Perceived similarity and emotional contagion
Date
1994
Authors
Contributor
Advisor
Department
Instructor
Depositor
Speaker
Researcher
Consultant
Interviewer
Narrator
Transcriber
Annotator
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of Hawaii at Manoa
Volume
Number/Issue
Starting Page
Ending Page
Alternative Title
Abstract
Emotional contagion is the tendency to experience and/or express the emotions of another person (Hatfield, Cacioppo, & Rapson, 1992). In this study, emotional contagion was investigated in regard to perceived similarity/attraction to a stranger and personal susceptibility to contagion. Eighty-seven University of Hawaii students completed attitude questionnaires and the Emotional Contagion Scale (Orimoto & Hatfield, in press). Following random assignment to three groups, similar and dissimilar subjects viewed fake attitude questionnaires (very similar or very dissimilar to their own reported attitudes) attributed to a potential partner. Control subjects received no information about the partner's attitudes. Subjects were taped while viewing happy and sad videotapes of the assumed partner, produced by Hsee, et al. (1991). For both videotapes, subjects' facial expression of emotion was rated by four judges, and subjects rated their own experience of emotion. Both subjects and judges used a scale adapted from the Borg ratio scale (1982). Attention to content and facial mimicry also were investigated to determine the sources of emotional contagion in this situation. Consistent with Byrne's model (1971) of similarity/attraction, perceived attitudinal similarity had a positive relationship to attraction across experimental groups. Contagion of happiness (self-reports of emotion and judges' ratings of facial expression) varied significantly and positively with perceived similarity and subsequent attraction; this relationship was not supported for the sad video. Personal susceptibility to contagion correlated significantly and positively with subjects' reports of both happy and sad emotion. Significant gender differences were found, with females reporting both more susceptibility to contagion and more actual contagion. Measures of attention to content and mimicry failed to predict contagion in this study. The results lend support to theories which assume differential processing of positive and negative emotion. They also add to previous findings of gender differences in regard to both catching and transmitting emotion.
Description
Keywords
Citation
Extent
Format
Geographic Location
Time Period
Related To
Theses for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (University of Hawaii at Manoa). Psychology; no. 3023
Related To (URI)
Table of Contents
Rights
All UHM dissertations and theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission from the copyright owner.
Rights Holder
Local Contexts
Collections
Email libraryada-l@lists.hawaii.edu if you need this content in ADA-compliant format.