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EmotionalContagion

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Emotional ContagionElaine Hatfreld, John T. Cacioppo, and Richard L. Rapson

Emotions have ubiquitous effectsin human affairs. Vivian Gornick, inFierce Attachments,^ recounts a typ-ical exchange with her mother. Gor-nick always begins these encounterswith high hopes. "Somehow," de-spite her best intentions, the conver-sations always spiral downward:

Today is promising, tremendously prom-ising

I go to meet my mother. I'm flying.Flying! I want to give her some of thisshiningness bursting in me, siphon intoher my immense happiness at beingalive. Just because she is my oldest inti-mate and at this moment I love every-body, even her.

"Oh, Ma! What a day I've had," Isay.

"Tell me," she says. "Do you havethe rent this month?"

"Ma, listen . . . " I say."That review you wrote for the

Times," she says. "Ifs for sure they'llpay you?"

"Ma, stop it. Let me tell you what I'vebeen feeling," I say.

"Why aren't you wearing somethingwarmer?" she cries. "It's nearly winter."

The space inside begins to shimmer.The walls collapse inward. I feel breath-less. Swallow slowly, I say to myself,slowly. To my mother I say, "You doknow how to say the right thing at theright time. Ifs remarkable, this gift ofyours. It quite takes my breath away."

But she doesn't get it. She doesn'tloiow I'm being ironic. Nor does she

Elaine Hatfield is a Professor ofPsychology and Richard L. Rapsonis a Professor of History at the Uni-versity of Hawaii. John T. Ca-cioppo is a Professor of Psychologyat the Ohio State University. Ad-dress correspondence to ElaineHatfield, 2430 Campus Rd.,Honolulu, HI 96822; BITNET:psych@uhunix; INTERNET:psych@uhunix.uhcc.hawaii.edu.

know she's wiping me out. She doesn'tknow I take her anxiety personally, feelannihilated by her depression. How canshe know this? She doesn't even knowI'm there. Were I to tell her that it's deathto me, her not knowing I'm there, shewould stare at me out of her eyes crowd-ing up with puzzled desolation, thisyoung girl of seventy-seven, and shewould cry angrily, "You don't under-stand! You have never understood!" (pp.103-104)

Gornick is fiercely attached to hermother; shecannot resist "catching"her anxiety and depression.

Recently, we have begun to ex-plore this process of emotional con-tagion. People seem to be fullyaware that consciotis assessmentscan provide a great deal of informa-tion about other people. They seemto be less aware that they can gaineven more information by focusingin now and then on their ovi/n emo-tional reactions during those socialencounters. As people noncon-sciously and automatically mimictheir companions' fleeting expres-sions of emotion, they often come tofeel pale reflections of their partners'feelings. By attending to this streamof tiny moment-to-moment reac-tions, people can and do "feel them-selves into" the emotional land-scapes inhabited by their partners.

We begin by defining emotionalcontagion and then discuss severalmechanisms that we believe mightaccount for this phenomenon. Weprovide evidence that people tend tomimic the facial expressions, vocalexpressions, postures, and instru-mental behaviors of people aroundthem, and thereby to "catch" others'emotions as a consequence of suchfacial, vocal, and postural feedback.We review the evidence from a va-riety of disciplines that such primi-tive emotional contagion exists.

Emotional contagion may well beimportant in personal relationshipsbecause it fosters behavioral syn-chrony and the moment-to-momenttracking of other people's feelingseven when individuals are not ex-plicitly attending to this Information.

Theorists disagree as to what con-stitutes an emotion family. Most,however, probably would agree thatemotional "packages" comprisemany components—including con-scious awareness; facial, vocal, andpostural expression; neurophysio-logical and autonomic nervous sys-tem (ANS) activity; and instrumentalbehaviors."^ Because the brain inte-grates the emotional information itreceives, each of the emotionalcomponents acts on and is actedupon by the others.

As early as 1759, the economicphilosopher Adam Smith observedthat as people imagine themselves inanother person's situation, they dis-play "motor mimicry." Later, The-odor Lipps suggested that consciousempathy is due to the unlearned mo-tor mimicry of another person's ex-pressions of affect. Today, however,developmental theorists make cleardistinctions between the process inwhich we are interested—primitiveempathy or emotional contagion—and the more cognitive, sophisti-cated, and "socially beneficial" pro-cesses of empathy and sympathy.^

We"* define emotional contagionas

the tendency to automatically mimicand synchronize expressions, vocaliza-tions, postures, and movements withthose of another person's and, conse-quently, to converge emotionally, (pp.153-154)

iPOSSIBLE MECHAMSMS OFEMOTIONAL CONTAGIONS

Theoretically, emotions can becaught in several ways. Early inves-

Published by Cambridge University Press

tigators proposed tbat conscious rea-soning, analysis, and imaginationaccounted for tbe phenomenon. Forexample, Adam Smith^ observed:

Tbougb our brotber is upon tbe rack . . .by tbe imagination we place ourselves inbis situation, we conceive ourselves en-during all the same torments, we enter asit were into bis body, and become insome measure the same person witbbim, and thence form some idea of bissensations, and even feel sometbingwbicb, tbougb weaker in degree, is notaltogetber unlike tbem. (p. 9)

However, some forms of primitiveemotional contagion are far moresubtle, automatic, and ubiquitoustban previous tbeorists have sup-posed.^ Evidence is beginning to ac-crue, for instance, in support of thefollowing propositions.

Mimicry

PROPOSITION 1. In conversation,people automatically and continu-ously mimic and synchronize theirmovements with the facial expres-sions, voices, pastures, movements,and instrumental behaviors of otherpeople.

Scientists and writers have longobserved that people tend to mimicthe emotional expressions of others.As Adam Smith^ observed: "Whenwe see a stroke aimed, and justready to fall upon the leg or arm ofanother person, we naturally shrinkand draw back on our leg or ourown arm" (p. 4), Smith felt that suchimitation was "almost a reflex."Since the 1700s, researchers havecollected considerable evidencethat people do tend to imitate others'emotional expressions.

Social psychophysiologists, forexample, have found that facialmimicry is at times almost instanta-neous; people seem to be able totrack the most subtle of moment-to-moment changes. Such investiga-tions have shown that people's emo-tional experiences and facial

expressions (as measured by electro-myographrc, EMG, procedures) tendto reflect at least rudimentary fea-tures ofthe changes in emotional ex-pression of the people they observe.This motor mimicry is often so subtlethat it produces no observablechanges in facial expression. For ex-ample, Ulf Dimberg^ studied col-lege students at the University ofUppsala, Sweden, measuring theirfacial EMG activity as they looked atpeople displaying happy and angryfacial expressions. He found thathappy and angry faces evoked verydifferent EMG response patterns.Specifically, when subjects ob-served happy facial expressions,they showed increased muscular ac-tivity over the zygomat/cus major(cheek) muscle region. When theyobserved angry facial expressions,they showed increased muscular ac-tivity over the corrugator supercilii(brow) muscle region. Research hasalso shown that subjects sometimesovertly mirror other people's facialexpressions. Infants begin to mimicfacial expressions of emotion shortlyafter birth and continue to do sothroughout their lifetimes.^

People also mimic and synchro-nize vocal utterances. Different peo-ple prefer different interaction tem-pos. When partners interact, ifthings are to go well, their speechcycles must become mutually en-trained. There is a good deal of evi-dence in controlled interview set-tings supporting the existence ofinterspeaker Influence on utterancedurations, speech rate, and latenciesof response.^ Individuals have alsobeen found to mimic and synchro-nize with the postures and move-ments of other people.^

People are probably not able con-sciously to mimic other people veryeffectively: The process Is simply toocomplex and too fast. For example,it took even the lightning-fastMuhammad Ali a minimum of190 ms to detect a light and 40 msmore to throw a punch in response.^William Condon and W.D. Og-

ston,^ however, found that collegestudents could synchronize theirmovements within 21 ms (the timeof one picture frame). Mark Davis^argued that microsynchrony is medi-ated by brain structures at multiplelevels of the neuraxis and is either"something you've got or somethingyou don't"; there is no way that onecan deliberately " d o " it. Peoplewho try consciously to mirror others,he speculated, are doomed to lookphony.

Thus, there is considerable evi-dence that (a) people are capable ofmimicking and synchronizing withtheir companions' faces, vocal pro-ductions, postures, and movementswith startling rapidity, and (b) theyare capable of automatically mim-icking and synchronizing with a star-tling number of emotional character-istics at a single instant.^

Feedback

PROPOSITION 2. Subjective emo-tional experience is affected, mo-ment to moment, by the activationof and feedback from facial, vocal,postural, and movement mimicry.

Theoretically, emotional experi-ences are influenced by the centralnervous system commands that di-rect such mimicry and synchrony inthe first place; the afferent feedbackfrom such facial, verbal, or posturalmimicry and synchrony; or con-scious self-perception processes,wherein individuals make infer-ences about their own emotionalstates on the basis of their own ex-pressive behavior. Given the func-tional redundancy that exists acrosslevels ofthe neuraxis, alt three pro-cesses may operate to ensure thatemotional experience is shaped byfacial, vocal, and postural mimicryand expression. Thus, research isneeded to determine which of thesedistinctive processes subserves emo-tional experience and contagion or,perhaps more likely, under whatconditions each underlies emotional

Copyright @ 1993 American Psychological Society

experience and emotional conta-gion.

Darwin'^ argued that emotionalexperience should be profoundly af-fected by feedback from the facialmuscles:

The free expression by outward signs ofan emotion intensifies it. On the otherhand, the repression, as far as is possibleof all outward signs softens our emo-tions. He who gives way to violent ges-tures will increase rage; he who does notcontrol the signs of fear will experiencefear in a greater degree; and he who re-mains passive when overwhelmed withgrief loses his best chance of recoveringelasticity of mind. (p. 365)

Recent reviews of the literature onfacial feedback show that emotionsare tempered to some extent by fa-cial feedback.^ What remains un-clear are how important such feed-back is (is it necessary, sufficient, ormerely a small part of emotional ex-perience?) and exactly how the twoare linked. Researchers have testedthe facial feedback hypothesis usingthree different strategies to inducesubjects to adopt emotional facialexpressions. Sometimes, researcherssimply ask subjects to exaggerate orto try to hide any emotional reac-tions they might have. Sometimes,they try to "tr ick" subjects intoadopting various facial expressions.Sometimes, they try to arrangethings so subjects will unconsciouslymimic the emotional facial expres-sions of others. In all three types ofexperiments, the emotional experi-ences of subjects tend to be affectedby the facial expressions theyadopt.^

For example, in a classic experi-ment, iames Laird^ told subjects thathe was interested in studying the ac-tion of facial muscles. The experi-mental room contained apparatusdesigned to convince anyone thatcomplicated multichannel record-ings of facial muscle activity wereabout to be made. Silver cup elec-trodes were attached to the subjects'

faces between their eyebrows, at thecorners of their mouths, and at thecorners of their jaws. These elec-trodes were connected via an im-pressive tangle of strings and wiresto electronic apparatus (which, infact, served no function at all). Theexperimenter then proceeded sur-reptitiously to arrange the faces ofthe subjects into emotional expres-sions. Laird found that emotional at-tributions were shaped, in part, bychanges in the facial musculature.Subjects in the "frown" conditionwere less happy and more angrythan those In the "smile" condition.The subjects' comments give someidea of how this process worked.One man said, with a kind of puz-zlement:

When my jaw was clenched and mybrows down, I tried not to be angry but itjust fit the position. I'm not in any angrymood but I found my thoughts wander-ing to things that made me angry, whichis sort of silly I guess. I knew I was in anexperiment and knew I had no reason tofeel that way, but I just lost control, (p.480)

The link between emotion and fa-cial expression can be quite spe-cific.^ When people produced facia!expressions of fear, anger, sadness,or disgust, they were likely to feelthe emotion associated with thosespecific expressions.

Furthermore, Paul Ekman and hiscolleagues^*^ have argued that bothemotional experience and ANS ac-tivity are affected by facial feedback.They asked people to produce sixemotions—surprise, disgust, sad-ness, anger, fear, and happiness^—either by reliving times when theyhad experienced such emotions orby arranging their facial muscles inappropriate poses. The investigatorsfound that the act of reliving emo-tional experiences or flexing facialmuscles into characteristic emo-tional expressions produced effectson the ANS that would normally ac-company such emotions. Thus, fa-

cia! expressions seem to be capableof generating appropriate ANSarousal.

Vocal feedback can also influ-ence emotional experience. Com-munications researchers have docu-mented that emotions are linkedwith specific patterns of intonation,voice qua!ity, rhythm, and pausing.(For example, Klaus Scherer̂ ^ foundthat when people are happy, theyproduce sounds with sma!! amp!i-tude variation, !arge pitch variation,fast tempo , a sharp sound enve!ope,and few harmonics.) In one experi-ment, we required subjects to repro-duce one of six sound patterns wesaid were randomly generated. Ac-tually, five of the tapes were de-signed to possess the sound charac-teristics associated with joy, love,anger, fear, and sadness; there wasalso a neutra! tape. We found evi-dence that the emotions of the sub-jects were affected by feedback fromtheir vocal productions.

Finally, there is evidence suggest-ing that emotions are shaped byfeedback from posture and move-ment.^ Interestingly enough, Kon-stantin Stanislavski,^ a theorist oftheater, noticed the connection be-tween posture and performance. Heargued:

Emotional memory stores our past expe-riences; to relive them, actors must exe-cute indispensable, logical physical ac-tions in the given circumstances. Thereare as many nuances of emotions asthere are physical actions, (pp, 52-53)

Stanis!avski proposed people mayre!ive emotions anytime they engagein a variety of sma!! actions thatwere once associated with theseemotions. Whether or not Stanis-lavski was correct, an array of evi-dence supports the contention thatsubjective emotional experience isaffected, moment to moment, by theactivation of and feedback from fa-cial, vocal, postural, and movementmimicry.

Published by Cambridge University Press

CURRENT DItlECTlONS IN PSYCHOLOGICAL SCItNCE^

Contagion

PROPOSITION 3. Consequently,people tend, from moment to mo-ment, to "catch" other people'semotions.

Finally, evidence from animal re-searchers, developmentalists (inter-ested in emotional contagion, em-pathy, and sympathy), clinicalresearchers (exploring transferenceand countertransference and the im-pact that anxious, depressed, andangry people have on others), socialpsychologists and sociologists, and(most recently) historians suggeststhat people do indeed often catchone another's emotions.^

CONCLUSIONS

In this review, we confront a par-adox. People seem to be capable ofmimicking other people's facial, vo-cal, and postural expressions withstunning rapidity. As a conse-quence, they are able to feel them-selves into those other emotionallives to a surprising extent. And yet,puzzlingly, they seem oblivious tothe importance of mimicry and syn-chrony in social encounters. Theyseem unaware of how swiftly andhow completely they are able totrack the expressive behaviors andemotions of others.

What are some implications ofsuch findings? The research on con-

tagion underscores the fact that peo-ple use multiple means to gain infor-mation about others' emotionalstates: Conscious analytic skills canhelp people figure out what makesother people "tick," but careful at-tention to the emotions experiencedin the company of others may wellprovide an extra edge into feelingthe emotional states of others. Infact, there is evidence that both whatpeople think and what they feel mayprovide valuable, and different, in-formation about others. In onestudy," for example, we found thatpeople's conscious assessments ofwhat others "must be" feeling wereheavily influenced by what the oth-ers said. People's own emotions,however, were more influenced bythe others' nonverbal clues as towhat they were really feeling.

Awareness of the existence ofemotional contagion may prove use-ful in understanding and perhaps ad-vancing various areas of interper-sonal communication—betweenlovers, between teachers and stu-dents, between parents and chil-dren, between therapists (or doctorsor lawyers) and clients, betweenlabor or international negotiators,between heads of state. Such under-standing may help increase under-standing of group behaviors thathave shaped history, whether theybe Adolf Hitler fanning hatred to hislisteners, Martin Luther King spread-ing a message of love, or the ways inwhich crowds behave. And they

may even tell something about theawesome contemporary power ofcelebrityhood and ofthe mass mediaas these agencies of large-scale emo-tional and cognitive contagion con-tinue to expand their capacities todefine reality for billions of people.

Notes

1. V. Gornick, Fierce Attachmer)ts (Simon &Schuster, New York, 1987).

2. K.W. Fischer, P.R. Shaver, and P. Carno-chan. How emotions develop and how they orga-nize development, Cognit/on ar>d Emotion, 4, 8 1 -12711990); N.L, Stein and K. Oatley, Special issue:Basic emotions. Cognition and Emotion, 6, 161-319(1992),

3. N. Eisenberg and J. Strayer, Empathy and itsDevelopment (Cambridge University Press, Cam-bridge, England, 1987),

4. E. Hatfield, J.T. Cacioppo, and R.L. Rapson,Primitive emotional contagion, in Review ol Person-ality and Social Psychology: Vol. 14. Emotions andSocial Behavior, M.S. Clark, Ed. (Sage, NewburyPark, CA, 1992).

5. A. Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentimer}ts(Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1976) (Original workpublished 1759).

6. E. Hatfield, J,T. Cacioppo, and R.L. Rapson,Emotional Contagion (Cambridge University Press,Cambridge, England, 1993).

7. C. Darwin. The Expression ofthe Emotions inMan and Animals (University of Chicago Press. Chi-cago, 1965) (Original work published 1872).

8. P.K. Adelmann and R. Zajonc, Facia) effer-ence and the experience of emotion. Annual Reviewof Psychology, 40, 249-280 (1989); D. Matsumoto,The role of facial response in the experience of emo-tion: More methodological problems and a meta-analysis, lournai of Personality and Social Psychol-ogy, 52, 769-774(1987).

9. j .D. Laird and C. Bresler, The process of emo-tional feeling: A self-perception theory, in Review ofPersonality and Social Psychology: Vol. 13. Emo-tion, M. Clark, Ed. (Sage, Newbury Park, CA, 1992).

10. P- Ekman. R.W. Levenson, and W.V. Frie-sen. Autonomic nervous system activity distin-guishes among emotions, Science, 22 r, 1208-1210(1983).

11. K, Scherer, Methods of research on vocalcommunication: Paradigms and parameters, inHandbook of Methods in Nonverbal Behavior Re-search, K.R. Scherer and P. Ekman. Eds. (CambridgeUniversity Press. New York, 1982).

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