The effect of expectations on susceptibility to emotional contagion

Abstract

The notion that we tend to see that which we expect to see is a well-established phenomenon. It is also evident that people tend to "catch" the emotions of others through the process of emotional contagion (EC). Yet to be explored, however, is whether one's expectations influence one's susceptibility to emotional contagion. To answer this question, college students were led to expect that they would be viewing happy or sad target faces, or they were given no information at all. Participants were then shown short videos of either happy or sad target faces. Finally, subjects were asked a series of self-report questions to determine their emotional states. It was predicted that participant expectations would either augment or attenuate susceptibility to emotional contagion depending upon whether targets' expressions were congruent with or contrary to participant expectations, respectively.