Fig. 10.1 shows the interpersonal and intraindividual processes involved in primitive emotional contagion and social appraisal. For illustrative purposes, let us return to the events described in the quotation at the start of this chapter. Th e “situation” here is the fact that the airplane starts to shake rather violently. Th e “sender” is the fl ight attendant who (allegedly) panicked. Th e “perceiver” is any of the passengers. Th e fi gure illustrates how primitive emotional contagion and social appraisal conceptualize the infl uence of the sender’s emotion on the perceiver’s emotion, with respect to: (1) how they appraise a situ- ation (e.g., whether they perceive the shaking of the plane as threatening), (2) how they feel about it (e.g., whether they experience fear), and (3) what emotions they express in response to it (e.g., whether they scream). Both perspectives allow for eff ects on all three components of the emotion syndrome (i.e., cognitive appraisals, feelings, and emotional expressions). Where they diff er is with respect to which of the components is directly subject to interpersonal processes and which other components are aff ected in subsequent
intrapersonal processes.
Primitive emotional contagion theory proposes what we label a feature-driven link between one person’s emotional expressions and another person’s felt emotions. Th e con- text in which an expression is shown does not play an immediate role in this account.
Th e proposed convergence process operates as follows: When a sender expresses an emo- tion, the perceiver automatically mimics the expression shown by the sender (path 2 in Fig. 10.1; Chartrand & Bargh, 1999; Dimberg, Th unberg, & Elmehed, 2000). Th us, the emotional component that is directly subject to interpersonal infl uence is motor expres- sion (Scherer, 2005). Second, by way of intrapersonal automatic feedback mechanisms (see Manstead, 1988; Matsumoto, 1987, for reviews), the perceiver’s expressions have a congruent eff ect on his or her feelings (path 3 in Fig. 10.1). For example, a passenger who screams during turbulence should experience more intense fear simply because the facial and vocal fear expression will aff ect his or her feelings by way of internal feedback pro- cesses. Although there is good evidence for the resulting emotional convergence between sender and perceiver in both the short term (Hess & Blairy, 2001; Lundqvist & Dimberg, 1995) and the long term (Anderson, Keltner, & John, 2003), there is only one study show- ing the two intermediate steps in a mediation model for expressions and feelings of amuse- ment (Bruder, Dosmukhambetova, Nerb, & Manstead, 2012b). Other attempts to observe
PRIMITIVE EMOTIONAL CONTAGION AND SOCIAL APPRAISAL THEORY 143
the full mediational sequence were unsuccessful (Blairy, Herrera, & Hess, 1999; Hess &
Blairy, 2001; Lishner, Cooter, & Zald, 2008; van der Schalk et al., 2011). Th us, although there is evidence that (1) people automatically mimic others’ emotional expressions (but see Hess & Fischer, 2012), and (2) that they converge in their feelings, it is unclear whether the former is a necessary or even suffi cient condition for the latter.
Embodied simulation processes that are not based on the perceiver’s overt expres- sions allow for a more direct link between senders’ expressions and perceivers’ feelings (e.g., Neumann & Strack, 2000; Niedenthal, Barsalou, Winkielman, Krauth-Gruber, &
Ric, 2005). Here embodied simulation takes the place of overt mimicry (Niedenthal, Mermillod, Maringer, & Hess, 2010). Such accounts hold that the cortical areas involved in motor expression play a critical role in representing others’ emotional expressions.
Regardless of whether interpersonal infl uence processes directly aff ect perceivers’ emo- tional expressions through mimicry or are better conceptualized as aff ecting embodied representations in the cortex, neither account involves information about the situation that led the sender to express emotions in the fi rst place. Although some accounts of embodied simulation do allow for the integration of conceptual knowledge and expecta- tions (Niedenthal et al., 2010), such infl uences appear to depend on cognitive appraisals.
Expression Sender
Expression
Situation Appraisal
Feeling
Perceiver
7
2
4
1 5
6 3
Fig. 10.1 Two individuals (sender and perceiver) simultaneously face a potentially
emotion-eliciting situation. The perceiver engages in individual cognitive appraisal of the situation (path 1); in addition, the sender’s expressions affect the perceiver via two paths: (a) a primitive emotional contagion path , consisting of mimicry (path 2) and subsequent convergence in experienced feelings (path 3); and (b) a social appraisal path , consisting of an integration of the sender’s appraisals into the perceiver’s appraisals (path 4), with subsequent effects on feelings (path 5) and expressions (path 6). The expressions of the perceiver allow for an iterative and bi-directional process to emerge (path 7). For the sake of simplicity, the sender’s appraisal and feeling are not depicted.
To integrate conceptual knowledge and expectations one needs to understand, at least at a basic level, the nature of the situation in which others’ expressions are produced and the implications of the situation for oneself.
Social appraisal theory off ers an account of interpersonal emotional infl uence in which the integration of others’ emotions and the context in which they are expressed plays a central role. Emotional expressions are regarded as meaningful signals that provide important information about the environment; social appraisal theory therefore proposes a meaning-driven account of the eff ect of emotional expressions. Social appraisal is the process of integrating the information gleaned from others’ emotional expression into one’s own evaluation of a situation. Th ereby, the “behaviors, thoughts, or feelings of one or more other persons in the emotional situation are appraised in addition to the appraisal of the event per se” (Manstead & Fischer, 2001, p. 222). 2 Th e logic of this approach is as follows.
First, emotions emerge on the basis of an individual’s evaluation of his or her environ- ment. Th is is the central proposition of cognitive appraisal theories of emotion (see Clore &
Ortony, 2008; Ellsworth & Scherer, 2003, for reviews). Take the turbulence example: those who believe that the plane can easily withstand the turbulence should experience less fear than those who doubt the plane’s capacity to do so. Th us the same situation can elicit dif- ferent degrees of one emotion (or even diff erent emotions, such as thrill or excitement, rather than fear), depending on how individuals interpret their circumstances. Path 1 in Fig. 10.1 represents the perceiver individually appraising a situation.
Second, in many cases, the sender will engage in parallel individual appraisal pro- cesses. Th is is where social appraisal comes into play: path 4 in Fig. 10.1 illustrates the process of the perceiver identifying the sender’s appraisals and integrating them with his or her own evaluation of the situation. At the process level, there are two theoretically plausible ways to get to know the appraisals of another person. First, to the extent that emotional expressions relate to felt emotions (Buck, 1994), such expressions may allow perceivers to infer the emotional state of the sender. Th en, an intuitive understanding of how emotions relate to appraisals may allow perceivers to attribute specifi c appraisals to senders. Second, perceivers may be able to directly infer appraisals from expressive fea- tures. Consistent with the fi rst of these two pathways, people are indeed able to identify emotional states from others’ expressions (Elfenbein & Ambady, 2002) and they have some understanding concerning the association between appraisals and felt emotions (Ellsworth & Scherer, 2003). Consistent with the second proposed pathway, Scherer and Grandjean (2008) found that appraisal labels and emotion labels are similarly readily used
2 In addition to this form of social appraisal (which we label situation-oriented social appraisal ), Manstead
and Fischer (2001) also described another social appraisal process (which we label relationship-oriented social appraisal ). In the latter process, someone experiencing an emotion may anticipate how others will be aff ected by and react to one’s expression of that emotion. Th is may lead to a modifi cation of the expression in order, for example, to manage the impression given to others, or to adhere to social norms (see Evers, Fischer, Rodriguez Mosquera, & Manstead, 2005).
PRIMITIVE EMOTIONAL CONTAGION AND SOCIAL APPRAISAL THEORY 145
to judge emotional faces. Rashotte (2002) and Kaiser and Wehrle (2001) demonstrated that elementary (non-emotional) facial movements can carry appraisal information.
Furthermore, Bruder and colleagues (2012b) showed that people are able to attribute spe- cifi c appraisals to amused versus disgusted faces and that—in a mediation framework—
changes in these attributed appraisals could explain eff ects of others’ expressions on own appraisals. Th ere is no research to date on either of these pathways that can fully exclude the alternative explanation; thus, at this point, both provide reasonable hypotheses as to how perceivers understand senders’ appraisals.
Th e information about others’ appraisals (whichever way it is achieved) then allows perceivers either to re-appraise their own initial evaluation of the situation or to adopt the sender’s appraisals without going through the eff ortful process of appraising the situation for themselves. As Kitayama and Masuda (1995, p. 218) put it, “an individual may experi- ence a certain emotion, not because he or she has managed to arrive at a particular con- fi guration of appraisals through active information processing, but rather because certain appraisals are ‘lit up’ by communications from others.” Once the perceivers’ appraisals have changed, cognitive appraisal theories of emotion predict that this will also result in diff erent feelings about the situation (path 5) and diff erent emotional expressions (path 6).
Finally, when perceivers of others’ expressions communicate their own socially infl u- enced appraisals via their emotional expressions (see path 7 in Fig. 10.1), this may lead to the emergence of “consensual frames” about how to interpret the situation (Fogel, 1993;
Lewis, 1996) and to the generation of collective emotions. Th is is because, in an iterative and bidirectional process, two individuals facing the same situation can simultaneously be senders of their own and perceivers of each other’s emotional expressions. In the tur- bulence example it is likely that the fl ight attendant not only expressed emotions herself, but also perceived fearful reactions on the part of passengers, which may have intensifi ed her own response.
Th us there are two possible pathways to emotional convergence. Th e fi rst, feature-driven account is based on primitive emotional contagion theory and argues that perceivers automatically mimic senders’ expressions, and that these mimicked expressions have a congruent impact on the perceivers’ feelings. Th e second, meaning-driven account is based on social appraisal theory and argues that senders’ expressions contain informa- tion about how to evaluate a situation, and that this infl uences the way perceivers of these expressions appraise the event and feel about it.
In our view these two pathways generally operate in parallel. However, they diff er in one important respect, namely automaticity. Th e emotional contagion sequence is gener- ally assumed to occur automatically. Th is is supported by fi ndings concerning both steps involved in emotional contagion. Mimicry of others’ facial expressions can occur even when stimulus faces are presented suboptimally (i.e., for such brief time periods that there is no conscious access to the expression; Bailey & Henry, 2009; Dimberg et al., 2000;
Rotteveel, De Groot, Geutskens, & Phaf, 2001). Th ese studies also showed that mimicry occurs within few hundreds of milliseconds. Further, people are unable to fully avoid mimicking others’ faces even when told to do so (Dimberg, Th unberg, & Grunedal, 2002).
Th us, there is evidence that mimicry is a fast and effi cient process that is independent of intentions or goals and diffi cult to control. Th e best known study demonstrating auto- maticity in feedback processes, the second step of primitive emotional contagion, is the experiment by Strack, Martin, and Stepper (1988). Th ey showed that even when manipu- lating facial expression in an unobtrusive manner (by holding a pen either between one’s lips or one’s teeth) activation of muscles implicated in smiling led to higher levels of per- ceived funniness in cartoons.
Social appraisal processes are likely to vary more with respect to automaticity.
Perceptions of specifi c emotions can occur effi ciently and outside awareness (Rohr, Degner, & Wentura, 2011) and may lead to specifi c infl uences on appraisal (Yang & Tong, 2010); however, social appraisal can also occur at a less automatic, more intentional and conscious level of processing. Th e passengers in the airplane turbulence situation reported having actively sought out relevant emotional information from others (in particular, the fl ight crew).
Given that the emotional contagion framework has been detailed elsewhere (see Hatfi eld et al., Chapter 8, this volume), the remainder of this chapter will focus on devel- oping the social appraisal account. In particular, we will consider the circumstances under which people are most likely to appraise others’ emotions; whose emotional expressions they are likely to appraise; and when this is likely to result in a convergent or divergent emotional response.