Emotional Contagion Theory Research Articles

Relationship Between Empathy and Prosocial Behavior

This study focused on the relationship between empathy and prosocial behavior among individuals aged between 18 to 30 years old . The sample consisted of 90 individuals, including both students and working professionals. The study used the Toronto Empathy Questionnaire (TEQ) to assess empathy and the Prosocialness Scale for Adults (PSA) was used to measure behavior with the aim of establishing if there exists a notable correlation, between these distinct factors. The study found a significant positive correlation (r = 0.847, p<.001) between empathy and prosocial behavior, suggesting that individuals with higher empathy are more likely to engage in prosocial acts. These results offer supporting evidence for establishing theories like the Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis and the Emotional Contagion Theory, which propose that empathy plays a crucial role in motivating altruistic behavior. According to the study, developing empathy in young people may improve prosocial behavior, resulting in more compassionate and socially responsible communities.

JellyCat: Marketing Strategies Based on Customer Emotions and Sentiment

The exploration of consumer psychology within marketing has long been recognized as a fundamental aspect, with a particular emphasis on consumer emotions and sentiment. This study delves into the case of JellyCat to thoroughly investigate its marketing strategies, which are intricately intertwined with consumer emotions and sentiments. It offers practical insights and recommendations to address current deficiencies. Drawing from the 7P model, this paper integrates theories such as the Emotional Contagion Theory and the Expectancy-Disconfirmation Model to critically analyze JellyCat’s utilization of sentiment-based marketing across various dimensions: product, price, place, promotion, people, physical evidence, and process. Through a comprehensive examination of JellyCat’s approach, this study aims to provide valuable insights and guidance for similar companies, presenting actionable methods and recommendations to rectify any shortcomings in organizational operations. Furthermore, it seeks to identify key successes and valuable lessons learned, aiming to inform and inspire other companies seeking to enhance their marketing strategies in alignment with consumer emotions and sentiments. By leveraging these findings, companies can effectively cultivate stronger connections with their target audience and bolster their marketing efforts in a manner that resonates deeply with consumer emotions and sentiments.

Catching on: Work stress, employee wellbeing, and the moderating role of team-level emotional contagion

Abstract Work stress and employee wellbeing have gained heightened attention since the COVID-19 pandemic. Until now, organizations have primarily sought to conceptualize these variables as an individual-level phenomenon; thereby neglecting the potential influence of social dynamics within the workplace. Drawing on conservation of resources and emotional contagion theories, this study examines the extent to which team-level emotional contagion moderates the impact of stress on wellbeing, factoring in multilevel effects. Data from 237 professional services employees nested within 41 teams was analyzed. The results show support for emotional contagion as a team-level moderator between individual-level work stress and employee wellbeing. The role of organizational resources in shaping stress and wellbeing outcomes was also significant. This study underscores the significance of team dynamics and organizational resources in shaping employee wellbeing. Well-targeted, stress alleviation, and team-contagion enhancing initiatives will have a more positive impact on wellbeing, than individually targeted stress alleviation initiatives in isolation.

The indirect effect of parents’ work-family conflict on students’ psychosocial well-being

ABSTRACT This study aims to investigate the cascading impact of parents’ work-family conflict (WFC) on students’ psychosocial well-being. This study examines the sequential mediation effect of parents’ well-being and positive discipline using the conservation of resources (COR) theory and emotional contagion theory. Data were collected using an online survey platform where every participant received a concern form and unique code. The analysis used data from 351 parent–child dyads after removing 76 participants who failed the attention check items or did not complete the three phases of data collection. Data were analysed using a sequential mediation regression model six proposed by Hayes. The results confirmed a sequential mediation model where the parent's WFC indirectly impacted the student's psychosocial well-being through the mediating role of the parent's well-being and positive discipline. This study also discovered that WFC directly impacted parents’ well-being, positive discipline, and students’ psychosocial well-being. Organisations must provide parents with psychological services to reduce WFC and maintain their well-being. On the other hand, schools should communicate with parents and encourage positive discipline for students. This current study has advanced the literature by examining the link between parents’ WFC and students’ psychosocial well-being.

Research on the impact of streamers’ linguistic emotional valence on live streaming performance in live streaming shopping environments

As an emerging retail model, live streaming shopping involves real-time interactions between streamers and viewers, and among the viewers themselves. In live streaming interactions, the comments posted by the viewers reflect their emotional states, which may have been influenced by the streamers’ emotional expression. This study utilized the S-O-R model and emotional contagion theory as its theoretical foundation to investigate how the emotional valence of streamer speech and real-time comment influence live streaming performance (sales growth/fans growth) and explored the moderating effect of the live streaming atmosphere cues. With Python software and natural language processing technology of Baidu AI platform, sentiment analysis was conducted on 124,085 streamer speech sentences and 24,3767 viewer real-time comments. Our findings reveal that both positive and negative emotional valence of streamer speech positively affect live streaming performance; in addition to the negative impact of neutral emotional valence on sales growth and of negative emotional valence on fans growth, real-time comment emotional valence has a positive correlation with live streaming performance; finally, the study examined the moderating effect of atmosphere cues and demonstrated the complex dynamics of atmospheric cues affecting emotional contagion and sales in live streaming. The findings provide a scientific reference for live marketing managers to optimize the emotional expression of streamer speech and their live streaming operation mode.

Agent-based simulation of citizens’ satisfaction in smart cities

Although the citizens’ satisfaction in smart cities (CSSC) has become a vital criterion for smart cities, which symbolizes the people-centric concept, the previous research on simulating CSSC only considered the technological innovation and policy changes at the macro level, resulting in the neglect of the micro emotional contagion between citizens. To address this gap, a simulation approach is proposed to consider the influence caused by emotional contagion through the agent-based model (ABM). Supported by the expectation confirmation model (ECM) and the emotional contagion theory (ECT), the ABM simulation is implemented through the Anylogic platform, based on survey data from 19 smart cities in China. The results of various scenarios show that citizens’ expectations are the key factor affecting the CSSC, and the influence of emotional contagion cannot be ignored, especially in the acquaintance society. As social networks become more intimate, the impact of emotional contagion will turn the citizen group into an “antithetical society,” which means a situation with severe polarization of CSSC. This study also discusses the possible threshold of this transition process. Based on the analysis of multiple scenarios, it is implied that CSSC should be evaluated by considering the emotional contagion, and smart cities prioritize quality over quantity.

The Emotional Power of Partisan Media: A Computer Vision Analysis of the 2020 Democratic Party Presidential Primaries

ABSTRACT Building on theories of emotional contagion and affective priming, the study assesses the emotional impact of the U.S. partisan media’s coverage of six leading political candidates’ images during the 2020 New Hampshire Democratic Party presidential primary. Results show that the partisan media’s representations of the candidates’ facial expressions of emotions are associated with the voters’ feelings toward the politicians in their desired directions. Additionally, the partisan-media-primed emotions among the voters consistently align with their voting decisions. Methodologically, the study combines state-of-the-art computer vision techniques and survey research conducted with a representative sample of New Hampshire voters.

The Mediating Role of Surface and Deep Acting on the Nexus between Emotional Intelligence and Work-Related Burnout

Work-related burnout (WBO) is prevalent in the global economy, culminating in profit loss, productivity declination, and employee absenteeism. The COVID-19 pandemic has worsened the preceding threats in human resource management within the manufacturing industry. The ongoing discussions on WBO highlight the significance and value of this issue. Additionally, empirical proof regarding the association among emotional intelligence (EQ), emotional labour strategies, and WBO, particularly within the human resource division of the manufacturing industry, is scarce. Thus, the current study aims to identify the relationships and models with emotional contagion theory as a foundation using the PLS-SEM technique. The responses from 311 questionnaires were collected among HR managers in selected ISO 9001 Malaysian manufacturing companies using an online survey. The study found a negative relationship between EQ and emotional labour-deep acting (ELSA) and a positive relationship with emotional labour-surface acting (ELSA). Besides, ELSA is also negatively correlated with WBO, while ELDA has a positive relationship with WBO. The study also proved that emotional labour strategies (deep-acting and surface-acting) operated as an intermediary factor in the connection between EQ and WBO. Past research on WBO has been inconclusive, and there has yet to be a comprehensive exploration of the direct or indirect connections between EQ, ELSA, ELDA, and WBO. Furthermore, previous studies often overlooked the viewpoint of HR managers in WBO investigations. The results of this research contribute to the literature concerning this issue, particularly in the post-COVID-19 context, and help policy developers of human resource management bring in the elements of psychological factors while forming human resource policies and practices.

Family-customer happiness and its impact on customer citizenship behavior: A study of parent–child consumption in robot restaurants

Academic research on ways to promote family consumers' happiness in technology-enabled service contexts is limited. Based on the value co-creation concept and emotional contagion theory, this study focuses on parent-child consumption and develops a theoretical model of the relationship between customer–robot interaction experience, family emotional bonding, customer happiness, and citizenship behavior in robot restaurants. Further insights into the model were obtained by content analysis of 374 online customer reviews, and the model was tested by a questionnaire survey of 515 family customers. The results of structural model analysis show that customer-perceived child delight and customer engagement in robot services have direct and indirect effects on customer happiness through the enhancement of family emotional bonding. Customer happiness positively affects customer citizenship behavior and mediates the relationship between family emotional bonding and customer citizenship behavior. The study provides guidance for using robotics to promote the happiness of customers and prosperity of restaurants.

Towards a Theory of Emotional Autonomy

The author challenges the emotional contagion theory and proposes an alternative of emotional autonomy. He critiques how the contagion theory is faulty logic because it assumes different individuals may experience identical emotions, rather than each having their own phenomenological experience even though the outward signs may look similar. A way of ascertaining individual experiences of emotions is suggested, followed by an example of the experiences of pain, before the conclusion that we should adopt within the literature the assumptions of emotional autonomy.

How do emotions affect giving? Examining the effects of textual and facial emotions in charitable crowdfunding

Drawing on emotional contagion theory and language-mediated association theory, this study develops a research model to examine how textual and facial emotions affect charitable crowdfunding performance. We use computer-aided techniques to extract and measure specific textual and facial emotions in pitches. The proposed model is tested via regression analysis with a sample of 1372 campaigns collected from the largest charitable crowdfunding platform in China—Tencent Gongyi. Moreover, we conducted a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis to examine the complementarity of textual and facial emotions, which supplements the regression analysis results. Our findings show that both textual and facial emotions can impact funding outcomes. However, the effects of specific emotions vary: some (e.g., textual sadness and facial anger) are positive, some (e.g., textual anger and facial fear) are negative, and others (e.g., textual fear, textual disgust, and facial sadness) are insignificant. Moreover, facial emotions complement textual emotions in their effects on funding outcomes. This research outlines a framework to offer a more detailed and comprehensive understanding of emotions in charitable crowdfunding. It also contributes to existing research by revealing the vital but complex role of emotions in the persuasive process of prosocial behaviors and by uncovering the different cognitive mechanisms underlying the impacts of textual and facial emotions.

Does leader humor style matter employee knowledge sharing? From the lens of emotional contagion process

PurposeThis study aims to explore the enabling and suppressing effects of leader affiliative and aggressive humor on employee knowledge sharing form the lens of emotional contagion process, which provides theoretical reference for the applications of different leader humor style, thereby enhancing employee knowledge sharing.Design/methodology/approachThis study collected three waves of data and surveyed 379 employees in China. Regression analysis, bootstrapping and latent moderation structural equation were adopted to test the hypotheses.FindingsLeader affiliative humor has a positive impact on employee knowledge sharing, whereas leader aggressive humor has a negative impact on employee knowledge sharing. Positive emotion plays a mediating role between leader affiliative humor and employee knowledge sharing, and negative emotion plays a mediating role between leader aggressive humor and employee knowledge sharing. Moreover, supervisor–subordinate Guanxi moderates the relationship between leader affiliative humor and positive emotion, and between leader aggressive humor and negative emotion, respectively.Originality/valueThis study not only adds to the knowledge sharing literature calling for the exploration of antecedents and mechanism of employee knowledge sharing, but also contributes to our comprehensive understanding of the suppressing and enabling effects of leader humor style on employee knowledge sharing. Besides, this study also unpacks the dual-path mechanism and boundary condition between leader humor style and employee knowledge sharing and augments the theoretical explanations of emotional contagion theory between leader humor style and employee knowledge sharing.

The AI empathy effect: a mechanism of emotional contagion

ABSTRACT While advances in technology have led to the widespread use of artificial intelligence (AI) in frontline services, the AI empathic effect is often overlooked. Based on emotional contagion theory, this research explores the impacts of AI emotional mimicry and empathic concern in service success and failure via experimental designs, respectively. Results indicate that AI with high emotional mimicry and empathic concern resulted in higher arousal and pleasure, increasing tourists’ continuous usage intention. Arousal and pleasure played significant mediating roles in service success. However, while empathic concern significantly affected continuous usage intention through pleasure, arousal did not have a similar effect. The joint effects of extrinsic and intrinsic anthropomorphism (emotional mimicry) were significant in a successful service context, but not in service failure. These results have important implications for the development and promotion of AI and enriches theoretical applications of emotional contagion theory and empathy.

Trajectories of depletion following witnessing incivility toward women: a time-lagged study

PurposeThe authors aim to broaden the understanding of incivility through the lens of bystanders who witness incivility toward women. Integrating attributional ambiguity and emotional contagion theories with the literature on workplace mistreatment, the authors propose that witnessing incivility toward women may negatively impact bystanders.Design/methodology/approachThe authors collected multi-wave data from 324 employees to assess the consequences of witnessing incivility toward women at work for bystanders.FindingsUtilizing a serial mediation model, the authors found evidence that witnessing incivility toward women indirectly increased turnover intentions six weeks later, first through elevated negative affect and then through increased cognitive burnout.Originality/valueTaken together, this study's findings suggest that the negative effects of incivility toward women can spread to bystanders and highlight the importance of considering individuals who are not directly involved, but simply bear witness to incivility at work.

Understanding the effect of group emotions on consumer instant order cancellation behavior in livestreaming E-commerce: Empirical evidence from TikTok

Livestreaming e-commerce (LSE) exhibits a noteworthy idiosyncrasy in the form of escalating instant order cancellations, wherein consumers swiftly revoke their purchases during livestreaming before receiving the products. This study leveraged the emotional contagion theory to construct an econometric model and investigate the factors influencing viewers' instant order cancellation behaviors. An extensive dataset was assembled, comprising 4984 product introduction video segments from 768 TikTok livestreaming rooms in China, along with 1.29 million bullet screen comments and 513,551 viewers' information. Employing advanced multimodal data processing technologies, the study extracted anchors' (livestreaming hosts) multimodal emotion features. The empirical findings demonstrate the significant impact of anchors' emotions, encompassing body movements, facial expressions, voices, and conversation contents, on the arousal and valence of group emotions, where the latter exhibit opposing effects on instant order cancellation behavior. This research establishes the paramount roles of anchor and group emotions in viewers' instant order cancellation behaviors, lending credence to the epistemological applicability of emotional contagion theory in the context of LSE. The study's findings offer LSE practitioners practical implications to enhance business decision-making, fostering more engaging and emotionally resonant livestreaming experiences to reduce cancellations and improve customer retention.

Black and Blue: An integrated conceptual framework for understanding the trauma and mental impacts of police violence exposure in Black communities

ABSTRACT Because repeated incidents of police violence against unarmed Black people are increasingly visible, as a result of technological advances, there is growing need to understand their potentially traumatic mental health effects for other Black people. This narrative review provides an overview of critical race theory, the stress, appraisal, and coping theory, trauma theory, racial trauma theory, and emotional contagion theory to develop an integrated conceptual framework for understanding and explaining psychosocial processes by which exposure to police violence against unarmed Black people affect the mental health of other Black people at individual and community-levels. Black and Blue, a new conceptual framework, adds to the social science literature on police violence in historically marginalized communities. The conceptualization of this framework suggests implications for practice, policy, and research about police violence and trauma exposure in Black communities. Future research is needed to expand and subsequently test the validity and rigor of the Black and Blue framework.

Burnout Syndrome in IT Industry

Burnout is a product of working conditions, which also occurs in the field of information technology (IT). The IT industry is known for high-stress levels due to high-quality requirements in writing programs, testing programs and demonstrating their functionality and quality within a limited time period, as the process is made to meet the customer's needs. Thus the employee and his company need to identify the specifications and exceed the expectations of the customers. At the same time, IT organizations face an accelerated pace of technological change, increased demands and a complex diversity of resources. Thus, IT professionals tend to burn out due to high levels of stress and there is as well a high probability of triggering early burnout syndrome in this professional field. 
 Since the appearance of the term in the scientific literature, several approaches have appeared that have tried to answer the question of why burnout occurs and how it develops. The present research focuses on detailing the most current and supported explanatory theories of burnout, which are complementary and offer a global view of this syndrome: social-cognitive theory, social exchange theory, organizational theory, structuralist theory, job demands theory - resources, emotional contagion theory. 
 By reviewing the factors that contribute to burnout, the review is aiming to draws attention to the fact that burnout is not an inevitable syndrome; it can be prevented before it occurs and treated during its development.

An Analysis of Crisis Communication and Public Participation in Online Colleges and Universities from the Perspective of Emotional Contagion Theory: Taking the Case of Sichuan University Subway Photographing

The objective of the study is to examine the handling of public opinion crises in higher education institutions within the complex and rapidly evolving multimedia landscape. In this context, universities must enhance their crisis communication awareness and improve both the speed and approach to addressing public opinion crises. This research focuses on the case of Sichuan University's response to the subway voyeurism incident, revealing that universities often lack effective crisis management strategies, which inadvertently exacerbate the spread of public opinion on online platforms instead of calming public sentiment. Drawing from the social sharing theory, this study delves into the discussion of crisis communication in higher education institutions, particularly in response to events like the Sichuan University subway voyeurism incident. The results of the study indicate that universities should closely monitor and proactively address events and situations within public opinion discourse that carry potential harm. This proactive approach is essential to prevent adverse effects from arising and spreading. Additionally, universities should closely follow the development of previously sensitive warning events and promptly formulate effective response measures.

How do e-commerce anchors' characteristics influence consumers’ impulse buying? An emotional contagion perspective

Live streaming e-commerce is a novel type of shopping that induces widespread instances of emotional, impulse buying behavior: immediate purchases driven by strong emotional responses. This research aims to provide an in-depth analysis of how the characteristics of anchors in affect consumers' impulse buying from the perspective of emotional contagion. Based on the attitude-behavior-context theoretical framework and the emotional contagion theory, this study builds a research framework, aiming to explore the influence mechanism of anchors' characteristics on the consumers' impulse buying behavior, and further explores how viewer engagement in the live-broadcast room affects consumers' emotional experiences of anchors. In addition, artificial neural networks were used to rank the relative importance of various influencing factors. The findings from analyzing 327 valid questionnaires revealed that the pleasure emotion is the key influencing factor driving consumer impulse buying, which is facilitated by the anchors' similarity, attractiveness, professionalism, and interactivity. The neural network model also confirmed that anchors' attractiveness had the greatest positive influence on consumers' pleasure emotions during the process of triggering consumers' impulse buying, followed by anchors' similarity, professionalism and interactivity. However, further research showed that the negative moderation of viewer engagement could reduce the influence of anchors' similarity (P < 0.1) and attractiveness (P < 0.05) on consumers' pleasure emotions. Thus, e-commerce anchors can guide consumers to resonate emotionally and increase their desire to purchase by displaying personal charm and sharing common interests. Especially in the broadcast room with low viewer engagement, it is necessary to pay attention to the emotional experience of consumers and to increase the viewer's participation through more interaction and guidance.

Emotional brand communication on social media to foster financial well-being

Through the lens of the emotional contagion theory, it is argued in this paper that retail banks’ brand communication strategies must enhance customers’ financial well-being in a bid to foster more engagement and create more trust. Financial well-being is even more important when customers experience hard economic times, as was the case during the period under review. To engage emotionally with customers in a digital environment devoid of real interaction, retail banks must be more aware of their emotional tone on social media by implementing a brand communication strategy that is more empathetic. Adopting an inductive qualitative research approach, this study assessed the emotional tone most evident in the Twitter corpora of seven South African retail banks’ social media brand communication during a pandemic, from a financial content marketing perspective. These banks were selected because they supply banking services to the general public, as opposed to corporations or other banks. In doing so, several data analysis tools were used to understand the context and the emotional tone characteristics embedded in the corpus, namely linguistic inquiry and word count, NVivo, and the social media analytics tool, Mention. While the retail banks’ financial content marketing initiatives focused on educating consumers about the banks’ products and services and how these may assist them to accomplish their financial objectives, the banks did so with an empathic approach and a positive emotional tone. This study contributes to the literature by highlighting the need for financial brands, particularly retail banks, to focus on a positive emotional tone in their social media brand communication strategies to enhance customers’ financial well-being, especially in developing countries. The findings also accentuate importance of understanding emotional contagion for effective financial content marketing.