Emotional Contagion

Hatfield, Elaine; Rapson, Richard L.

doi:10.1017/cbo9780511819568.008

Cited by 210 publications

(322 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…Lastly, electromyography has been used to assess the presence of emotional contagion in patients with affective blindsight (Tamietto et al, 2009). Emotional contagion refers to the spontaneous and automatic tendency to mimic the facial expressions seen in others and, consequently, to converge emotionally (Dimberg, 1982;Dimberg, Thunberg, & Elmehed, 2000;Hatfield, Cacioppo, & Rapson, 1994;Tamietto et al, 2009). Such subtle changes in facial musculature are characteristic for different facial expressions of emotions.…”

Section: Methodological Issues In the Study Of Affective Blindsightmentioning

confidence: 99%

From affective blindsight to emotional consciousness

Celeghin

Gelder

Tamietto

2015

Consciousness and Cognition

113

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a b s t r a c tFollowing destruction or denervation of the primary visual cortex (V1) cortical blindness ensues. Affective blindsight refers to the uncanny ability of such patients to respond correctly, or above chance level, to visual emotional expressions presented to their blind fields. Fifteen years after its original discovery, affective blindsight still fascinates neuroscientists and philosophers alike, as it offers a unique window on the vestigial properties of our visual system that, though present in the intact brain, tend to be unnoticed or even actively inhibited by conscious processes. Here we review available studies on affective blindsight with the intent to clarify its functional properties, neural bases and theoretical implications. Evidence converges on the role of subcortical structures of old evolutionary origin such as the superior colliculus, the pulvinar and the amygdala in mediating affective blindsight and nonconscious perception of emotions. We conclude that approaching consciousness, and its absence, from the vantage point of emotion processing may uncover important relations between the two phenomena, as consciousness may have evolved as an evolutionary specialization to interact with others and become aware of their social and emotional expressions.

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Section: Methodological Issues In the Study Of Affective Blindsightmentioning

confidence: 99%

From affective blindsight to emotional consciousness

Celeghin

Gelder

Tamietto

2015

Consciousness and Cognition

113

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Thus, another area of development in which a negativity bias may be apparent early on is emotional contagion, i.e., the tendency to automatically mimic others' emotional expressions facially, vocally, and behaviorally, thus to oneself experience traces of the same emotions (Hatfield, Cacioppo, & Rapson, 1993; see also Dimberg, 1982). Developmentalists have also argued that others' expressions might directly induce emotional responses in infants (Fernald, 1993;Klinnert, Campos, Sorce, Emde, & Svejda, 1983).…”

Section: B the Negativity Bias In Emotional Contagionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, the concept of emotional contagion does not include the condition that the subject be a witness and not the recipient of emotional messages (see, e.g., Hatfield et al, 1993Hatfield et al, , 1994, and we think it plausible that even when infants are receiving and using emotional cues about an ambiguous object in the environment, they could in addition be experiencing traces of those same emotions (see Baldwin & Moses, 1996). If this is accurate, then the fact that infants display more negative affect in response to negative cues than positive affect in response to positive cues suggests a negativity bias in emotional contagion.…”

Section: B the Negativity Bias In Emotional Contagionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Finally, direct and vicarious learning might constitute a third mechanism, i.e., infants might learn to decode others' emotions by themselves experiencing or by watching another (e.g., a sibling) experience the consequences of those emotions (a form of conditioning; Hatfield et al, 1994). For instance, perhaps caregivers' anger or fear signals begin to be understood as such only after the infant does not heed these signals and subsequently experiences negative consequences (e.g., punishment, pain).…”

Section: C the Negativity Bias In Decoding Emotional Informationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Not all emotions are created equal: The negativity bias in social-emotional development.

Vaish¹,

Großmann²,

Woodward³

2008

Psychological Bulletin

937

615

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There is ample empirical evidence for an asymmetry in the way that adults use positive versus negative information to make sense of their world; specifically, across an array of psychological situations and tasks, adults display a negativity bias, or the propensity to attend to, learn from, and use negative information far more than positive information. This bias is argued to serve critical evolutionarily adaptive functions, but its developmental presence and ontogenetic emergence have never seriously been considered. Here, we argue for the existence of the negativity bias in early development, evident especially in research on infant social referencing but also in other developmental domains. We discuss ontogenetic mechanisms underlying the emergence of this bias, and explore not only its evolutionary but also its developmental functions and consequences. Throughout, we suggest ways to further examine the negativity bias in infants and older children, and we make testable predictions that would help clarify the nature of the negativity bias during early development. KeywordsNegativity bias; Affective asymmetry; Social-cognitive development; Emotion; Social referencing Infants are exposed to a great deal of social information from birth, and their ability to use this information effectively is critical for development in many domains and for survival in general. This raises several important questions: do infants attend equally to all facets of this information, or do they attend to certain facets more than others? Do they, in addition, learn and remember particular kinds of information better than others? What evolutionary and developmental consequences do these ways of approaching the environment have? In this paper, we propose that infants display a negativity bias: that is, infants attend more to, are more influenced by, and use to a greater degree negative rather than positive facets of their environment. We propose possible ontogenetic pathways for the emergence of the negativity bias, and we argue that this bias serves important evolutionary and developmental functions.

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“…This point is important and we will return to it later, but first we review current theories of empathy. This imitation and feedback process of mimicry is what Hatfield, Cacioppo, and Rapson (1994) call "primitive emotional contagion." 4 The feedback stage is equivalent to a strong version of the facial feedback hypothesis, in which making an emotional face produces a subjective feeling of the emotion (Laird, 1974;Laird & Lacasse, 2014;Zajonc, Murphy, & Inglehart, 1989).…”

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confidence: 99%

An appraisal theory of empathy and other vicarious emotional experiences.

Wondra¹,

Ellsworth²

2015

Psychological Review

165

115

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Empathy, feeling what others feel, is regarded as a special phenomenon that is separate from other emotional experiences. Emotion theories say little about feeling emotions for others and empathy theories say little about how feeling emotions for others relates to normal firsthand emotional experience. Current empathy theories focus on how we feel emotions for others who feel the same thing, but not how we feel emotions for others that they do not feel, such as feeling angry for someone who is sad or feeling embarrassed for someone who is self assured. We propose an appraisal theory of vicarious emotional experiences, including empathy, based on appraisal theories of emotion. According to this theory, emotions for others are based on how we evaluate their situations, just as firsthand emotions are based on how we evaluate our own situations. We discuss how this framework can predict empathic emotion matching and also the experience of emotions for others that do not match what they feel. The theory treats empathy as a normal part of emotional experience. Keywords: empathy, emotion, appraisal, vicarious emotion APPRAISAL AND EMPATHY 4 An Appraisal Theory of Empathy and Other Vicarious Emotional ExperiencesWe feel sad when a crying friend's father has passed away. We feel embarrassed for our colleague when he blunders and blushes. We feel joy for our smiling friend when she succeeds.Empathy, feeling what another person feels, is pervasive, and it is a problem.Empathy is a problem because it defies our assumption that emotions are about our own personal goals (Frijda, 1988;Lazarus, 1991;Moors, 2010;C. A. Smith, Haynes, Lazarus, & Pope, 1993). Indeed, empathic emotions are described as more appropriate for someone else's situation than for our own (Hoffman, 2000;Preston & de Waal, 2002). Yet just as we feel emotions when we see a great work of art or step outside on a sunny day, we feel emotions for others when our personal goals are not involved.Emotion and empathy have been studied in isolation from each other. Theories of emotion neglect empathic emotions, and theories of empathy are full of special explanations for empathic emotions that are different from explanations for personal emotions. Nevertheless, empathic emotions are real emotions. They strike us quickly and redirect our attention just as any other emotion does and there is no reason to think that they are different from normal emotion processes. Bringing theories of empathy and emotion together explicitly can advance our understanding of both.We begin with a discussion of what is usually meant by empathy. Then we review and critically examine current theories of empathy. Finally, we present a theory of empathy based on appraisal theories of emotion. What is Empathy?We feel emotions about a wide variety of things. Sometimes we feel emotions because something happens to us. These are firsthand emotions. At other times we feel emotions because APPRAISAL AND EMPATHY 5 something happens to someone else. These are vicarious emotions. In some vicario...

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Emotional Contagion

Cited by 210 publications

References 12 publications

From affective blindsight to emotional consciousness

From affective blindsight to emotional consciousness

Not all emotions are created equal: The negativity bias in social-emotional development.

An appraisal theory of empathy and other vicarious emotional experiences.

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