New Perspectives on Emotional Contagion: A Review of Classic and Recent Research on Facial Mimicry and Contagion

Hatfield, Elaine; Bensman, Lisamarie; Thornton, Paul D.; Rapson, Richard L.

doi:10.5964/ijpr.v8i2.162

Cited by 183 publications

(165 citation statements)

References 94 publications

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“…Indirect emotional crossover relies on complex social behaviours that occupy a mediating position (Westman 2006)-a feature that most notably delineates crossover effects from predominantly automated mechanisms of immediate emotional contagion (Hatfield et al 2014). Contagious effects comprise of ubiquitous, culturally invariant tendencies of behavioural mimicry (see also Chartrand et al 2005), followed by afferent feedback.…”

Section: Mechanisms and Mediators Of Transmitting Enjoymentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Enjoying working and learning in vocational education: a multilevel investigation of emotional crossover and contextual moderators

Warwas

Helm

2017

Empirical Res Voc Ed Train

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Background: Students' positive emotions, such as enjoying learning activities at school, are increasingly recognized as being conducive to learning. Researchers therefore seek to understand the roles that teachers' emotions and instructional behaviours play for promoting activity-related enjoyment among their students. This study is the first to investigate emotional crossover in vocational classrooms, combining ControlValue Theory and Broaden-and-Built Theory to substantiate potentially mediating teaching characteristics (clarity and support, enthusiastic teaching, application-orientation). Moreover, this study explores contextual moderators of crossover by comparing different types of training (classes in dual and in school-based training programs) as well as different domains of training (commercial, technical, and social occupations).Methods: Survey data were gathered from 77 teachers and 1522 students with a temporal distance of about 5 months, covering a considerable period of instructional interaction. Data were examined with multilevel latent contextual models, which allow controlling for measurement and sampling errors as well as for potential confounders when testing mediation and moderated mediation in nested data structures. Results and conclusions:Mediation analysis for the full sample indicates substantial positive relations between (a) teachers' work enjoyment and teaching characteristics, and between (b) teaching characteristics and students' enjoyment of lessons. Still, crossover of activity-related emotions cannot be empirically established. Moderator analyses reveal that crossover occurrence is not a function of training type. However, positive relations between teaching characteristics and students' enjoyment vary in strength across the three contrasted vocational domains, and the same applies to positive associations between teachers' enjoyment and teaching characteristics. Consequently, crossover effects are demonstrable only in commercial classes. The paper therefore discusses methodological issues, further research needs and practical implications.

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Section: Mechanisms and Mediators Of Transmitting Enjoymentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Enjoying working and learning in vocational education: a multilevel investigation of emotional crossover and contextual moderators

Warwas

Helm

2017

Empirical Res Voc Ed Train

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“…It is a human tendency to inherently mimic a range of actions from vocal accents (Adank, Stewart, Connell, & Wood, ) to physical mannerisms (The Chameleon Effect; Chartrand & Bargh, ). Other studies also indicated that emotional mimicry (e.g., Hess & Fischer, ), a term describing the imitation of emotion, has been tied closely to the theory of primitive emotional contagion (Hatfield, Bensman, Thornton, & Rapson, ; see also Hatfield et al, ). This mimicry and feedback process may operate at a conscious level, but research has shown that this process is more automatic and unconscious than people think (Chartrand & Lakin, ).…”

Section: A Motivational Perspective On Social Contagionmentioning

confidence: 93%

The Influence of Social Contagion Within Education: A Motivational Perspective

Burgess

Riddell

Fancourt³

et al. 2018

Mind Brain and Education

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This article provides an overview of research on social contagion in the context of education. We highlight the importance of students' social interactions in school, considering contagion between peers and contagion from teachers to students, using a motivation perspective. The framework of contagion is introduced broadly, followed by a focused review on social contagion in school environments, both peer and teacher related. Then we introduce methodology for mapping behavior change to networks that are a direct representation of school cohorts. We argue that these different lines of research can be coherently interpreted from a motivation perspective, suggesting the critical role of motivation in social contagion, in the context of education. We highlight the limited amount of research on positive contagion effects and we call for further investigation into ways in which to increase the contagion of positive, academic behaviors. Finally, the neuroscience behind social contagion, both for the mechanisms and the interactions, is discussed.

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“…Scholars from a variety of disciplines provide voluminous evidence that people do in fact frequently catch one another's emotions (see Hatfield, Bensman, Thornton, & Rapson, 2014;Hatfield, Cacioppo, & Rapson, 1994 for a review of this research). When people mimic expressions of fear, anger, sadness, joy, love, or disgust, they tend to feel not just any emotion (be it positive or negative) but a pale reflection of the specific emotions they have mirrored.…”

Section: Emotional Contagionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Capacity for empathy and emotional contagion in those with psychopathic personalities

2017

Self Cite

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People with psychopathic traits are sometimes adept at recognizing the emotions of others and using this knowledge in anti-social ways. However, data from incarcerated psychopaths suggest that they are incapable of true empathy. In this paper, we describe three studies that link psychopathic personality to emotional contagion and empathy, and we offer suggestions for reconciling the seemingly conflicting data. While most studies of psychopathic personality assess incarcerated respondents, the resulting data may not be generalizable to noncriminals; participants in these studies were recruited from the general population. The research confirms that empathy and emotional contagion are positively correlated and that each is negatively correlated with psychopathy, as expected. Unique to these studies is the finding that, when instructed, those with psychopathic traits can easily "catch" the emotions of others via the steps of the emotional contagion pathway, thus implying their capacity for empathy. However, without instruction, those with psychopathic traits did not automatically catch others' emotions.Keywords: empathy, emotional contagion, psychopath, personality disorder, emotion Interpersona, 2017, Vol. 11(1), 70-91, doi:10.5964/ijpr.v11i1.247 Published ( This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Most people take it for granted that they know exactly what a psychopath is like. TV crime shows (such as Sherlock, Criminal Minds, CSI, and Dexter) are filled with portraits of psychopaths-usually charming, manipulative, and deranged men-who understand enough about people to manipulate them but who are also incapable of empathy or compassion. In fact, the psychopath enjoys their suffering. He is generally a killeroften a sexual psychopath and serial killer (Abbott, 2007). Recent evidence, however, suggests that some individuals with psychopathic personalities are capable of leading successful lives, in an apparent contradiction to the common widespread stereotype (Hall & Benning, 2007;Lilienfeld, Watts, & Smith, 2015). Assessing the Psychopathic PersonalityAlthough descriptions of psychopathic personalities can be found in the commentaries of the ancients, in recent Soon, clinicians, criminologists, and researchers were attempting to develop scales to identify the psychopathic personality. However, it is Robert Hare's (1980) Psychopathy Checklists (PCLs) that are generally considered to be the gold standards in assessing psychopathic characteristics. The PCL family of instruments has evolved over time for use with many populations in many contexts. They were the first instruments to include both personality and behavioral indicators of psychopathy. They focus on four personality conditions: narcissistic personality disorder, borderline personality disorder, antisocial personality ...

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New Perspectives on Emotional Contagion: A Review of Classic and Recent Research on Facial Mimicry and Contagion

Cited by 183 publications

References 94 publications

Enjoying working and learning in vocational education: a multilevel investigation of emotional crossover and contextual moderators

Enjoying working and learning in vocational education: a multilevel investigation of emotional crossover and contextual moderators

The Influence of Social Contagion Within Education: A Motivational Perspective

Capacity for empathy and emotional contagion in those with psychopathic personalities

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