Summary: People can exert more control over how others influence their emotions than previously believed. In laboratory experiments and social media analysis, Stanford researchers found that when people try to stay calm they resist angry displays from others, but when they want to feel anger they become more receptive to—and even amplify—anger expressed by others.
Source: Stanford
Stanford psychologists find motivations shape how individuals respond to others’ emotions
New research from Stanford University shows that people’s goals and motivations play a central role in determining how they are affected by the emotions of others. The study demonstrates that emotional influence is not purely automatic: when people aim to remain calm, they are less swayed by angry displays from others; when they aim to feel anger, they become more sensitive to and aligned with anger in their social environment.
The research, published June 13 in Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, combines controlled laboratory experiments and a large-scale social media analysis to reveal how motivation guides emotional contagion and amplification.
How do other people influence emotions?
To explore why people respond differently to upsetting events, the research team conducted laboratory studies with 107 participants and analyzed nearly 19 million tweets related to a high-profile incident. In the lab, participants viewed images meant to provoke negative reactions—examples included scenes of flag burning and historical images of prisoner abuse—and were also shown information about how others felt about the same images.
Results from the lab studies showed clear, motivation-dependent patterns. Participants who wanted to feel less angry were significantly more influenced by calm expressions from others than by anger. Conversely, participants who wanted to feel angry were substantially more influenced by others expressing strong anger. In fact, those motivated to feel anger were more likely to intensify their own emotional responses when they discovered that others shared their level of upset.
Amit Goldenberg, the study’s lead author and a doctoral candidate in psychology at Stanford, summarized the effect: the strength of a person’s motive to feel or avoid an emotion predicted how strongly they would be swayed by emotional signals from other group members.
Emotional influence on social media
To examine how these dynamics unfold outside the lab, the researchers analyzed close to 19 million Twitter posts following the 2014 police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. This large-scale social media dataset allowed the team to observe emotional influence in a real-world, fast-moving context.
The Twitter analysis found that users were more likely to be influenced by stronger emotional expressions within their social networks than by calmer reactions. When users replied to or engaged with tweets that matched the emotional intensity of their own previous posts, they tended to amplify their emotional tone—expressing greater outrage or intensity than before. In short, social media interactions can escalate emotional intensity when people encounter posts that align with the feelings they are already motivated to experience.
Jamil Zaki, an assistant professor of psychology and co-author on the study, and other team members note that the social dimension of emotion is particularly consequential in online spaces, where people are constantly exposed to others’ emotional displays.
Emotions as tools
Traditional thinking often treats emotional similarity as an automatic social response: people unconsciously mirror the affect of those around them. The Stanford team challenges that assumption by showing that people can strategically regulate not only their own emotions but also how receptive they are to others’ emotions.
“Our emotions are not passive nor automatic,” Goldenberg said. “They are a little bit of a tool. We have the ability to use our emotions to achieve certain goals. We express certain emotions to convince other people to join our collective cause. On social media, we use emotions to signal that we care about group issues and to communicate that we belong.”
These findings suggest that emotion regulation includes a social component: people can choose environments, cues, and interactions that help them achieve their emotional aims. As the authors note, selecting who you interact with may be one of the most effective ways to shape how you feel.
Implications and future directions
The research has implications for understanding group behavior, online polarization, and personal well-being. If people deliberately seek out emotional environments that match their goals—whether to amplify outrage or maintain calm—that selection process may contribute to the emotional character of social networks and political discourse.
Goldenberg and colleagues highlight several questions for future work. One key question is whether individuals differ in their baseline preference for stronger versus weaker emotions, and whether such preferences influence how they assemble their social networks. Another is how people might use social selection strategically as a form of emotion regulation: avoiding enraged others to stay calm, or surrounding themselves with outraged peers when they want to mobilize.
Source:
Stanford University
Media Contacts:
Alexandra Shashkevich – Stanford
Image Source:
The image is in the public domain.
Original Research: Open access
“Beyond emotional similarity: The role of situation-specific motives.” Authors: Amit Goldenberg, David Garcia, Eran Halperin, Jamil Zaki, Danyang Kong, Golijeh Golarai, and James J. Gross. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. DOI: 10.1037/xge0000625
Abstract
The study examines when people express emotions that match those of other group members and when they do not. Across laboratory studies and an analysis of online interactions, the researchers tested whether situation-specific motives—for example, motives that call for weaker versus stronger negative emotions—shape emotional similarity. Findings show that motivation to experience weak emotions increases influence from calmer expressions, whereas motivation to experience strong emotions increases influence from stronger expressions. These motives can lead people to change their emotions even after learning that others’ emotions are similar to their own initial response. Observed effects appear both in lab tasks and in real-world social media behavior, enhancing prediction of emotional influence processes in group contexts.