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Emotional Contagion Literature Review

Jesse Keating

Prof. Coleman-Walsh

CO 200: Interpersonal Communication

May 3, 2016
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In everyday life, one is subjected to a myriad of people, all with different perspectives,

motivations and desires. With these differences come different attitudes, which ultimately affect

the conversation we have with the other interactants. So, what happens when you encounter a

person who is overly optimistic and smiles continuously during the conversation? One would

assert that you are autonomous and dictate your own emotions, stating that the other interactant

does not have any influence on you. According to the concept of emotional contagion, that is

definitely not the case. An emotional contagion is simply the emotions we pass from one person

to another. This contagion goes through a three step process: 1. You perceive an emotional

expression of another. 2. You mimic this emotional expression, perhaps unconsciously. 3.The

feedback you get from expressing the emotion creates in you a replication of the other persons

feelings. (Devito 2007)

Humans are prone to this three step process, we replicate or invoke others emotional

faces and appeals in such minute ways, it is often hard to be aware of such a thing. Looking out

in the world, there are two specific venues that are often discussed when it comes to research

about emotional contagions by scholars; 1. Social media contagions, and 2. Emotional

contagions in the workplace. Each have their own intricacies, but perfectly showcase the subtle

force it drives in everyday interpersonal communication. Emotional contagions from the other

interactants we are exposed to affect our perspective and emotions we feel.

To first apply this concept to outside venues of our everyday lives; it is important to first

start a base level. Mansori Kimura and Ikuo Daibo of Doshisha University, Kyoto, Japan,

published the article, The Study of Emotional Contagion from the Perspective of Interpersonal

Relationships in 2008. Kimura and Daibo conducted a study to look further into emotional

susceptibility between those with different social status and power distance. Each interactant
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would be paired appropriately with one the following; junior, senior, friend, and

acquaintance. To ensure intimacy was achieved between interactions, Kimura and Daibo

delivered a rating scale to each person; this is where intimacy can be isolated and looked at

further within each interpersonal communication.

What was found was that the emotions of happiness were considered the most prevalent

within the context of the interactant disclosing happy aspects. The same could be found within

the opposite context of sadness, it being contagious. The study then goes into detail about which

interactants within the relationships experience sadness and happiness; and which interactants

expressed it. An interesting finding from this article was that, While the correlations between

individual differences in emotional susceptibility and the degrees of emotional contagion were

significant in the senior, junior, and acquaintance condition. (Kimora & Daibo 38) It was later

asserted that friendships wheeled the most intimacy and possess the most egalitarian distance of

social status. This study of emotional contagion, in respect to interpersonal communication,

makes it possible according to Kimura and Daibo, to reveal how emotional contagion

contributes to a social adaptation in everyday life (Kimura and Daibo 41)

Looking into the field of social media, many could attest to one point in their lives, being

emotionally affected by what another person posts. In the 2014 article, Detecting Emotional

Contagion in Massive Social Networks researchers wanted to measure the emotional contagion

of Facebook users posts. The team analyzed the impact of rainfall; how does it affect Facebook

users emotional content in regards to their posts, statuses, and also friends far away.

What was found was that rainfall has a significant effect, suggesting emotional

contagion. Rainfall decreased the amount of positive posts posted and increased the number of

negative posts. Along with that, researchers found that positive posts yielded an additional 95%
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more positive posts amongst the interactants friends. To a lesser extent, the same was found

about what negative posts about rainfall yielded. (Covello 4) This showcases the power of our

posts and its effects on our friends future posts. Another interesting finding was that positive

posts decrease the number of negative posts about rainfall by 95%, while negative posts decrease

the number of positive posts by 95%. They analyzed data across major cities in the United States

and found which cities loathed rainfall, and the effect of their negative posts. New York for

example, was found to be on the negative spectrum when it came to rainfall. The most key

finding was,

We have confirmed here that individual expression of emotions depends

on what others in an individuals social network are expressing. These results

imply that emotions themselves might ripple through social networks to generate

large synchrony that gives rise to clusters of happy and unhappy individuals.

(Covello 5)

This explains two things; the outcry on social media and emotional disclosure. Posts are shared

and spread like wildfire, for better or for worse. The perceived emotional value and deliverance

from each post immediately affects the perceptibility of the social media users friends and

global community. Since face-to-face engagement is lost within this internet realm, it is the

disclosure that serves as an alternative to facial adaptations to another persons message. This

new internet face is developed by what we share, even our feelings about rainfall, negative or

positive.

In Ferrara and Yangs 2015 article, Measuring Emotional Contagion in Social Media they

looked to another social media outlet to isolate the effects of emotional contagion online. The

two researched, on a smaller level than the last study, the emotional contagion susceptibility of
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users on Twitter. According to this article, Reading a twitter timeline generates 64 percent more

activity in the parts of the brain known to be active in emotion than normal Web use; tweeting

and retweeting boost that to 75 percent more than . . Websites Ferrara and Yang referenced a

Facebook study previously reviewed as, too large scale, with data implications that subjected

the findings to scrutiny. Using a random pool of Twitter users, the two looked to find what the

respective users feeds were like, and what were they exposed to (negative or positive).

Interestingly, those who tweet negative tweets were found to be exposed to 4.34% more

negative tweets than positive tweets. This small percentage weighs heavily on the direction of

the emotional undertone of the content being delivered. The same was found when looking at the

exposure of positive tweets and neutral tweets in a respective users feed/timeline. As for

susceptibility of respective users, the emotional contagion was isolated and measured. In their

pool of 3,800 Twitter users, it was found that, . .about 80% of the users have up to 50% of their

tweets affected by emotional contagion, while 20% experience high susceptibility and

demonstrate more than 50% of the content they put suggests the presence the emotional

contagion (Ferrara and Yang 9) What was later asserted by the two researchers were two

different emotion dynamics. One was that the group of users who were more susceptible to

emotional contagion, were more significantly inclined to adopt positive emotion rather than

negative. Two, users that are scarcely susceptible to the emotional contagion happened to adopt

more negative emotions. Ferrara and Yang cap the article by posting the question of whether this

experiment could really get as focused in scope, when looking at the intermingling dynamics of

the emotional contagion and disseminating the user's content between emotion appeals that do

not carry any deep seeded purpose by the user.

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Bridging the gap between online and the workplace, Sigal Barsade, Ph.D., released the

2014 article, Faster than a Speeding Text: Emotional Contagion at Work. Her premise was

finding out how others feelings are influencing our business decisions. She conducted a study in

which business students were divided into small groups for a simulated management practice.

Each respective group had to role-play a department head advocating for an employee to get a

merit increase. Coincidentally, each group played the role of a salary committee; this put the

restrictions of balancing a limited pot of funds. Within each group, Barsade seated an actor to

convey one of the following emotions: cheerful enthusiasm, serene warmth, hostile irritability,

and depressed sluggishness.

The findings correlated with the previous articles I summarized, the more positive the

actor in the group, the more positive the group conducted these conversations. The emotional

contagion achieved its purpose with emotion but also with how business was conducted by each

group. The team member that was an actor dictated the negotiation of funds for the candidate,

their reflection of the groups performance and their reasoning for the allocation of funds.

Barsade briefly discusses how an individual team member can drastically affect the dynamics,

performance and turnover rate of a team, company or organization. This perfectly showcases the

paramount nature of hiring the right individual because of the emotional contagion effect.

Taking a micro approach to observing the job performance of the employee, S. Douglas

Pugh published, Service with a Smile: Emotional Contagion in the Service Encounter in 2001.

Pugh wanted to look further into emotional labor, jobs that require face-to-face interaction with

the public and the requirement of the employee to produce an emotional state in another person.

Using these characteristic, he and some of his researchers encoded the emotional responses to the
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public by bank tellers. Bank tellers are the antithesis of the employees that deliver emotional

labor.

What was found by this study was that the bank tellers were most definitely affected by the

customer response to their customer service. Along with that, the context of the transaction

between the customer and the bank teller were affected by the context,

. . transaction busyness was negatively related to displayed emotions. Busyness

also was found to have a direct, negative impact on service quality judgments,

suggesting that the stress created by busy environments may have negative

implication for both customers and employees. (Pugh 1024)

The rest of the results detailed the consequential effects of this emotional contagion on

organizations. This relates back to the Barsade article, except it isolates these very instance in

which a solution or remedy could be posited. Emotions are powerful tools that an organization

possess, negatively or positively affecting their revenue.

With all of this in mind, one can see how the emotional contagion could alter two prominent

venues of our lives. Its pervasiveness and nearly invisible transmission of emotions can infiltrate

our very interpersonal relationships being, friends, acquaintances, seniors, and juniors. (Kimura

and Daibo) Each relationships level of intimacy dictates the level of positive and negative

emotion conveyed between the two participating this interpersonal relationship. Along with that

our social distinctions or status dictate the power distance and emotional reciprocity of the

contagion.

Connecting it to the online world, both articles discussed previously, detailing the

emotional contagion in social media assert qualitative data that could be applied to the real

world. The more we are susceptible to the emotional contagion, the more positive we are going
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to be. It is these messages, being it tweets or retweets, leave a higher impression on us; just as if

it were a smile or frown. The content within the statuses give the other users an idea as to what

the senders internet or web face is. Carrying on the trend, these two articles found that in fact we

are altered by what others post, what they disclose.

In regards to the workplace, the latter two articles go into detail about how the emotional

contagion gives us insight into how a job candidates emotional face and competence can

designate negative or positive effects for the organization they represent. The emotional

contagion between the customer and employee plays a huge roll in the perception, execution, and

a measuring stick of success of the organization. Through these articles I learned that emotional

contagions are so prevalent and yet so misunderstood by the common public. I wonder if society

were to be more aware of emotional contagions, would we gain a strengthened sense of

empathy.
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References

Barsdale, S. (2014, October 15). Faster than a Speeding Text: "Emotional Contagion" at Work.
Retrieved May 01, 2016, from https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-science-
work/201410/faster-speeding-text-emotional-contagion-work

Coviello, L., Sohn, Y., Kramer, A. D., Marlow, C., Franceschetti, M., Christakis, N. A., &
Fowler, J. H. (2014). Detecting Emotional Contagion in Massive Social Networks. PLoS ONE,
9(3), 1-6. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0090315

DeVito, J. A. (2007). The interpersonal communication book (14th ed.). New York: Pearson.

Ferrara, E., & Yang, Z. (2015). Measuring Emotional Contagion in Social Media. PLoS
ONE,10(11), 1-14. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0142390

Kimura, M., & Daub, I. (2008). The study of emotional contagion from the perspective of
interpersonal relationships. Social Behavior and Personality: An International Journal, 36(1), 27-
42. Retrieved March 20, 2016.

Pugh, S. (2001). Service with a Smile: Emotional Contagion in the Service Encounter. Academy
of Management Journal, 44(5), 1018-1027. Retrieved March 22, 2016.