Social Function of Emotional Contagion: History
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Contributor:
Ying Chen
,
Wenfeng Chen
,
Ling Zhang
,
Yanqiu Wei
,
Ping Hu

The way to establish intimate social bonds is usually embedded in daily interactions, especially emotional interaction. Our emotions are often spontaneously influenced by others during an interaction. Researchers have broadly defined the phenomenon of emotion transferring from expressers to observers as “emotional contagion”. Emotional contagion is considered functional, as it facilitates interpersonal understanding, closeness, and coordination. Evidence supporting the social functioning perspective has revealed an association between emotional contagion and the quality of social bonds. 

  • emotional contagion
  • social function
  • reward

1. Introduction

As the 16th-century poet John Donne said, “No man is an island”. We are always in environments in which we connect with others. The motivation to develop social bonds to meet our universal need for belonging is one of the most powerful drivers of human behavior [1][2]. Previous studies have found that being congruent with others’ emotional states can lead to feelings of connectedness [3], indicating that this emotional contagion has a social regulatory function [4]. However, little attention has been paid to the boundary conditions that affect the social functioning of emotional contagion. Factors that affect social behavior may be effective owing to their rewarding nature [5]. 

2. The Social Function of Emotional Contagion

The way to establish intimate social bonds is usually embedded in daily interactions, especially emotional interaction. Our emotions are often spontaneously influenced by others during an interaction. For example, we may feel happy when we observe others smiling happily. Researchers have broadly defined the phenomenon of emotion transferring from expressers to observers as “emotional contagion” [6][7]. Emotional contagion is considered functional, as it facilitates interpersonal understanding, closeness, and coordination [4][8][9][10][11][12][13]. Evidence supporting the social functioning perspective has revealed an association between emotional contagion and the quality of social bonds. Kühn et al. (2011) found that irrespective of emotion, the congruent emotional state of expressers and observers leads to a higher closeness rating [13]. Other findings also suggested that the more contagious response of the observer leads to closer relationships with the expressers [4][14][15][16], and this positive consequence would also occur when expressers evaluate observers [12][17][18]. Therefore, emotional contagion and its contagious responses can serve as social regulators and promote social bonds.

3. Reward Context and Social Functions of Emotional Contagion

The positive consequences of emotional contagion may not occur in all cases, depending on the interactive context. In addition to the type of emotion, researchers have suggested that the context of interactions with outgroup members, higher-status partners, or partners who are not interested in interaction can affect the consequences of contagious responses [19]. Hess (2021) insists that only when the relationship between two interacting people is positive or when they hold a positive attitude toward each other—that is, when there is an affiliative motivation or goal for the interaction—can the contagious response fulfill its social function (leading to closer relations) [20]. This viewpoint is supported by evidence that contagious responses are more likely to manifest in contexts that invite affiliation than in antagonistic contexts [14]. Emotional contagion with unpredictable or non-affiliative members may call for higher consumption of cognitive resources [19][21]. Thus, predictable affiliation may play a crucial role in achieving better social functioning during emotional contagion. However, there is little direct evidence regarding the factors that affect the social regulatory function of emotional contagion.
Importantly, these factors may influence social behavior through their rewarding nature. Researchers have suggested that factors that regulate contagious responses such as liking (like/dislike), competition (cooperation/competition), and group membership (ingroup/outgroup) have reward properties [5][22]. Considering this rewarding nature, it can also affect expressers’ emotions when directly adding reward values to interactive expressers. This was supported by evidence that when neutral faces were previously associated with rewarding outcomes (i.e., rewarding faces), observers had a greater contagious response to the happy expressions of these faces [5][22][23]. This is in line with the social function view of contagious responses [2], which suggests that mimicking responses associated with a higher reward probability may help ensure future returns [10][24][25]. Therefore, it can be inferred that affiliative and predictable rewards may be key contextual factors for the improved functioning of social regulation in emotional contagion. However, little or no attention has been paid to this issue. 
Previous studies have primarily manipulated rewards by forming memories or experiences of rewards (gains or losses) attached to social stimuli (faces), which can alter the reward value of faces, thereby promoting changes in response to facial emotions. However, the influence of previous experience may not necessarily be the cause of subsequent behavioral changes [26], and the association between reward and face was not related to subsequent task performance in these studies. Evidence shows that real-time rewards that appear in dynamic interactions may have different effects from rewards of previously associated memories [27] and that real-time rewards can create a reward context that is in line with the dynamic characteristics of social interaction in daily life [28]. Trilla et al. (2020) attached rewards to neutral faces through real-time selection by participants, which determined the reward outcome of the face [26]. However, their findings regarding the effectiveness of reward outcomes were influenced by memories previously associated with these faces rather than serving as a real-time context for the occurrence of a contagious response. It remains unclear whether and how the context of rewards affects emotional contagion and its promotional effect on social bonds.
Hein et al. (2016) assigned the initiative to receive rewarding outcomes (avoiding electric shocks) to expressers rather than participants through the interactive form of an expresser group helping or not helping participants avoid electric shocks [29]. This is different from situations in which participants earn rewards by playing games on their own, as this is more likely to improve the level of reward interaction between participants and expressers and establish positive connections with expressers [29]. Inspired by their research paradigm, the current study adopts an interactive approach in which expressers play games for participants to obtain reward outcomes and explore the impact of the real-time context of the reward outcome on the social regulatory function of emotional contagion.
In addition, the neural correlates underlying the occurrence of emotional contagion are correlated with the neural mechanisms of reward processing. Previous studies have found that congruent emotional states can enhance the activities of the medial orbitofrontal and ventromedial prefrontal cortices, which are associated with reward processing [13][30]. Moreover, researchers have also indicated that the closeness brought about by interacting with others may also be supported by reward-related brain areas [31][32]. This suggests that emotional contagion and the subsequently established closer relationship are both related to brain activities during reward processing. Hence, when emotional contagion occurs in the interactive context of rewards, the reward system may support the interplay between emotional contagion and the external contextual reward stimuli, thereby promoting changes in emotional contagion and its social regulatory functions. However, the neural correlates underlying emotional contagion and their promoting effect on social relationships remain unclear.
Electroencephalography (EEG) can elucidate the temporal characteristics of brain processing during the effect of reward outcomes on emotional contagion and its promoting effect on social bonds (e.g., closeness). Previous studies have found that the anterior brain activities of early automatic components (EAC, i.e., N1 and N2) are related to emotional arousal and emotional contagion [33]. Moreover, the late positive component (LPC) is linked to the late cognitive top-down process (such as perspective-taking and mentalizing) [33][34][35][36], which exerts top-down regulatory control over contagious responses [16][25][37][38][39]. These findings suggest that N1 or N2 may indicate the occurrence of emotional arousal and emotional contagion when experiencing others’ emotions, while LPC activity is likely to reflect the modulation of this occurrence. However, there is no direct evidence to suggest whether these activities may also play a significant role in the shift of emotional contagion and its impact on social bonds. 

This entry is adapted from the peer-reviewed paper 10.3390/bs13110934

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