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Report Cover Sheet

Student name: ___Amy Stewart_______________________________

Student email: __aesteb@schools.vic.edu.au_____________________
Teacher name: __Ms Costelloe______________________________
Due date: __8/7/2022_______________________________________
Word limit: __1500-2500____________________________________
Number of words used: ______1839_____________________________

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Except where appropriately acknowledged this assignment is my own work, has been
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____________________________________ __18/07/2022________________
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Abstract
Emotional contagion affects everyone at varying points in time and is an integral part of

human interaction. This report aims to investigate whether emotions are contagious.

Emotional contagion was first identified in the 1980s, and since then, numerous studies have

been done on the effects and stages of emotional contagion. This report outlines the role of

mirror neurons in emotional contagion, the stages and theories of emotions, the stages of

emotional contagion, long-term effects of second-hand emotions, types of people in terms of

emotional contagion, and the effect social media has on emotional contagion. Based on the

research conducted, it can be concluded that emotions are contagious.

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Emotions are defined as responses that humans experience in reaction to an event or

environment (Cherry, 2022). For something to be contagious, it must be something that is

likely to spread to and/or affect others (Oxford Dictionary). Emotional contagion is when one

person’s emotions or behaviours are subconsciously mimicked by another person (Schulz,

2017). The phenomenon of emotional contagion is believed to be caused by the mirror neuron

system, which was discovered in the 1990s by Italian neuroscientists (Gaines, 2021). There

are six basic human emotions – fear, disgust, anger, surprise, happiness and sadness,

introduced by Paul Ekman in 1972 (Cherry, 2022). These basic emotions can fit into two

categories of emotion, positive and negative. Both positive and negative emotions can be

contagious and have detrimental after-effects (Carter, 2012). There are four proposed types of

people when it comes to emotional contagion; charismatics, empathetics, expansives, and

blands (Verbeke, 1997). These types categorize people based on their ability to catch and/or

project emotions, but not just based on face-to-face interactions. Emotions can spread

throughout social media, including Facebook and TikTok, and even text messages or phone

calls (Kramer et al., 2014). Emotional contagion continues to be researched by

neuroscientists, due to its prevalence and long-lasting effects (Carter, 2012), and its

importance to humankind.

The mirror neuron system was discovered in the 1990s by Giacomo Rizzolatti and some

colleagues (Rajmohan & Mohandas, 2007) whilst researching the grasp response of macaque

monkeys – a type of monkey that shares 93% of their DNA with both chimps and humans

(Arbanas, 2007). This research resulted in the observation that when an action is performed, a

series of neurons fire in the brain, and that same series of neurons fires in the brain of a

monkey that is simply observing the action (Kilner, Lemon, 2013). In monkeys, that series of

neurons fire from a section of the premotor cortex, area F5, which contains two sets of

visuomotor neurons (Rajmohan & Mohandas, 2007). The relevant set of visuomotor neurons
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– named ‘mirror neurons ’- respond to the performance and observation of an object-directed

action. These neurons fire when observing an exact copy of a previously performed action,

but also when observing a similar or slightly different action (Rajmohan & Mohandas, 2007).

In humans, when an action is observed, various areas of the brain activate, including the

medial frontal cortex and the medial temporal cortex (Knoblich & Sebanz, 2014). In relation

to emotions, the mirror neuron system is applied in the same way. When a human observes

someone smiling, it fires the same set of neurons that would fire if they were smiling

themselves. (Gaines, 2021).

There are six basic human emotions – fear, disgust, anger, surprise, happiness and sadness

(Cherry, 2022). These six basic emotions were introduced by Paul Ekman in 1972, and later,

after conducting more research, he identified a seventh basic emotion – contempt. These were

identified as the basic, innate, shared emotions due to their accompanying facial expressions,

which are universal (Ekman, 2021). All emotions have three key elements: a subjective

experience, the physiological response and the behavioural response (Cherry, 2022). The

subjective experience relates to the environment the emotion is experienced in, resulting in

subjective emotions unique to each person despite having the same base. The physiological

response relates to physical responses to emotion caused by the sympathetic branch of the

autonomic nervous system and the amygdala, such as sweaty palms, heart palpitations, and

blushing or turning pale (Cherry, 2022). The amygdala is specifically responsible for

empathy, allowing humans to experience and express emotions (Morris 2017), particularly

fear (Cherry, 2022). The behavioural response relates to the actual expression of emotion,

resulting in facial expressions and/or body language changes (Cherry, 2022). Various theories

have been proposed about the order in which these three elements appear to create an

emotion, one of which is Charles Darwin’s evolutionary theory of emotion. This theory

suggests that emotions evolved because of their adaptive value, such as fear evolving as a
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mechanism for more chance of survival (Mohinuddin, 2017). Darwin believed that there were

innate facial expressions that were a universal indication of emotion (Mohinuddin, 2017),

similar to Paul Ekman. Paul Ekman also co-discovered micro facial expressions, expressions

that flash across a person’s face in a matter of a fraction of a second, revealing concealed

emotions (Matsumoto & Hwang, 2011). The seven basic emotions, and their accompanying

facial and micro facial expressions are believed to have a large part in the process of

emotional contagion, acting as a visual stimulus (Nickerson, 2021).

Emotions can spread through facial expressions, vocal tone, and posture (Nickerson, 2021),

and is believed to happen in three stages (Raypole, 2011). The first of these three stages is

mimicry, which involves unconsciously recognising emotional cues such as body language

and mimicking them (Nickerson, 2021). An example of mimicry is involuntarily yawning at

the sight of another person yawning (Wikiversity, 2013). The second stage of emotional

contagion is feedback, which entails the idea that mimicking an emotion enables a person to

experience that emotion, which is also known as the facial feedback hypothesis (Thomas,

2018). The facial feedback hypothesis suggests that if a person smiles, it will make them feel

happy, which then makes them smile more, therefore resulting in a happier person (Thomas,

2018). The facial feedback hypothesis proves that a smile is connected to happiness and

positive emotions, whereas a frown is connected to sadness and negative emotions, however,

it has not yet been identified how different emotions are connected to different facial

expressions (Thomas, 2018). The stage of feedback is also known to happen more in deep-

seated emotions and moods, including mood disorders such as depression. People with

depression may express their emotions through negative body language and speech patterns,

inducing a similar feeling in people with a vulnerability to these specific cues – for example,

another person with depression, or someone who used to struggle with depression (Nickerson,

2021). The third and final stage of emotional contagion is the actual contagion, which is when
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the emotion has passed on and the receiver is also feeling the same emotion as the person who

first projected the emotion (Nickerson, 2021).

Emotional contagion can occur in both positive and negative ways. Catching positive

emotions from other people can make a person view themselves as more cooperative,

competent and coefficient (Carter, 2012). Being around more positive people can also make a

person feel much happier and more positive, which has proven beneficial effects on health

(Edward-Elmhurst Health, 2019). Happiness, optimism, humour and altruism are all linked to

life longevity (Scott, 2020). On the other hand, emotional contagion of negative emotions can

be detrimental. Negative emotions can be damaging to a person’s overall health, potentially

resulting in heart disease and other chronic illnesses and health issues over time (Edward-

Elmhurst Health, 2019). Depression in a familial situation can significantly bring down an

entire family system, depression in parents leads to a significantly increased chance of

depression in their child, and depression in a spouse commonly leads to depression in their

partner (Carter, 2012). Not to mention, a negative person in a workplace can affect the mood

of the entire company negatively, reducing a well-functioning, successful business to a

suspicious, every man for himself, type workplace (Carter, 2012). As if the spread of negative

emotions through emotional contagion was not bad enough, second-hand negative emotions

can also have long-term effects on a person’s physical and mental health. As mentioned

earlier, negative emotions can cause heart diseases and other health issues, however, second-

hand negative emotions can have the same effect. Children whose parents experience

significant stress and strain are more likely to develop asthma as well as antibodies that

heighten the risk of diabetes. Negative emotions and negative second-hand emotions have

very similar effects on humans, and the results are less than ideal (Carter 2012). Negative

emotions are also believed to be more contagious than positive emotions, as the presence of
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negative emotions such as fear activates the human survival instinct, as fear can alert a person

of imminent danger (Edward-Elmhurst Health, 2019).

Whilst all emotions are contagious, not all people catch and spread emotions. There are four

different types of people when it comes to emotional contagion; charismatics, empathetics,

expansives, and blands (Verbeke, 1997). Charismatics are people that can receive and share

emotions, whereas blands are people that can do neither. Empathetics are people that can

receive emotions but are unable to share emotions, and expansives are people that can share

emotions, but unable to receive emotions (Giuliana & Hamilton, 2016).

Whilst emotion contagion relies heavily upon body language and facial expressions, emotions

do not solely spread through in-person interactions. Emotions can also spread through social

media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok (Edward-Elmhurst

Health, 2019). Social media is the best representation of implicit acts of emotional contagion

– an autonomic and less conscious type of emotional contagion, based on non-verbal cues

(Morris, 2017). A study done on Facebook users (Kramer et al., 2014) showed that a

reduction in positive items on the newsfeed resulted in fewer positive posts and more negative

posts by the participants. Whilst this study was incredibly controversial due to the information

being obtained without informed consent by users, the results provided a strong basis for the

presence of online emotional contagion (Gaines, 2021).

Emotions are contagious, and the name for this is emotional contagion. A likely explanation

for this is the mirror neuron system, which emerges from studies done on macaque monkeys

in the 1990s. Mirror neurons fire whilst performing an action, and also when that same action

is being observed in someone else. The seven basic emotions and their accompanying

universal facial expressions play a large part in emotional contagion, along with body

language and non-verbal cues. Both negative and positive emotions are contagious, although
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negative emotions are believed to be more contagious due to the human survival instinct.

Different types of people have different susceptibilities to emotional contagion, for example,

some people can only receive emotions, whereas others can only share emotions. Emotional

contagion does not only occur in person, it can also occur through phone calls, text messages,

and even social media sites, such as a TikTok ‘For You’ page. Further research could be

conducted to identify why different people have different susceptibilities to emotional

contagion, how each emotion has different effects on people and why they transmit differently

in terms of emotional contagion.

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