Emotional contagion is a form of social contagion that involves the spontaneous spread of emotions and related behaviors.[1][2] Such emotional convergence can happen from one person to another, or in a larger group. Emotions can be shared across individuals in many ways, both implicitly or explicitly. For instance, conscious reasoning, analysis, and imagination have all been found to contribute to the phenomenon.[3] The behaviour has been found in humans, other primates, dogs,[4] and chickens.[5]
Emotional contagion is important to personal relationships because it fosters emotional synchrony between individuals. A broader definition of the phenomenon suggested by Schoenewolf is "a process in which a person or group influences the emotions or behavior of another person or group through the conscious or unconscious induction of emotion states and behavioral attitudes."[6] One view developed by Elaine Hatfield, et al., is that this can be done through automatic mimicry and synchronization of one's expressions, vocalizations, postures, and movements with those of another person.[3] When people unconsciously mirror their companions' expressions of emotion, they come to feel reflections of those companions' emotions.[3]
In a 1993 paper, Psychologists Elaine Hatfield, John Cacioppo, and Richard Rapson define emotional contagion as "the tendency to automatically mimic and synchronize expressions, vocalizations, postures, and movements with those of another person's [sic] and, consequently, to converge emotionally".[3]: 96
Hatfield, et al., theorize emotional contagion as a two-step process: First, we imitate people (e.g., if someone smiles at you, you smile back). Second, our own emotional experiences change based on the non-verbal signals of emotion that we give off. For example, smiling makes one feel happier, and frowning makes one feel worse.[3] Mimicry seems to be one foundation of emotional movement between people.
Emotional contagion and empathy share similar characteristics, with the exception of the ability to differentiate between personal and pre-personal experiences, a process known as individuation.[clarification needed] In The Art of Loving (1956), social psychologist Erich Fromm explores these differences, suggesting that autonomy is necessary for empathy, which is not found in emotional contagion.[example needed][7]
Emotional contagion refers to a phenomenon of an automatic adoption of an emotional state of another person.
This theory is based on emotional contagion, the idea that affective states can be transferred during social interaction, since humans can use emotional contagion to communicate feelings and emotions in conscious and unconscious ways.