"Mood contagion": The automatic transfer of mood between persons.

Abstract

The current studies aimed to find out whether a nonintentional form of mood contagion exists and which mechanisms can account for it. In these experiments participants who expected to be tested for text comprehension listened to an affectively neutral speech that was spoken in a slightly sad or happy voice. The authors found that (a) the emotional expression induced a congruent mood state in the listeners, (b) inferential accounts to emotional sharing were not easily reconciled with the findings, (c) different affective experiences emerged from intentional and nonintentional forms of emotional sharing, and (d) findings suggest that a perception-behavior link (T. L. Chartrand & J. A. Bargh, 1999) can account for these findings, because participants who were required to repeat the philosophical speech spontaneously imitated the target person's vocal expression of emotion.

Cites (8)

1. Telling more than we can know: Verbal reports on mental processes.
   Nisbett, Richard E., Wilson, Timothy D. · 1977 · Psychological Review
2. The Cognitive Structure of Emotions
   Ortony, Andrew, Clore, Gerald L., Collins, Allan · 1988
3. Perception of the speech code.
   Liberman, A. M., Cooper, F. S., Shankweiler, D. P., Studdert-Kennedy, M. · 1967 · Psychological Review
4. Progress on a cognitive-motivational-relational theory of emotion
   Lazarus, Richard S. · 1991 · American Psychologist
5. Self-perception: An alternative interpretation of cognitive dissonance phenomena.
   Bem, Daryl J. · 1967 · Psychological Review
6. A Common Coding Approach to Perception and Action
   Prinz, W. · 1990 · Relationships Between Perception and Action
7. Self-attribution of emotion: the effects of expressive behavior on the quality of emotional experience
   Laird, James D. · 1974 · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
8. Emotions, moods, and conscious awareness; comment on johnson-laird and oatley's “the language of emotions: An analysis of a semantic field”
   Ortony, Andrew, Clore, Gerald L. · 1989 · Cognition & Emotion

Show all 8 references

Cited by (41)

1. Core affect and the psychological construction of emotion.
   Russell, James A. · 2003 · Psychological Review
2. The ripple effect: emotional contagion and its influence on group behavior
   Barsade, Sigal G. · 2002 · Administrative Science Quarterly
3. Emotional responses to music: The need to consider underlying mechanisms
   Juslin, Patrik N., Västfjäll, Daniel · 2008 · Behavioral and Brain Sciences
4. Embodiment in attitudes, social perception, and emotion
   Niedenthal, Paula M., Barsalou, Lawrence W., Winkielman, Piotr, Krauth-Gruber, Silvia, Ric, François · 2005 · Personality and Social Psychology Review
5. The social consequences of expressive suppression
   Butler, Emily A., Egloff, Boris, Wlhelm, Frank H., Smith, Nancy C., Erickson, Elizabeth A., Gross, James J. · 2003 · Emotion

See all 808