Gaming Emotions in Social Interactions

Abstract

One's own emotions may influence someone else's behavior in a social interaction. If one believes this, she or he has an incentive to game emotions-to strategically modify the expression of a current emotional state-in an attempt to influence her or his counterpart. In a series of three experiments, this article investigates the extent to which people (1) misrepresent a current emotional state, (2) willfully acknowledge their strategic actions, (3) choose to game emotions over nonemotional information, and (4) improve their financial well-being from emotion gaming. (c) 2009 by JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH, Inc..

Why income comparison is rational

“…of emotions may have nothing to do with the general phenomenon of unhappiness, in the sense that that phenomenon is considered by hedonic prods. As an example, none of the models that explain emotions in social interactions in terms of honest signaling, like "persona games" (Wolpert et al, submitted for publication) (more recently called "rational emotions"; Winter et al, 2009, or "gaming emotions";Andrade and Ho, 2009), seem to be closely related to hedonic prods. Nor do hedonic prods directly related to aspects of behavior involving reproductive fitness.…”

Materazzi effect and the strategic use of anger in competitive interactions

“…In addition, strategic use of the appearance of anger seems to have substantial influence on the behavior of others, increasing the other party's initial offers in ultimatum bargaining games and concessions in negotiations (26)(27)(28)(29).…”

Predictably Angry—Facial Cues Provide a Credible Signal of Destructive Behavior

“…Also, in order to exclude the possibility that responders were expressing certain emotions strategically, we emphasized that the photos and videos were taken before the responders were provided with the instructions for the UG. Andrade and Ho (2009) show that responders do strategically misrepresent their self-reported anger when they have the possibility to influence the proposers before they choose their offer. Gneezy and Imas (2014) show that people anticipate that anger may influence decision making and performance in strategic interaction and that people choose to strategically anger others if this in their best interest.…”