Shared experiences are amplifiedSharing experiences enhances our emotions for better and worse

Participants in this study were asked to taste chocolate and review the pleasantness of their experience

In one condition they tasted the chocolate while another ‘participant’ (actually a stooge) was in the same room looking at a piece of art

Please will you study this art work

And please will you taste this chocolate

How much do you like the chocolate? How would you rate its flavour?

In a second condition, participants tasted the chocolate at the same time as the other ‘participant’ (again a stooge)

Yum! I wonder if she’s enjoying this as much as me…?

Please both taste this chocolate

How much do you like the chocolate? How would you rate its flavour?

Participants liked the chocolate significantly more when they tasted it at the same time as another person than when another person was present but engaged in a different activity

They also rated it as more flavourful even though it was identical to that tried in condition one

The psychologists ran the study again with bitter tasting chocolate to rule out the possibility that shared experiences are merely more enjoyable (as opposed to amplified)

They found that participants reported the chocolate as tasting worse in the shared condition, supporting the hypothesis that shared experiences are amplified

Conclusions

1. Sharing experiences enhances our emotions and perception of these experiences – for better and worse

2. How we imagine other people are experiencing the same events as us affects our own experience of them

Reference

Shared Experiences Are Amplified Journal of Psychological Science (December 2014) vol. 25 no. 12 2209-2216 Erica J. Boothby, Margaret S. Clark and John A. Bargh