displays. I recruited participants as pairs of either friends or strangers. One person served as a sender and the other person served as a receiver. The sender watched a happy or sad videotaped man, whereas the receiver observed him/her on the computer screen in a separate room. The results confirmed that the sender caught happiness displayed by the videotaped man and then passed it along to the receiver but only when the pair consisted of friends. When the pair consisted of strangers, this “second-hand” happiness contagion was blocked. The spread of sadness, however, remained unaffected by relationship closeness. This effect was not driven by the receiver’s ability to correctly decode the sender’s emotional expression.

Broadening the Perspective on Emotional Contagion and Emotional Mimicry: The Correction Hypothesis

“…Put differently, we extend the assumptions of dual-process theories to a “new” class of phenomena: emotional contagion and its basic mechanisms (i.e., emotional mimicry and social appraisal). The aforementioned two experiments (Sachisthal et al, 2016; Wróbel, 2018) demonstrate that this extension provides fresh insight into the results of previous studies on the effects of social factors on emotional contagion or mimicry. Thus, we believe that the integration of information from three areas of research (i.e., emotional contagion, priming, and dual-process-theories) is a promising avenue for future research addressing the role of social context in processes responsible for emotional convergence between people.…”

“…The first of these studies investigated the role of the sender’s characteristics in emotional contagion that goes beyond dyads. The study demonstrated that people who watched a video recording of a happy or sad man were able to “catch” his emotional state and then pass it along to other people sitting in a separate room, but only if these people were their friends; when they were strangers, this “second-hand” contagion was blocked (Wróbel, 2018). At first sight, these findings may seem paradoxical because participants caught emotions from a complete stranger (i.e., the man in the video recording) but then passed these emotions only to their friends.…”

Measuring distinct emotional states implicitly: The role of response speed.

“…Participants who had experienced a given emotion induction (sadness, anger, or fear) more frequently judged that the artist was trying to convey that emotion. Subsequent findings support the utility of this implicit assessment method (Bryant, Winer, Salem, & Nadorff, 2017; Holt, Furbert, & Sweetingham, 2019; Mantantzis, Maylor, & Schlaghecken, 2018; Wisneski & Skitka, 2017; also see Mackie & Smith, 2017; Wróbel, 2018).…”

The role of self-representation in emotional contagion

“…People are more prone to experiencing emotional resonance with those who share affiliations with them, such as members of their ingroup, partners, or individuals with collaborative intentions. A study conducted by Wróbel (2018) manipulated the closeness of relationships to investigate its impact on emotional contagion. The findings revealed that “second-hand” happiness, where senders watched emotional videotapes and subsequently transmitted their perceived emotions to receivers, occurred exclusively among friends and not among strangers.…”

“…Although emotional contagion appears to occur automatically, it is not a purely bottom-up process or reflexive imitation. Several studies suggest that the process of emotional contagion is modulated by various social contextual factors such as relationship intimacy ( Kimura et al, 2008 ; Wróbel, 2018 ; Lin et al, 2024 ), social similarity ( Stockert, 1994 ; Paukert et al, 2008 ), and group identity ( Joby and Umemuro, 2022 ). These results demonstrate that the social connection between interacting partners is a prerequisite for emotional contagion.…”