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

Abstract

Emotional contagion has long been conceptualized as the automatic transfer of affective states between people, similar to the spread of diseases. New evidence, however, has challenged this view by demonstrating that emotions, contrary to diseases, spread selectively rather than blindly because their transfer is controlled by social factors. Here, we take a closer look at this top-down social control of emotional contagion. We review literature on the moderating role of social factors in emotional contagion and emotional mimicry, a process often considered a basic mechanism of emotional contagion. We argue that top-down social processes controlling emotional mimicry may be explained by the correction hypothesis formulated to account for contrast effects in priming research. We also analyze whether similar corrective processes may be involved in less automatic mechanisms of emotional contagion, such as social appraisal. Finally, we propose that the modulating effects of social factors on emotional contagion and its mechanisms, similar to priming effects, may be interpreted within the framework of dual-process theories.

Intragroup Emotion Convergence: Beyond Contagion and Social Appraisal

“…Contagion has been a popular notion for more than a century (e.g., Le Bon, 1895), but as yet there is little consensus about its definition. Some researchers use the concept in a purely descriptive sense as a name for the phenomenon of emotional convergence, regardless of why it might happen (e.g., Elfenbein, 2014; Wróbel & Imbir, 2019). Others treat contagion as a more specific process that potentially explains that phenomenon.…”

“…A final issue is that PEC cannot easily account for the selective operation of emotion convergence in certain kinds of social situations but not in others. For example, a number of studies suggest that people are more likely to mimic the expressions of friends and ingroup members than strangers and outgroup members (e.g., Bourgeois & Hess, 2008, see Wróbel & Imbir, 2019, for a review). One possible explanation for this selectivity is that emotions spread when people are already inclined to align with each other’s emotional orientations because of their affiliative motives or shared social identity (e.g., Hess & Fischer, 2013).…”

Impact of Subliminally Presented Words Valence’ on Risk-Taking Decisions in a Game of Chance

“…Priming the target risk-related decision can be done under supraliminal conditions (when the priming stimulus is seen and well registered by the subject) and subliminal conditions (when the priming stimulus is not consciously registered by the participant). Subliminal priming is more likely to evoke an assimilation affect between the prime and the target (Bargh and Pietromonaco, 1982; Wróbel and Imbir, 2019). In an interesting study (Gibson and Zielaskowski, 2013), a subliminal stimulus was used particularly to prime risk-taking decisions.…”

Mapping Emoji Usage Among Youth

“…Contagion theory is an established theory in the domain of emotions and has been worked upon and detailed and discussed at length by a large number of researchers ranging from the classic work of Hatfield et al (1994) to the most recent work by Bacaksizlar (2019) and Wróbel and Imbir (2019). During the last two decades, a large number of research studies have employed the contagion theory to study and analyse emotions.…”