How emotions spread: a mathematical model

What is it about?

This study aimed to understand how people's emotions can influence their ability to judge the emotions of others. We had 67 participants watch either an uplifting or upsetting video, and then they rated the emotions they perceived in 10 angry and 10 happy faces. We found that participants who watched the upsetting video were more likely to perceive negative emotions in the angry faces, while those who watched the uplifting video were more likely to perceive positive emotions in the happy faces. This suggests that people's emotions can influence their perception of others' emotions, and that negative emotions may be more easily transmitted than positive ones. We also found that this emotional contagion did not seem to be related to participants' levels of empathy or general emotional contagion as measured by standardized tests. These findings could have implications for understanding how emotions spread in groups and for designing interventions to improve people's ability to accurately perceive and understand others' emotions.

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Photo by Artur Voznenko on Unsplash

Photo by Artur Voznenko on Unsplash

Why is it important?

These findings could have implications for understanding how emotions spread in groups and for designing interventions to improve people's ability to accurately perceive and understand others' emotions.