Glossary // Glossary term Empirical
Emotional contagion
The tendency for emotions expressed by one person to be taken up by others, often without deliberate intent or awareness. It is well documented in face-to-face laboratory settings; in a large experiment on Facebook, reducing positive posts in users' feeds was followed by fewer positive and more negative posts, and the reverse for negative posts. The effects in that study were very small, the outcome was the language of posts rather than felt emotion, and the study drew wide criticism over informed consent. What moving in time with others does to people: evidence that synchrony increases affiliation and cooperation, that group dance raises pain thresholds, and that musical peaks engage the brain's reward system. Evidence on crying, social sharing of emotion, talking about distressing experiences and affect labelling shows that expression helps through social support, meaning and regulation rather than through discharge itself. The works the definition rests on, with the level of evidence each was appraised at. (2014). Experimental evidence of massive-scale emotional contagion through social networks. doi:10.1073/pnas.1320040111 Supports the claim that reducing emotional expressions in the feed was followed by corresponding changes in the emotional language of users' own posts. Effects were very small, the outcome was word use rather than felt emotion, and the study was criticised for lacking informed consent.Where the site uses it
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