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The Interpersonal Dynamics of Emotion

Emotions are an elemental part of life – they imbue our existence with meaning and
purpose, and influence how we engage with the world around us. But we do not
just feel our own emotions; we typically express them in the presence of other
people. How do our emotional expressions affect others? Moving beyond the
traditional intrapersonal perspective, this is the first book dedicated to exploring
the pervasive interpersonal dynamics of emotions. Integrating existing theory and
research, Van Kleef develops the Emotions as Social Information (EASI) theory, a
ground-breaking comprehensive framework that explains how emotional expres-
sions influence observers across all domains of life, from close relationships to
group settings, conflict and negotiation, customer service, and leader-follower
relations. His deeply social perspective sheds new light on the fundamental ques-
tion of why we have emotions in the first place – the social influence emotions
engender may very well constitute their raison d’être.
gerben a. van kleef is Professor of Social Psychology at the University of
Amsterdam. He obtained his PhD from the University of Amsterdam in 2004 and
has held visiting appointments at UC Berkeley and Columbia University. He
received numerous awards for his scholarship, including the best dissertation
award of the International Association for Conflict Management, the early career
award of the European Association of Social Psychology, and the most influential
paper award of the Academy of Management. He is currently Chair of the Social
Psychology department of the University of Amsterdam and Associate Editor of
Social Psychological and Personality Science.
STUDIES IN EMOTION AND SOCIAL INTERACTION
Second Series

Series Editors

Keith Oatley
University of Toronto
Antony S. R. Manstead
Cardiff University

Titles Published in the Second Series

The Psychology of Facial Expression, edited by James A. Russell
and José Miguel Fernández-Dols
Emotions, the Social Bond, and Human Reality: Part/Whole Analysis,
by Thomas J. Scheff
Intersubjective Communication and Emotion in Early Ontogeny,
edited by Stein Bråten
The Social Context of Nonverbal Behavior, edited by Pierre Philippot,
Robert S. Feldman, and Erik J. Coats
Communicating Emotion: Social, Moral, and Cultural Processes,
by Sally Planalp
Emotions across Languages and Cultures: Diversity and Universals,
by Anna Wierzbicka
Feeling and Thinking: The Role of Affect in Social Cognition, edited by
Joseph P. Forgas
Metaphor and Emotion: Language, Culture, and Body in Human Feeling,
by Zoltán Kövecses
Gender and Emotion: Social Psychological Perspectives, edited by
Agneta H. Fischer
Causes and Consequences of Feelings, by Leonard Berkowitz
Emotions and Beliefs: How Feelings Influence Thoughts, edited by
Nico H. Frijda, Antony S. R. Manstead, and Sacha Bem
Identity and Emotion: Development through Self-Organization,
edited by Harke A. Bosma and E. Saskia Kunnen
(Continued after Index)
Free ebooks ==> [Link]

The Interpersonal Dynamics

of Emotion

Toward an Integrative Theory of Emotions

as Social Information

Gerben A. van Kleef

[Link]
University Printing House, Cambridge CB2 8BS, United Kingdom

Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge.

It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of
education, learning and research at the highest international levels of excellence.

[Link]
Information on this title: [Link]/9781107048249
© Gerben A. van Kleef 2016
This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without the written
permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published 2016
A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data
Kleef, Gerben A. van, author.
The interpersonal dynamics of emotion : toward an integrative theory
of emotions as social information / Gerben A. van Kleef.
Cambridge, United Kingdom : Cambridge University Press, 2016. |
Studies in emotion and social interaction
LCCN 2015048602 | ISBN 9781107048249 (hardback)
LCSH: Emotions – Social aspects. | Emotions – Sociological aspects. |
Interpersonal relations.
LCC BF531 .K54 2016 | DDC 152.4–dc23
LC record available at [Link]
ISBN 978-1-107-04824-9 Hardback
Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of
URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication,
and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain,
accurate or appropriate.
To my parents, with love and gratitude
 Contents

List of figures page x

List of tables xii
Preface xiii
Acknowledgments xv

1 Emotion: an interpersonal perspective 1

Definitional issues 3
An interpersonal approach to emotion 5
Goals and overview of the book 6
PART I Emotions as Social Information Theory 11
2 Emotions as social information 13
Emotional expressions as evolutionary adaptations 14
What do emotional expressions signal? 21
Emotional expressions as communicative tools 23
Emotional expressions as cues to social predispositions 27
When emotional signaling fails 30
Conclusion 35
3 Mechanisms involved in the social effects of emotions 37
Emotional expressions trigger affective reactions
in observers 38
Emotional expressions elicit inferential processes in
observers 45
The relationship between affective reactions and inferential
processes 52
Conclusion 55
4 Contingencies of the social effects of emotions 56
General prerequisites for the social effects of emotions 56
Factors shaping the impact of inferential processes and
affective reactions 60
Conclusion 77

vii
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viii Contents
PART II Social effects of emotions: the empirical record 79
5 Social effects of emotions in close relationships 81
The functionality of emotions in close relationships 81
Emotional convergence in interpersonal relationships 84
Social consequences of emotional expressions for
relationships 86
Conclusion 98
6 Social effects of emotions in groups 101
The functionality of emotions in group life 102
Affective reactions, affective composition, and group
functioning 104
Emotional expressions and inferential processes in groups 112
Contingencies of the social effects of emotional expressions
in groups 115
Conclusion 119
7 Social effects of emotions in conflict and negotiation 123
Affective reactions and their behavioral consequences 125
Inferential processes and their behavioral consequences 128
Affective reactions versus inferential processes 134
Emotional intelligence in conflict and negotiation 142
Conclusion 143
8 Social effects of emotions on consumer behavior and
customer service 146
Effects of service providers’ emotions on customers 148
Effects of customers’ emotions on service providers 155
How third parties’ emotional expressions shape consu-
mers’ attitudes 160
Interpersonal emotion regulation 162
Emotional intelligence in the service industry 165
Conclusion 167
9 Social effects of emotions in leadership 170
Leaders’ emotional displays and perceptions of leadership
quality 172
Leaders’ emotional displays and followers’
performance 177
Leadership and emotional intelligence 190
Conclusion 192

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 Contents ix
PART III Conclusions, implications, and new directions 195
10 Critical evaluation, theoretical integration, and
implications 197
Summary of EASI theory 198
A critical evaluation of the empirical support for EASI
theory 201
How does EASI theory relate to other approaches?
Differences, commonalities, and integration 206
Implications for theory and research 212
Conclusion 221
11 Caveats and future directions 223
The elusive nature of evolutionary arguments 223
Measurement and separability of affective versus
inferential processes 225
Expanding the repertoire of emotional expressions 228
Temporal issues regarding the social effects of emotions 234
Broadening the outlook on the social context 239
Coda 243

References 244
Author Index 292
Subject Index 295
 Figures

3.1 Affective reactions as a mediating mechanism between

one person’s emotional expression and another person’s
response. page 38
3.2 Inferential processes as a mediating mechanism between
one person’s emotional expression and another person’s
response. 47
5.1 Effects of emotional expression versus suppression in
face-to-face interaction on conversation partners’ self-
reported experience of rapport and willingness to affiliate
(on a scale of 0–10). 83
5.2 Women’s smiles in college yearbook photographs
taken around the age of 20 positively predict observers’
approach and acceptance tendencies, marital status at
age 27, and personal well-being and marital satisfaction
at age 52. 89
5.3 Intended donations (in euros) to a charity collector as a
function of the collector’s emotional expression. 91
6.1 Effects of a confederate’s positive emotional displays on
the positive affective state of the group and downstream
consequences for cooperation and conflict. 107
6.2 Frequency of facial behavior in FACS action units AU4
(associated with anger) and AU5 (associated with fear)
in response to anger and fear displays as a function of
the expresser’s ingroup versus outgroup membership. 110
6.3 Observers’ ratings of group members’ common fate and
cohesiveness (on a scale of 1–9) as a function of the group
members’ constellation of facial emotional expressions. 113
6.4 Percentage of participants conforming to the majority’s
position as a function of the majority’s expressions of happi-
ness versus anger and the participant’s prototypical versus
peripheral position in the group. 119
7.1 Magnitude of concessions (in points) made over the course
of a negotiation as a function of the counterpart’s expressions

x
 List of figures xi
of anger versus happiness and time pressure. The total
amount of points to be divided was 760. 136
7.2 Magnitude of participants’ final offers in a negotiation
as a function of the opponent’s emotional expression
and participants’ cultural background. The total amount
of points to be divided was 760. 140
7.3 Concessions (in dollars) in a negotiation about a
second-hand car as a function of the counterpart’s
emotional displays. There was a discrepancy of $1,100
between the seller’s initial asking price and the buyer’s
initial offer. 141
8.1 The effects of positive “affective delivery” of salespeople
on customers’ favorable intentions vis-à-vis the store are
mediated by customers’ positive affect. 149
8.2 Customer satisfaction as a function of a service provider’s
authentic versus inauthentic positive emotional displays
and the quality of the service provider’s performance. 151
8.3 Attitude favorability (on a scale of 0–100) as a function
of the emotional display of the source of a persuasive
communication and the perceiver’s cognitive load. 163
9.1 Positivity of followers’ moods (on a scale of 1–7) and
perceptions of leader effectiveness (on a scale of 1–5)
as a function of the leader’s emotional expressions. 173
9.2 Effects of a leader’s positive versus negative mood on
followers’ ratings of the leader’s charisma and followers’
task performance are mediated by followers’ affective state. 179
9.3 Effects of a leader’s positive versus negative mood on
observer-rated group coordination and effort on a scale
of 1–5. 181
9.4 Team performance as a function of a leader’s displays of
anger versus happiness and team members’ information-
processing motivation. Team performance scores were
automatically calculated by the computer software through
which the task was administered, and they ranged from
11,796 to 40,586 points. 183
9.5 Likelihood of followers’ compliance with a leader (in per-
centages) as a function of the leader’s emotional displays and
followers’ trait positive affectivity. 187
10.1 A schematic representation of the main variables and rela-
tionships specified in EASI theory. 200
 Tables

3.1 Processes involved in producing the social effects

of emotions. page 54
4.1 Moderators of the social effects of emotions. 78
5.1 Emotional similarity at Time 1 (in correlations) of
couples who were still together at Time 2 (six months
later) and those who had broken up. 85

xii
 Preface

The social nature of emotions has interested me ever since I took a

course on emotions by Nico Frijda at the University of Amsterdam, in
1997. In the years to come, my fascination with this topic would be
nurtured by close collaborations with fellow emotion researchers such
as Tony Manstead, Dacher Keltner, Agneta Fischer, and Stéphane Côté,
as well as by the writings of numerous other inspiring scholars whose
work is featured in the pages of this book.
At the time when I took Frijda’s classes, scholarly awareness of the
social effects of emotions was clearly on the rise, but empirical research
was scarce. Now, almost two decades later, there is a burgeoning
literature on the social functions and consequences of emotional dis-
plays. Researchers have begun to examine how emotional expressions
shape close relationships, influence group processes, regulate the nego-
tiation of social conflict, affect consumer behavior and customer service
encounters, and contribute to (or undermine) effective leadership.
Although research is quickly accumulating, the literature is scattered,
and no single volume exists that brings together the important theore-
tical and empirical advances that have been made over the past years.
Now that a substantial body of research on the social effects of
emotions has been amassed, the time seems right for a comprehensive
review and theoretical integration of this literature. What have we
learned from more than twenty years of research? Do we see recurring
patterns in the social effects of emotions across social, clinical, develop-
mental, and organizational domains of inquiry? Where are the incon-
sistencies in the empirical record? Can we start building an integrative
theory of the social effects of emotions? Which important questions
remain unaddressed? And where should we go from here?
This book presents my attempt at addressing these questions. Being
the first volume dedicated specifically to the relatively young research
field of the social effects of emotions, it should be seen as a beginning
rather than an end point. My intention is to provide a theoretical frame-
work that can be used to interpret and integrate previous findings and
to guide future research. I hope this book will be instrumental in

xiii
xiv Preface
spurring new research that will bring us closer to a full understanding
of the social nature of emotions.
In addition, it is my hope that this book will prove useful as a teaching
resource. During ten years of lecturing on the social effects of emotions,
I have been frequently alerted by both undergraduate and graduate
students that there is a need for a book that offers a comprehensive
treatment of this rapidly growing field of research. I have therefore tried
to make this text accessible to students as well. If this book turned out to
be half as stimulating to a new generation of emotion researchers as my
personal heroes have been to me, I would be very satisfied indeed.

Gerben van Kleef

 Acknowledgments

The ideas and research presented in this book reflect the collective efforts
of a large group of scholars. Several of them have contributed directly to
my own work through various collaborations. I thank Hajo Adam, Adi
Amit, Bruce Barry, Bianca Beersma, Arik Cheshin, Stéphane Côté,
Frederic Damen, Carsten de Dreu, Xia Fang, Agneta Fischer, Allison
Gabriel, Adam Galinsky, Fieke Harinck, Skyler Hawk, Marc Heerdink,
Ivona Hideg, Astrid Homan, Dacher Keltner, Lukas Koning, Gert-Jan
Lelieveld, Tony Manstead, Christina Moran, Liat Netzer, Bernard
Nijstad, Chris Oveis, Lisanne Pauw, Katerina Petkanopoulou, Davide
Pietroni, Jeffrey Sanchez-Burks, Disa Sauter, Marwan Sinaceur, Eftychia
Stamkou, Wolfgang Steinel, Maya Tamir, Ilja van Beest, Helma van den
Berg, Ilmo van der Löwe, Joop van der Pligt, Eric van Dijk, Evert-Jan van
Doorn, Daan van Knippenberg, Paul van Lange, Victoria Visser, Lu
Wang, and Barbara Wisse for the pleasant collaborations and inspiring
discussions. In addition, I am indebted to the countless scholars with
whom I have had the pleasure of interacting during conferences and
other meetings. Their work, much of which is covered in this book, has
greatly influenced my thinking.
At this point I would also like to acknowledge the financial support I
have been offered by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific
Research. The various research grants I have been privileged to receive
have catalyzed my research on the interpersonal dynamics of emotion
and have allowed me to create favorable conditions for writing this
volume.
I am grateful to my colleagues at the University of Amsterdam for
contributing to a stimulating intellectual environment, and to Columbia
University for hosting me during part of the time when I was working on
this book.
Finally, I would like to extend a warm thank-you to Tony Manstead for
the honorable invitation to contribute a volume to this series, which is so
close to my heart, and for providing valuable comments on a previous
draft of the manuscript.

xv
 CHAPTER 1

Emotion
An interpersonal perspective

Emotion accomplishes very little in the social world unless it is

communicated.
Planalp (1999, p. 138)

Emotions are a defining feature of the human condition – they shape our
social relationships and imbue our lives with meaning and purpose. Few
would disagree that our emotions influence how we perceive the world,
how we think about it, and how we engage with it. What may be less
obvious, however, is that our emotions can have far-reaching effects on
the thinking and actions of others, and, logically, that the emotions of
others influence our own cognition and behavior. This book is about these
social effects of emotions.
Questions about the nature and meaning of emotions date back to at
least the old Greek philosophers (e.g., Plato, Aristotle), and these very
questions later propelled the conception of psychology as a scientific field
of inquiry (see James, 1884). What are emotions? Why did they evolve?
Are emotions functional or dysfunctional? Do our emotions cloud our
rationality and misguide our behavior, as suggested by philosophers like
Descartes and Kant, or are they the fuel that gets us going and steers us
toward great achievement, as proposed by thinkers such as Hume and
Nietzsche? Do emotions disrupt evenhanded social interactions or are
they the cornerstone of well-adjusted relationships?
Inspired by Darwin’s (1872) seminal book The expression of the emotions
in man and animals, scholars have increasingly embraced the notion that
emotions are functional in that they help the individual to adapt to an
ever-changing environment. Classic theorizing and research have
emphasized the individual-level functionality of emotions (Frijda, 1986;
Lazarus, 1991; Oatley & Jenkins, 1992). Emotions are believed to regulate
bodily adaptations to environmental changes (Farb, Chapman, &
Anderson, 2013). This involves regulation of the autonomic nervous
system, endocrine system, and immune system. It has been demon-
strated, for example, that anger leads to enhanced distribution of blood
to the hands, whereas fear involves reduced blood flow to the periphery
(Levenson, 1992). These patterns can be interpreted as adaptive responses

1
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2 Emotion: an interpersonal perspective
to challenges involved in fighting an enemy versus escaping one with
minimal loss of blood (Keltner, Haidt, & Shiota, 2006).
I do not dispute this individual-level functionality of emotions. At the
same time, however, it is clear that the individual perspective alone
cannot account for the full breadth of emotional phenomena. After all, if
emotions were only functional at the individual level, why would they
show on our faces? Why would they become audible in our voices and
visible in our bodily postures? And why would so many people feel the
urge to communicate their emotional experiences to others (Rimé,
Philippot, Boca, & Mesquita, 1992)? As a result of these various expres-
sive tendencies, our emotions often do not remain confined to our indi-
vidual minds and bodies.
Whoever first coined the term “emotion” was surely aware of this.
Before the term was introduced, thinkers commonly used the word
“passions” to refer to emotional phenomena. The word “passion” is
derived from the Greek πάσχω, which means “to suffer” and thus empha-
sizes individual experience. The word “emotion” is derived from the
Latin emovere, which means “to move out.” The very meaning of the
term suggests that emotions are about bringing out, and making known
to observers, the internal state of the individual, thus emphasizing the
social nature of the phenomenon. As we will see, there is considerable
debate in the literature as to whether emotional expressions reflect inter-
nal feeling states and/or (deliberate) communications (see, e.g.,
Parkinson, 2005). This controversy notwithstanding, the active moving
that is implied in the word “emotion” better captures the essence of the
phenomenon than the passive undergoing that is implied in the archaic
“passions.” Emotions actively set things in motion. They move ourselves
and they move others.
Although emotions can of course be privately experienced, more often
than not they are expressed in one way or another – whether verbally or
nonverbally, mildly or intensely, knowingly or unknowingly, deliber-
ately or inadvertently (Ekman & O’Sullivan, 1991; Manstead, Wagner,
& MacDonald, 1984; Scherer, Feldstein, Bond, & Rosenthal, 1985). The
very fact that emotions tend to be expressed means that they will often be
observed by others, who may in turn respond to the expressions. Put
differently, our hardwired tendency to express our emotions implies that
emotions may have social functions and consequences in addition to their
more commonly studied and widely accepted intrapersonal effects.
Indeed, emotional expressions have been proposed to contribute to the
effective regulation of social interaction. According to this perspective,
emotions may have evolved in part because they help us address social-
relational concerns (Fischer & Manstead, in press; Oatley & Johnson-
Laird, 1987). Some have argued, for instance, that emotions help to

[Link]
 Emotion: an interpersonal perspective 3
solve problems of commitment and cooperation, which are central to
human ultrasociality (Frank, 1988; Keltner et al., 2006). Emotional expres-
sions carry information about one’s (desired) relationship with another
person. For example, love and compassion signal psychological attach-
ment and commitment to a relationship (Ellis & Malamuth, 2004;
Gonzaga, Keltner, Londahl, & Smith, 2001; Hazan & Shaver, 1987).
Embarrassment and shame appease dominant individuals and signal
submissiveness (Keltner & Buswell, 1997; Semin & Manstead, 1982).
Pride protects the social status of accomplished individuals (Tiedens,
Ellsworth, & Mesquita, 2000). Anger motivates punishment of indivi-
duals who violate norms of reciprocity and cooperation (Lerner,
Goldberg, & Tetlock, 1998), and its expression helps to identify and rectify
social problems (Averill, 1982; Fischer & Roseman, 2007). Guilt motivates
reparation after wrongdoing (Trivers, 1971) and signals interpersonal
concern (Baumeister, Stillwell, & Heatherton, 1994). In other words,
emotions may be thought of as modes of engagement with the social
environment (Parkinson, Fischer, & Manstead, 2005). This view high-
lights the potential social functionality of emotions as instruments that
help individuals find adaptive ways of relating to one another.
Scholarly attention to the interpersonal consequences and possible
social functionality of emotional expressions has increased steeply over
the past two decades (see, e.g., Côté & Hideg, 2011; Elfenbein, 2007;
Fischer & Manstead, in press; Frijda & Mesquita, 1994; Hareli & Rafaeli,
2008; Keltner & Haidt, 1999; Niedenthal & Brauer, 2012; Parkinson, 1996;
Parrott, 2001; Tiedens & Leach, 2004; Van Kleef, 2009). Despite this
growing interest, however, a comprehensive theory of the social effects
of emotions is lacking. Moreover, at present no single source exists that
brings together the recent empirical efforts and advances in the study of
the social effects of emotions. With this book I aim to change this state of
affairs by outlining a broad theoretical framework for understanding the
social effects of emotions and guiding future research in this area and by
reviewing and integrating the important discoveries that have been made
over the past years. Before moving on, however, it is important to briefly
consider some definitional issues.

Definitional issues
When William James published his famous article titled “What Is an
Emotion?” in 1884, he implied that the answer is not obvious. Indeed, a
century later, Fehr and Russell (1984) observed that “everyone knows
what an emotion is, until asked to give a definition. Then, it seems, no one
knows” (p. 464). The question of what constitutes an emotion has occu-
pied philosophers, psychologists, and other social scientists for ages, and
4 Emotion: an interpersonal perspective
it continues to do so. Countless definitions of emotion have been
advanced, attesting to the difficulty of formulating one that is satisfactory
to all who are interested in the phenomenon. Nevertheless, there is
considerable consensus with regard to a number of key elements of
emotion.
Many theorists believe that emotions arise as a result of an individual’s
conscious or unconscious evaluation or appraisal of some event as posi-
tively or negatively relevant to a particular concern or goal (Frijda, 1986;
Lazarus, 1991; Ortony, Clore, & Collins, 1988), although the exact role of
appraisals in the emotion process remains a topic of considerable debate.
Furthermore, there is substantial agreement that emotions involve spe-
cific patterns of phenomenological experience (Scherer & Tannenbaum,
1986), physiological reactions (Levenson, Ekman, & Friesen, 1990), and
expressions (Ekman, 1993). Finally, emotions tend to be accompanied by
a sense of action readiness (Frijda, 1986), in that they prepare the body
and the mind for behavioral responses aimed at dealing with the circum-
stances that caused the emotion.
Various terms have been used to refer to emotional phenomena. The
most commonly used terms are “affect,” “mood,” and “emotion.” Affect
is the most general concept, referring to a subjective feeling state that can
range from diffuse moods such as cheerfulness or depression to specific
and acute emotions such as happiness or anger (Frijda, 1994). The word
“affect” is also used to refer to relatively stable individual dispositions
(i.e., trait positive and negative affectivity; Watson, Clark, & Tellegen,
1988). Emotions and moods are generally seen as subtypes of affect. They
are differentiated by the degree to which they are directed toward a
specific stimulus – be it a person, an object, or an event (Frijda, 1994).
As Parrott (2001) puts it, “emotions are about, or directed toward, some-
thing in the world . . . In contrast, moods lack this quality of object
directedness; a person in an irritable mood is not necessarily angry
about anything in particular – he or she is just generally grumpy” (p. 3).
Emotions are also typically more differentiated and of shorter duration,
whereas moods tend to be more enduring and pervasive, if generally of
lower intensity (Frijda, 1994). Finally, in contrast to diffuse moods, dis-
crete emotions are associated with distinct subjective experiences
(Scherer, Wallbott, & Summerfield, 1986), physiological reactions
(Levenson et al., 1990), expressions (Ekman, 1993), and action tendencies
(Roseman, Wiest, & Swartz, 1994).
In this book I will use these terms accordingly. I use the word “emo-
tion” to refer to valenced responses to relevant events that are accompa-
nied by specific patterns of experience, physiological changes,
expressions, and/or behavioral tendencies, and that are associated with
an identifiable cause or object. I reserve the term “mood” for more diffuse
 Emotion: an interpersonal perspective 5
and undifferentiated feeling states that are not connected to a particular
antecedent event or object. I use the word “affect” as an umbrella term to
denote both discrete emotions and diffuse mood states and valenced
evaluations of objects or people, such as likes and dislikes and related
sentiments (Frijda, 1994).

An interpersonal approach to emotion

Traditionally, theorizing and research on emotion have been concerned
first and foremost with the antecedents and individual-level conse-
quences of emotions. Consider the case of anger. In the past fifty years
or so, emotion scholars have made a lot of progress in mapping the types
of situations and events that may trigger anger. For instance, appraisal
theorists have argued and shown that anger may arise when a person
feels that his or her goals are being frustrated and someone else is to
blame (e.g., Frijda, 1986; Kuppens, Van Mechelen, Smits, & De Boeck,
2003; Roseman, 1984; Scherer, Schorr, & Johnstone, 2001; Smith, Haynes,
Lazarus, & Pope, 1993). Along similar lines, research in the area of
organizational behavior has revealed that perceptions of injustice are a
prominent precursor to anger in the workplace (Barclay, Skarlicki, &
Pugh, 2005).
In addition, a large body of research has been dedicated to investigat-
ing how an individual’s experience of anger shapes his or her own
cognition and behavior. Studies have shown, for instance, that feelings
of anger undermine trust (Dunn & Schweitzer, 2005) and interpersonal
concern (Allred, Mallozzi, Matsui, & Raia, 1997) and enhance the ten-
dency to blame others for negative events (Lerner & Tiedens, 2006;
Quigley & Tedeschi, 1996). Furthermore, anger has been associated
with feelings of hostility and a desire for revenge and retaliation
(Allred, 1999; Baron, Neuman, & Geddes, 1999; Skarlicki & Folger,
1997). Behavioral findings mirror these effects, with feelings of anger
undermining cooperation and increasing competition (Forgas, 1998;
Knapp & Clark, 1991; Pillutla & Murnighan, 1996) and sparking aggres-
sive behavior (Averill, 1982).
As is clear from the example of anger, the classic approach to emotion
has contributed greatly to scientific understanding of the antecedents and
individual-level consequences of emotions. More recently, this tradi-
tional focus has been complemented by theorizing and research on the
interpersonal effects of emotions – the topic of this book. Moving beyond
the question of where our emotions come from and how they influence
our own thinking and behavior, the interpersonal perspective raises the
complementary question of how one person’s emotional expressions
influence the feelings, thoughts, and actions of other individuals.
6 Emotion: an interpersonal perspective
This interpersonal perspective opens up a host of exciting new
research questions that have only recently begun to receive systematic
scholarly attention. For instance, when and how do individuals use
the emotional displays of others to make sense of the world around
them? Do people deliberately use their emotions to influence others,
and if so, which emotions are effective under which circumstances?
How do emotional expressions shape the quality of close relation-
ships? When and how do emotional displays contribute to the coordi-
nation of behavior in groups? How do emotional expressions
influence conflict resolution versus escalation? Does the impact of
persuasive messages depend on the emotional displays of the source?
What are the consequences of emotional communications for consu-
mer behavior and the quality of customer service? How does a lea-
der’s emotional style influence his or her effectiveness? And how do
teachers’ emotional expressions influence the performance of their
students? These and many other questions pertaining to the interper-
sonal dynamics of emotions are addressed in this book.

Goals and overview of the book

My goal with this book is threefold. First, I intend to develop an integra-
tive theoretical framework to enhance understanding of the mechanisms
and contingencies that govern the social effects of emotions. Second, I set
out to provide a comprehensive overview of extant research on the social
effects of emotions across domains of life. Third, I aim to identify gaps in
our knowledge and provide an agenda for future research.
These three objectives are addressed in the three parts of this book.
The first part of the book (Chapters 2–4) outlines a broad theoretical
framework that informs understanding of the social effects of emotions
and that may serve as a guide for future research: Emotions as Social
Information (EASI) theory. In Chapter 2 I develop the general idea that a
primary function of emotions is to disambiguate social situations by
providing relevant information to other individuals in the social envir-
onment. I will discuss theorizing on the evolution and social functions
of emotions, research on social referencing in humans and emotional
understanding in nonhuman primates, claims regarding the universal-
ity of emotional expressions, and evidence for the deliberate targeting of
emotional expressions to other individuals and for the modulation of
emotional expressivity by the presence of others. I then review illustra-
tive research on the role of emotional expressions as cues to social
predispositions. The chapter closes with a brief discussion of psycholo-
gical disorders and physical conditions that compromise social interac-
tion by disrupting the social-communicative functions of emotions.
 Emotion: an interpersonal perspective 7
Chapter 3 addresses the two processes of emotional influence that are
featured in EASI theory, namely affective reactions and inferential pro-
cesses. The section on affective reactions describes how the emotional
expressions of one person may elicit reciprocal or complementary emo-
tional reactions in one or more others and how emotional expressions
shape interpersonal liking. The section on inferential processes addresses
the ways in which individuals may extract relevant (social) information
from the emotional expressions of others. Downstream consequences of
both processes are also discussed.
In Chapter 4 I propose two classes of moderators that determine the
relative predictive strength of affective reactions and inferential processes
in shaping observers’ responses to others’ emotional expressions. The
first factor is the information-processing depth of the observer. Drawing
on classic dual-process models of information processing, I review per-
sonality characteristics and environmental influences that shape an indi-
vidual’s information-processing motivation and ability. The second
factor concerns social-contextual influences that shape the perceived
appropriateness of emotional expressions. This section addresses char-
acteristics of the situation, the emotional expression, the expresser, and
the observer that influence the perceived (in)appropriateness of emo-
tional expressions.
The second part of the book (Chapters 5–9) presents a comprehensive
review of empirical research on the social effects of emotions. This review
is organized according to the five broad domains of research in which the
social effects of emotions have so far been investigated most extensively,
namely close relationships, group life, conflict and negotiation, customer
service and consumer behavior, and leadership. In each of the chapters,
the empirical record will be discussed in relation to the theoretical ideas
outlined in the preceding chapters.
Chapter 5 is concerned with the interpersonal effects of emotions in
close relationships. The guiding question in this chapter is how the
emotional expressions of one person (e.g., a friend or relationship
partner) shape relationships by influencing the emotions, cognitions,
attitudes, and/or behavior of a social partner. The chapter begins
with a discussion of theoretical perspectives and empirical research
on the functionality of emotional expressivity in close relationships
and related work on the effects of emotional intelligence on relation-
ship success. I then move on to consider the role of emotional con-
vergence in interpersonal relationships, after which I summarize
research on the social consequences of four main classes of emotional
expressions that are associated with affiliation (e.g., happiness), sup-
plication (e.g., sadness), dominance (e.g., anger), and appeasement
(e.g., guilt).
8 Emotion: an interpersonal perspective
Chapter 6 addresses the social effects of emotions in groups. The
chapter starts with a brief discussion of theorizing on the social function-
ality of emotions in groups. Against that background, I will discuss
classic work on various types of affective processes in groups, including
emotional contagion, affective convergence, and affective divergence,
which will be followed by a review of research on the consequences of
group-level affective states such as group affective tone and affective
diversity for group functioning. I will then proceed to review more recent
work on inferential processes that may be triggered by emotional expres-
sions in groups and their downstream consequences for group processes
and outcomes. The chapter ends with some emerging conclusions regard-
ing the contingencies that govern the social effects of emotions in groups.
In Chapter 7 I review research on the interpersonal effects of emotions
in conflict and negotiation. The key question here is how emotional
expressions influence cooperation versus competition in situations of
mixed-motive interdependence. I review research on the influence of
emotional expressions in the context of a variety of conflict management
settings, such as negotiation, dispute resolution, and coalition formation.
These studies indicate that emotional expressions shape conflict behavior
and the resolution versus escalation of conflicts by instigating affective
reactions as well as inferential processes in observers, depending on
observers’ information-processing tendencies and on the perceived
appropriateness of the emotional expressions. I also discuss emerging
research on the role of emotional intelligence in conflict and negotiation.
Chapter 8 then reviews the literature on the social effects of emotions in
the context of customer service and consumer behavior. The first part of
the chapter reviews research on the effects of service providers’ emotional
displays on the emotions, product attitudes, purchase intentions, and
actual behavior of consumers. In this context I will also discuss work on
emotional labor and the perceived authenticity and appropriateness of
service providers’ emotional displays. Reversing the focus, the second
part of the chapter addresses research on the effects of customers’ emo-
tional expressions on service employees’ emotions, job satisfaction, well-
being, cognitions, and performance. In the third part of the chapter I then
move on to review studies on the effects of emotional expressions on the
effectiveness of persuasive communications. The fourth part is devoted to
emerging research on interpersonal emotion regulation in customer ser-
vice. The final part of the chapter addresses the role of emotional intelli-
gence in the service industry.
Chapter 9 is concerned with the role of emotions in leader–follower
relations. The central question in this chapter is how the emotional
expressions of a leader influence the emotions, cognitions, attitudes,
and behaviors of followers, and what the consequences are for leadership
 Emotion: an interpersonal perspective 9
effectiveness. Research in this area has documented that leaders’ emo-
tional expressions may influence follower behavior and leadership effec-
tiveness by triggering affective reactions (e.g., emotional contagion,
liking of the leader) as well as inferential processes (e.g., inferences
regarding performance quality) in followers. I will discuss studies on
the contingencies of these processes and their outcomes, many of which
relate to followers’ information processing or the perceived appropriate-
ness of the leaders’ emotional displays. In this area, too, emerging evi-
dence points to a critical role of emotional intelligence in determining the
social effects of emotions, and this research is also reviewed.
The third part of the book (Chapters 10 and 11) summarizes the current
state of the art, highlights implications for theory and research, and
discusses caveats and future directions. Chapter 10 offers a critical eva-
luation of the empirical support for EASI theory, discusses how EASI
theory compares to other theoretical perspectives, and highlights some of
the implications of the current analysis. Finally, Chapter 11 discusses
limits to our current understanding and provides an agenda for future
research.
PART I

Emotions as Social Information

Theory
 CHAPTER 2

Emotions as social information

The face has the only skeletal muscles of the body that are used, not to
move ourselves, but to move others.
Smith and Scott (1997, p. 229)

One of the key challenges of social life is to figure out what other people
are about: what they are thinking and feeling, what they expect or want
from us, how they are likely to act, and so on. This is not a trivial task. In
many situations, people have limited insight into each other’s feelings,
goals, needs, desires, and intentions. This lack of information poses a
significant challenge to social interaction. If one does not know what goes
on in other people’s minds, it is difficult to relate to them, anticipate their
behavior, and determine an appropriate course of action. Is the person
across the street of good intent or should he be avoided? Will the bus
driver remember to give me a sign when we have reached my stop? Is the
animated group of friends at the party interested in expanding their
company or do they prefer to be among themselves? Is the “independent”
financial adviser trying to find the best solution for my situation or does
he have ulterior motives?
Without insight into the feelings, intentions, and motives of other
individuals, navigating social life is like walking through a misty city.
We can make out the silhouettes of the people surrounding us, but we
have no idea what they are up to. This creates challenging and potentially
dangerous situations. If we do not know what other people expect from
us and what they are after, it is virtually impossible to respond aptly
when interacting with them. Therefore we are continuously (and often
nonconsciously) on the lookout for cues that may tell us something about
others’ intentions. As part of this quest to make sense of ambiguous social
situations we seize on subtle and indirect signals available in the situa-
tion, such as other people’s emotional expressions (Manstead & Fischer,
2001; Van Kleef, De Dreu, & Manstead, 2010). Thus the intimidating
expression of the man across the street tells me to stay away. The bus
driver’s friendly nod reassures me that she will let me know where to get
off. The aloof looks of the people at the party inform me that they don’t
feel like chatting with a stranger. The financial adviser’s phony smile

13
14 Part I Emotions as Social Information Theory
warns me not to do business with him. Whenever individuals do not
explicitly disclose their honest opinions and intentions, their emotional
expressions are among the few leads to provide some insight into their
internal worlds (DePaulo et al., 2003; Ekman, 2001; Ekman & Friesen,
1969). In other words, other people’s emotional expressions are the flash-
light that helps us find our way in the mist of social interaction.
But what does this flashlight look like, and how does it work? In this
and the following two chapters I outline my attempt at a general frame-
work for investigating and explaining how emotional expressions help us
navigate the inherent challenges and ambiguities of social life: Emotions
as Social Information (EASI) theory. EASI theory is rooted in the inter-
personal approach to emotion that I discussed in the previous chapter. It
seeks to elucidate how the emotional expressions of one person may
influence the feelings, thoughts, and actions of others. As reflected in its
name, a fundamental assumption underlying the theory is that emotional
expressions convey social information that may be picked up on and
interpreted by observers, who may thus be influenced by the emotional
expressions. In Chapters 3 and 4 I will discuss how and when people use
others’ emotional expressions to make sense of (social) situations and to
inform their behavior. But let us first take a step back to consider why we
express our emotions in outwardly perceptible ways in the first place.

Emotional expressions as evolutionary adaptations

Humans are an ultrasocial species, accomplishing many tasks relevant to
survival and reproduction (e.g., provision and distribution of resources,
raising of offspring, protection against predators) in highly coordinated,
close-proximity, face-to-face relationships and groups (Caporael, 1997).
Group sizes increased over the course of evolution, possibly in response
to increasing risk of attacks by predators in the open fields (Dunbar, 1992,
2004). A critical challenge in human adaptation thus has long been (and
still is) to navigate the myriad relationships involved in group life
(Baumeister & Leary, 1995; Fiske, 1991). According to the social brain
hypothesis, humans and other primates evolved increasingly large brains
to manage such complex social systems (Dunbar, 2009).
In the early stages of group life, our hominoid ancestors likely had
to communicate and coordinate without formal language. Given that that
the emotional systems of the human brain (e.g., the amygdala and other
parts of the limbic system) evolved much earlier than the centers that are
responsible for language and speech (which are located in the cortex; see
MacLean, 1990), it stands to reason that emotional expressions and other
nonverbal behaviors constituted the primary communication devices
in preliterate times. In the absence of formal language, observable
 Emotions as social information 15
nonverbal behaviors – including facial, vocal, and postural expressions of
emotion – provided useful clues to other people’s motives and intentions
(Fridlund, 1992), making such expressions especially vital for adaptive
social responding, survival, and reproduction (Dunbar, 2004; Tooby &
Cosmides, 1990). It seems reasonable to assume that emotional expres-
siveness and the ability to decode others’ emotional expressions were
assets that helped our ancestors in dealing with the complex social pro-
blems that were posed by the emergence of group life (Boone & Buck,
2003; Buck, 1984).
With later evolution came humans’ unique mastery of language, which
has added an additional layer of sophistication to emotional expression
(Oatley, 2003). Rather than supplanting the critical functions of nonverbal
expressions, language has provided humans with complementary ways
of expressing their emotions and navigating increasingly complex social
realities (Keltner, Haidt, & Shiota, 2006; Oatley, 2004). Although there are
certainly situations in which it may be advantageous to hide one’s emo-
tions, the ability to express one’s emotions to others in appropriate ways,
whether nonverbally or verbally, still is key to well-adjusted social rela-
tions and general life success (Keltner & Kring, 1998). For instance,
children who more effectively convey distress to their caregivers are
more likely to be nurtured, and parents who are better attuned to their
children’s suffering are more likely to intervene when needed, thereby
increasing the chances of their offspring’s survival. Individuals who dis-
play anger at appropriate times and in the appropriate manner are more
likely to scare off enemies and to defend their interests, just as challengers
who are better attuned to signs of anger in their counterparts are more
likely to avoid combat (Fridlund, 1994). People who express happiness in
the right circumstances may develop better social networks, receive more
social support, and lead more successful social lives (Lopes, Salovey,
Côté, & Beers, 2005). In short, appropriate use of and responses to emo-
tional expressions are vital to successful social adaptation, and these
benefits derive in large part from the evolved social-signaling functions
of emotional expressions.
It is important to acknowledge at this point that the fact that a certain
characteristic has evolved to the present day does not prove in any way
that it is (or once has been) functional (Buss, 1999). Moreover, any beha-
vioral consequences of emotions that may have been adaptive once in a
different ecology are not necessarily adaptive today. Although caution is
therefore warranted when making claims pertaining to the evolutionary
adaptiveness of current-day characteristics (see e.g., Fridlund, 1991a, for
an in-depth discussion), several lines of research are consistent with the
possibility that emotional expressions have evolved in part because of
their critical role in coordinating social interaction, and that they have
16 Part I Emotions as Social Information Theory
over evolutionary history become hardwired systems of communication.
Babies as young as four months can already discriminate between facial
expressions of emotions such as happiness and fear (Nelson, 1987). By
fourteen months of age, human infants understand that others’ emotional
expressions are directed at particular objects (Repacholi, 1998), and by
eighteen months they recognize that such emotional signals contain
information about the expresser’s desires vis-à-vis those objects
(Repacholi & Gopnik, 1997). In other words, before children can commu-
nicate using language, they already know how to use others’ emotional
expressions as a source of information (Tronick, 1989).

Social referencing in human infants

The potential adaptive value of the informational function of emotional
expressions is nicely illustrated by classic work on “social referencing” in
infants (e.g., Klinnert, Campos, Sorce, Emde, & Svejda, 1983; Sorce, Emde,
Campos, & Klinnert, 1985). When an infant is confronted with an ambig-
uous situation, it looks to the face of another person to search for emo-
tional cues that may help interpret and evaluate the ambiguity. “If the
observer can identify emotional expressions and can assume that the
expressing person is reacting to relevant environmental circumstances,”
Sorce and colleagues reasoned, “then it seems quite likely that the atti-
tude and/or behavior of that observing person will be influenced by
noting the other’s emotional expressions” (p. 196).
Classic studies on social referencing utilized a visual cliff paradigm to
investigate this possibility. The visual cliff usually consists of a glass-
covered table that is divided into two halves: a shallow side under which
a patterned surface is placed immediately beneath the glass plate, and a
deep side under which a similar surface is visible at some distance below
the glass (Sorce et al., 1985). In a typical experiment, the depth of the
visual cliff is calibrated so as to be perceived as somewhat frightening by
the child. In combination with an attractive toy placed at the deep side of
the cliff, this creates an ambiguous situation in which the baby is scared
off by the visual cliff yet simultaneously motivated to crawl over the cliff
to get to the toy.
The critical manipulation in classic studies such as these consists of a
caregiver (often the mother of the child) being positioned at the deep side
of the visual cliff and showing certain emotional expressions, for instance
happiness in one condition and fear in another. In one of the studies
reported by Sorce and colleagues (1985), none of the babies crossed the
visual cliff when the mother looked fearful, whereas 74 percent of the
babies crossed the cliff when she looked happy. Presumably the mother’s
emotional display signals that the environment is safe (happiness) or
 Free ebooks ==> [Link]
Emotions as social information 17
unsafe (fear), which informs the infant’s behavior. Interestingly, this
program of research has also revealed that a caregiver’s emotional
expressions are particularly influential in ambiguous situations, suggest-
ing that individuals deliberately seek and use the information conveyed
by others’ emotional expressions to make sense of the situation (including
other people in that situation) and to guide their behavior.
Later studies showed that human infants understand the referential
content of others’ emotional expressions and use this understanding to
draw inferences about the expresser’s preferences. In an illustrative
study by Repacholi (1998), fourteen-month-old babies saw an adult
open two boxes and show a facial display of happiness or disgust
depending on the content of the boxes. The infants were subsequently
more likely to select the box that had elicited a happy expression from
the adult than the box that had elicited a disgusted expression. Other
studies revealed that slightly older infants possess a nonegocentric
understanding of the differences between their own desires and those
of others. In one study, eighteen-month-olds viewed an adult’s emo-
tional responses to different food items and subsequently handed over
to the adult that food item which had elicited a positive emotional
reaction from the adult, even when their own preferences were different
(Repacholi & Gopnik, 1997).

Emotional understanding in nonhuman primates

The presumed functionality of emotional expressions can also be
observed in nonhuman primates that do not master formal language
yet live in complex social constellations that create a need for behavioral
coordination. Reflecting the often noted similarities between facial
expressions of humans and nonhuman primates (e.g., Darwin, 1872;
Redican, 1982), systematic observations indicate that various primate
species possess the ability to express and recognize “basic” emotions
such as fear, anger, joy, and disgust (Parr, Hopkins, & de Waal, 1998).
Moreover, apes as well as certain types of monkeys are capable of using
other individuals’ emotional expressions to gain information about these
individuals’ desires and to anticipate their behavior (Buttelmann, Call, &
Tomasello, 2009), which helps them coordinate their mutual actions and
solve (social) problems (de Waal, 2009).
Early studies indicate, for instance, that rhesus monkeys use the emo-
tional expressions of their conspecifics to inform their own behavior
(Miller, Murphy, & Mirsky, 1959; Mirsky, Miller, & Murphy, 1958). In
some of these studies, rhesus monkeys witnessing expressions of fear in
another monkey that anticipated an electrical shock quickly learned to
switch a lever that eliminated the shock. Apparently the monkeys used

[Link]
18 Part I Emotions as Social Information Theory
the emotional expression of the distressed individual to develop an
understanding of what was happening and to determine what action
was needed. The authors therefore concluded that emotional expressions
play an important role in nonverbal communication among monkeys.
More recent work demonstrates just how sophisticated great apes’
emotional understanding is. Buttelmann et al. (2009) adapted the above-
mentioned paradigm by Repacholi (1998) to investigate whether and how
chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans use humans’ emotional
expressions to make inferences about the humans’ desires and to deter-
mine their own course of action. In one experiment, Buttelmann and
colleagues found that apes used the experimenter’s expressions of happi-
ness versus disgust to inform their choices in a decision task. In this study,
the experimenter reacted emotionally upon viewing the contents of two
boxes, which were unknown to the subjects. The apes were subsequently
more likely to pick the box to which the experimenter had reacted with a
happy expression than the box to which the experimenter had reacted
with an expression of disgust.
In a follow-up experiment, Buttelmann and colleagues (2009) obtained
evidence that this effect was not due merely to automatic processes (e.g.,
primitive emotional contagion; Hatfield, Cacioppo, & Rapson, 1994; see
Chapter 3) or simple valence-based responding. This study was set up in
such a way that successful performance required selecting the box that
had elicited a negative emotional response from the experimenter. Apes
in this experiment more often chose the container to which the experi-
menter had reacted negatively, presumably based on the inference that
the experimenter had just eaten the content of the box to which he had
reacted positively, meaning that the other box still contained food. These
findings suggest that the apes inferred from the experimenter’s emotional
expressions how the experimenter felt about the contents of the various
containers, which helped them decide which container to pick for
themselves.
The relevance of such referential abilities for survival and reproduction
is nicely illustrated by an example described by de Waal (2009). He
witnessed a chimpanzee mother accidentally sitting down on top of her
young, thereby risking smothering it to death. The mother did not hear
the young’s muffled cries of distress and only realized what she was
doing when she saw the worried looks of a few other chimpanzees in
the colony who had watched her as she sat down. Upon seeing the
distress in the expressions of her fellow chimps she understood what
was going on and saved her baby from suffocation. Examples such as
these elucidate the importance of emotional expressions for communica-
tion and coordination, and although certainly not definitive evidence,
they are consistent with the possibility that emotions have evolved at
 Emotions as social information 19
least in part because of the adaptive advantages that are afforded by their
expression.

The universality of emotional expressions

Further suggestive evidence for the hypothesis that facial emotional
expressions provided an evolutionary advantage comes from studies on
the universality of emotional expressions. Guided by Darwin’s (1872)
assumption of the phylogenetic continuity of the emotion system, a con-
siderable body of research has documented similarities between human
and nonhuman emotional expressions (Redican, 1982). Many human
facial expressions appear to be rooted in ancestral primate communica-
tive displays (Parr, Waller, Vick, & Bard, 2007; van Hooff, 1972) that are
believed to serve a critical role in sustaining cooperative societies (Parr,
Waller, & Fugate, 2005). Furthermore, there is evidence for mutual recog-
nition of emotional displays across species boundaries, as shown for
instance in the aforementioned work by Buttelmann and colleagues
(2009) on the referential effects of human emotional expressions on the
behavior of nonhuman primates and in studies on the recognition of
macaques’ affective vocalizations by humans (Linnankoski, Laasko, &
Leinonen, 1994). Studies such as these point to the possibility that the
expression of emotion is universal and therefore presumably biologically
evolved.
Another line of inquiry that is pertinent to this idea is research on
cultural universals versus variations in the recognition of emotional
expressions. Classic studies indicate that displays of basic emotions are
well recognized across cultures that have had little or no exposure to one
another (e.g., Ekman, 1972; Ekman et al., 1987; Izard, 1971), supporting
the claim of universals in emotional expression and recognition. Other
authors have advanced the opposing view that emotional expressions are
shaped by cultural norms and socialization (e.g., Lutz & White, 1986;
Wierzbicka, 1994). After decades of fierce debate (for reviews and meta-
analyses, see Ekman, 1994; Elfenbein & Ambady, 2002a, 2002b; Mesquita
& Frijda, 1992; Russell, 1994), a growing group of scholars nowadays take
an intermediate position, suggesting that the facial expression and recog-
nition of emotions is characterized by a combination of universals and
cultural variations (e.g., Elfenbein & Ambady, 2003; Mesquita, Frijda, &
Scherer, 1997; Scherer & Wallbott, 1994).
Although less extensively studied, the recognition and interpretation
of vocal expressions of emotion appears to be characterized by a
similar pattern (Sauter, Eisner, Ekman, & Scott, 2010; Scherer, Banse, &
Wallbott, 2001). Scherer and colleagues examined the decoding accuracy
of vocalizations of joy/happiness, anger, sadness, fear, and disgust across
20 Part I Emotions as Social Information Theory
nine countries spanning three continents (Europe, North America, and
Asia). They found that, in general, accuracy was substantially greater
than chance and, more importantly, that patterns of confusion were very
similar across countries and languages. The authors concluded from
these findings that there is a considerable degree of universality in the
recognition of vocal expressions of emotion. Sauter and colleagues com-
pared European native English speakers with the Himba, a seminomadic
group of pastoral people living in remote, culturally isolated villages in
Namibia. They found that vocalizations of the basic emotions like anger,
disgust, fear, joy, sadness, and surprise were recognized across cultural
boundaries, whereas vocalizations of nonbasic emotions like achieve-
ment/triumph, relief, and sensual pleasure were recognized within but
not across cultures.
In short, even if one can argue about the proportion of universals
relative to cultural variations in emotion expression and recognition, it
is clear that basic emotions such as joy/happiness, sadness, fear, anger,
and disgust (see, e.g., Ekman, 1982; Izard, 1977) tend to be well recog-
nized across cultural boundaries. Moreover, research has documented
that differences between the basic emotions are substantially larger than
differences between cultures in terms of patterns of subjective feelings
(e.g., duration, intensity), physiological symptoms (e.g., arousal, tem-
perature), and expressive tendencies (e.g., approach motivation, verbal,
nonverbal, and paralinguistic expression) involved in each of the emo-
tions (Scherer & Wallbott, 1994). Altogether, although perhaps not con-
clusive, the current body of evidence is consistent with the position that
emotional expressions are to a considerable degree rooted in biological
affordances, which points to the possibility that emotional expressions
have evolved because of the adaptive advantages they provide – a key
element of this adaptive benefit being the informational value of emo-
tional expressions.
Proposition 1: Emotional expressions have evolved, at least in part, because of the
informational value they represent to observers, which helps coordinate social
interaction.
It is important to note that the possibility that emotions have evolved
due to the adaptive functionality of their expression does not imply that
each and every emotional expression is going to be functional in each and
every situation. It takes only shallow introspection and cursory observa-
tion of everyday emotional dynamics to realize that both the experience
and expression of emotions can have disadvantageous consequences. As
is true for any evolutionary account, the position that emotional expres-
sions have been selected for over the course of evolution rests on the
assumption that emotional expressions afford a general advantage across
 Emotions as social information 21
situations; it does not assume or require that all expressions are always
functional. Although it is often possible to develop some rationale as to
the functionality of particular effects that seem maladaptive at first, doing
so entails the risk of neglecting evidence of dysfunctional emotional
episodes and constructing circular and unfalsifiable arguments (Parrott,
2001). Thus, even though I believe that our emotional system has evolved
because it serves important social functions, I acknowledge that any
particular instance of emotional expression can in principle have both
beneficial and detrimental consequences. As will be discussed in detail in
Chapter 4, the social functionality of emotional expressions hinges criti-
cally on the accuracy of the appraisals that gave rise to the emotions
(Parkinson, 2001) as well as on the adequate regulation (Lopes et al.,
2005; Parrott, 2001) and appropriate expression of the emotion in light
of prevailing norms and expectations in a given social context (Fischer,
Manstead, & Zaalberg, 2003; Shields, 2005; Van Kleef, 2010).

What do emotional expressions signal?

Another important question to consider is what exactly emotional expres-
sions signal. This question, too, has ignited considerable debate (for a
review, see Parkinson, 2005). At the heart of this debate is the question of
whether facial expressions do in fact reflect internally felt emotions.
According to the emotional readout hypothesis (Buck, 1980, 1985), facial
expressions constitute external “readouts” of motivational and emotional
processes that had social significance during the course of evolution. This
view is grounded in the assumption that innate primary affects are
associated with universal facial expressions (Darwin, 1872; Ekman &
Oster, 1979; Izard, 1977; Tomkins, 1962, 1963), as discussed above. Buck
(1985) suggested that the more the survival of a species hinged upon the
effective coordination of behaviors among individuals (e.g., for procrea-
tion, care of young, or distribution of food), the more important it became
that certain motivational-emotional states were externally visible, so that
communication could occur.
According to this view, emotional expressions may have evolved
because they facilitated behavioral coordination that was critical to
survival (Andrew, 1963, 1965). For instance, nonverbal displays of
dominance versus submissiveness enable the establishment of hierar-
chies without costly fights, infants’ expressions of neediness and
dependence encourage caregiving, and courtship displays facilitate
the coordination of reproductive behaviors (Buck, 1985). In his analy-
sis of primate expressions, Andrew (1965) noted that the employment
of facial displays and other types of nonverbal communication is a
function of the extent of socialization of the given species and the
 Free ebooks ==> [Link]
22 Part I Emotions as Social Information Theory
communicative demands of the environment and the concomitant
need for behavioral coordination. Indeed, social species that require
greater degrees of communication to establish effective coordination
show more sophisticated repertoires of facial displays than do species
that lead solitary lives (Buck, 1980).
Fridlund (1991b, 1994) later suggested that the classical view of
facial displays as expressions of internal emotional states should be
replaced by a behavioral ecology view, which emphasizes the (volun-
tary) use of facial expressions in the interest of the individual’s social
motives. According to this perspective, facial expressions are reflec-
tions of salient social motives, and they bear no necessary relation to
the individual’s emotional state. In this view, individuals who show
the right displays at the right time will have a better chance of
survival, regardless of whether their outward expressions reflect
their privately experienced emotions. Thus, infant cries and smiles,
for instance, can be seen as communications of behavioral intentions
or as action requests that serve to secure caretaker attention and that
require no experienced emotion.
My interest here is not in contrasting the emotional readout hypoth-
esis with the behavioral ecology view of emotional expressions. In
fact, the two views are to a large extent compatible (Buck, 1994; Frijda,
1995; Hess, Banse, & Kappas, 1995; Horstmann, 2003) – they simply
emphasize different aspects of the emotion process. Whether facial
displays are, at the extremes, automatic and involuntary readouts of
internal emotional states or deliberate expressions of social motives,
both views converge on the notion that emotional expressions can
provide insight into the goals and desires of the expresser. Although
the question of whether facial displays reflect felt emotions or social
motives is relevant when it comes to theorizing about the evolution of
facial expressions, it is not particularly critical from the point of view
of understanding the social effects of emotions, because emotions and
motivations can hardly be seen as separate entities (Parkinson, 2005).
We feel emotions because we strive toward certain goals, and thus,
by implication, emotions reflect underlying motivations (Frijda, 1986;
Lazarus, 1991). What matters for the current purpose is that observers
may distill relevant information from other people’s facial expres-
sions – be it about their internally experienced emotions, their social
motives, or some combination of the two. For the sake of simplicity, I
will use the words “emotional expression” and “emotional display” to
refer to those verbal and nonverbal expressive patterns that can be
mapped theoretically onto felt emotions based on their form, while
realizing that not all such expressions necessarily always reflect

[Link]
 Emotions as social information 23
internally felt emotions. I return to this distinction in Chapter 4, where
I discuss the issue of emotional authenticity.

Emotional expressions as communicative tools

The fact that emotional expressions contain information about the expres-
ser’s internal feelings and/or motives implies that emotional expressions
may function as communicative tools (Fridlund, 1994). This view can be
traced back to Darwin’s (1872) seminal work on the expression of the
emotions in man and animals, in which he wrote:
The movements of expression in the face and body, whatever their
origin may have been, are in themselves of much importance for our
welfare. They serve as the first means of communication between the
mother and her infant; she smiles approval, and thus encourages her
child on the right path, or frowns disapproval. We readily perceive
sympathy in others by their expression; our sufferings are thus miti-
gated and our pleasures increased; and mutual good feeling is thus
strengthened. The movements of expression give vividness and
energy to our spoken words. They reveal the thoughts and intentions
of others more truly than do words, which may be falsified. (Darwin,
1872, p. 359)

Darwin’s thinking has stimulated a great deal of research into the

possible communicative function and purpose of emotional expressions.
Even though Darwin did not believe that the muscles of the face have
evolved because they allow us to convey our emotions to others, he was
convinced that emotional expressions reveal important information
about the expresser and thus play a role in social communication.1

1
This nuance relates to the distinction that is made in evolutionary biology between
signals and cues (see Shariff & Tracy, 2011, for a discussion). Signals evolved specifically
for the purpose of communication, whereas cues did not evolve to facilitate commu-
nication but convey information as a byproduct of another characteristic that serves a
primary adaptive purpose, such as an intrapersonal physiological function (e.g., widen-
ing the eyes in fear to increase the scope of the visual field or scrunching the nose in
disgust to reduce the intake of potentially contaminated air). Some scholars have
proposed a two-stage model, suggesting that emotional expressions first emerged as
cues and eventually transformed in form and function to become signals (e.g.,
Chapman, Kim, Susskind, & Anderson, 2009; Eibl-Eibesfeldt, 1989). As is the case for
the emotional readout versus behavioral ecology debate discussed previously, this
distinction is more germane to theorizing about the evolution of emotional expressions
than to theorizing about their contemporary social consequences. For present purposes
I will therefore treat the existence of the current repertoire of emotional expressions as a
given and focus on how emotional expressions may be used as communicative tools to
regulate social interaction.
24 Part I Emotions as Social Information Theory
The deliberate targeting of emotional expressions
Anecdotal observations and empirical findings converge to suggest that
emotional expressions are often deliberately directed at observers so as to
maximize the impact of the expressions as communication devices and
tools of social influence (Côté & Hideg, 2011; Van Kleef, Van Doorn,
Heerdink, & Koning, 2011). Consider the familiar examples of the waitress
who smiles purposefully as a way of increasing her tip; the homeless person
who expresses sadness in the hopes of extracting some change from pas-
sers-by; the father who shows disgust to discourage his three-year-old from
spitting out his food; the boxer who shows anger to intimidate his oppo-
nent; or the toddler who trips and hurts his knee but only starts to cry when
he detects a suitable audience (also see Fridlund, 1994). Examples such as
these illustrate how commonly people use emotional expressions to com-
municate their appraisals, motives, and intentions to others. As discussed in
greater detail in Chapter 4, such emotional expressions may vary in the
extent to which they reflect the expresser’s internal feeling states, but the
communicative goals behind their expression may be largely the same.
Several independent programs of research also support the conclusion
that emotional expressions may be used deliberately as part of a commu-
nication strategy. In what has become a classic study, Kraut and Johnston
(1979) videotaped bowlers from the position of the pins at the end of the lane
as well as from the perspective of the fellow bowlers waiting to take their
turn. The researchers found that the bowlers exhibited more visible emo-
tional displays when facing the audience than when facing the pins, sug-
gesting that they intentionally directed their expressions toward the
audience as a way of communicating their emotional evaluation of the
ongoing events (e.g., strikes, misses). A study of the nonverbal behavior of
gold medal winners at the Olympic Games similarly showed that happiness
alone was not sufficient to generate smiling; rather, smiling was triggered by
the presence of a social audience (Fernández-Dols & Ruiz-Belda, 1995).
Another illustrative study was reported by Bavelas, Black, Lemery, and
Mullett (1986). In a carefully staged experiment, participants saw the
experimenter drop a heavy television onto his apparently already bruised
finger, while looking either at or away from the participant. Participants
exhibited more visible signs of empathetic pain when they could establish
eye contact with the experimenter than when they could not. When no
eye contact was possible, participants’ vicarious winces quickly faded
away. This suggests that participants’ emotional displays served the
communicative goal of signaling empathy and mutual distress, presum-
ably to soothe the victim’s pain and/or to create a bond. Participants
strategically timed their facial expressions so as to maximize their signal-
ing value.
 Emotions as social information 25
Modulation of emotional expressivity by the presence of others
Fridlund (1991b) later demonstrated that the implicit presence of an
audience can be sufficient to catalyze facial expressions. Participants in
this study watched an amusing film in one of four sociality conditions: (1)
alone, (2) alone believing that a friend was nearby, (3) alone believing that
a friend was nearby and watching the same film, or (4) in the physical
presence of a friend. The sociality manipulation did not influence self-
reported emotional reactions to the film, but it did affect facial displays as
measured by facial electromyography (fEMG): Participants smiled more
in the more social situations. It is noteworthy that smiling was equally
potentiated in conditions 3 (implicit audience) and 4 (explicit audience),
suggesting that merely imagining an audience is enough to trigger the
social-communicative mind-set that increases emotional expressivity.
Interestingly, there appears to be an asymmetry in the degree to which
individuals are inclined to express positive versus negative emotions as a
function of the sociality of the situation. Whereas Fridlund (1991b)
reported evidence that sociality potentiates positive facial expressions,
other studies indicate that negative emotional expressions (e.g., of sad-
ness) may actually be tempered by the presence of an audience (Jakobs,
Manstead, & Fischer, 2001; but also see Chovil, 1991). Other work
revealed that the presence of strangers inhibits the expression of emo-
tions, whereas the presence of friends facilitates emotional expression
(Buck, Losow, Murphy, & Constanzo, 1992). Although slightly different
in its outlook, this work also demonstrates that people tend to adapt their
emotional displays to characteristics of the social situation, presumably to
maximize the communicative functionality of those displays.
As is the case for the interpretation of others’ emotional expressions
discussed above, the deliberate use of emotional expressions is common
not only among human adults, but also among younger children and
nonhuman primates. For instance, Jones and colleagues demonstrated
that ten-month-old infants’ smiling is strongly dependent on visual con-
tact with the caregiver, with smiles being much less frequent in the
absence of such contact (Jones & Raag, 1989; Jones, Collins, & Hong,
1991). Zeman and Shipman (1996) found that second graders communi-
cated sadness to elicit support but suppressed anger for fear of negative
social consequences. Furthermore, McCrone (1991) observed how chim-
panzees deliberately and intelligently used emotional expressions to
influence conspecifics. The chimpanzees’ purposeful use of facial, vocal,
and postural emotional expressions to sway the behavior of their inter-
action partners suggests that they possess at least a rudimentary under-
standing of how other individuals may respond to various types of
26 Part I Emotions as Social Information Theory
emotional displays and, accordingly, of how emotional displays can be
used as a form of communication.
Clearly, then, there is much more to emotions than their internal
experience. More often than not, emotions are purposefully expressed
(or suppressed) to communicate with others and to achieve certain
goals, and their expression is skillfully managed so as to yield optimal
social benefits (Planalp, 1999). This highlights the possibility that the
communicative qualities of emotions are part of the reason why emo-
tions have evolved in the first place. Indeed, Parkinson (1996) pro-
posed that private outbursts of emotion may be developmentally
secondary to the primary communicative function of emotional
expressions. “Our emotional expressions,” Parkinson suggested, “are
often intended as communicative acts addressed to another person
rather than being simple and direct reflections of an underlying men-
tal state” (p. 676).

The functional equivalence of expressive modalities

Most research on the communicative nature of emotional expressions has
focused on facial displays of emotion, as reflected in the preceding dis-
cussion. This focus has gone at the expense of attention paid to the
informational and communicative functions of verbal, vocal, and pos-
tural emotional expressions (but see, e.g., Aviezer, Trope, & Todorov,
2012; Byron, 2008; Coyne, 1976; Sauter et al., 2010; Scherer, 1986; Van
Kleef, De Dreu, & Manstead, 2004a; Wallbott, 1998). It is evident from the
above that facial expressions of emotion play a pivotal role in regulating
social interaction, but there is no reason to assume that they are unique in
serving this function. On the contrary, if we accept the assumption that
emotional expressions have evolved in part because of their communica-
tive functionality, it stands to reason that the social signaling value of
emotional expressions is similar across expressive modalities (Van Kleef
et al., 2011).
Emotional expressions may provide information about the expresser’s
appraisal of the situation (Manstead & Fischer, 2001), his or her internal
feeling state (Ekman, 1993), and his or her social motives and intentions
(Fridlund, 1994). It seems likely, then, that such information can be con-
veyed via facial, verbal, postural, or paralinguistic cues, or through any
combination of these expressive channels. Obviously, the suitability of
the various forms of emotional expression depends on the situation. For
instance, in modern life facial expressions are likely to be generally more
effective in face-to-face contact, vocal expressions in phone conversa-
tions, and verbal expressions in e-mail exchanges. Such obvious bound-
ary conditions aside, however, EASI theory postulates that the social-
 Free ebooks ==> [Link]
Emotions as social information 27
signaling value of emotions is functionally equivalent across expressive
modalities. The magnitude of the interpersonal effects of various forms of
emotional expressions may vary due to differences in the relative
strength of expressions and the degree to which they are picked up by
others, but the direction of the effects should be the same irrespective of
the expressive channel, as long as the emotional expression is accurately
perceived.
Proposition 2: The social-signaling function of emotional expressions is func-
tionally equivalent across expressive modalities in that the direction (but not
necessarily the magnitude) of the interpersonal effects of emotions is similar
regardless of whether emotions are expressed in the face, through the voice, by
means of bodily postures, and/or with words or symbols.

Emotional expressions as cues to social predispositions

The foregoing arguments and evidence support the notion that a key
function of emotional expressions is to provide information to obser-
vers so as to help them disambiguate the situation and inform their
actions. This begs the question of what type of information indivi-
duals may glean from others’ emotional expressions. Building on the
idea that (authentic) emotional expressions reflect a combination of
internally felt emotions, concerns, motives, intentions, and states of
action readiness (Frijda, Kuipers, & ter Schure, 1989; Keltner & Haidt,
1999; Oatley & Jenkins, 1992), EASI theory posits that people use the
emotional expressions of others to gain insight into others’ internal
states as well as to draw inferences about the nature of the situation
they are in.
Darwin (1872) proposed that, over the course of evolution, facial
expressions of emotion eventually came to convey information not
merely about expressers’ internal feeling states, but also about their social
intentions. It seems plausible that this communicative aspect of emotional
expressions contributed to the adaptive success of human beings and
thereby to the evolution of emotional expressions. One type of social
information that has immediate repercussions for people’s chances of
survival concerns the degree to which other individuals they encounter
are inclined toward cooperation or competition (Boone & Buck, 2003). It
stands to reason, then, that one of the primary types of information
people distill from others’ emotional expressions pertains to cooperative
versus competitive inclinations.
Along similar lines, Knutson (1996) argued that observers may extract
information from others’ emotional expressions regarding their domi-
nance and affiliation motives (also see Frank, 1988). In support of this

[Link]
28 Part I Emotions as Social Information Theory
possibility, Knutson found in two experiments that perceivers inferred
high degrees of dominance and affiliation from expressions of happiness,
high degrees of dominance and low degrees of affiliation from expres-
sions of anger and disgust, and low degrees of dominance from expres-
sions of sadness and fear. These findings suggest that people do indeed
use the emotional expressions of other individuals to infer fundamental
traits that bear relevance to social interaction and that help them antici-
pate the behavior of other individuals.
Compatible findings were obtained in other research (e.g., Hareli &
Hess, 2010; Hareli, Shomrat, & Hess, 2009; Hendriks & Vingerhoets, 2006;
Hess, Blairy, & Kleck, 2000). For instance, Hareli and Hess found that a
person who reacted with anger to blame was perceived as more aggres-
sive, self-confident, and masculine, and as less gentle and warm than a
person who reacted with sadness to the same situation, and Hendriks and
Vingerhoets found that crying individuals were judged as less aggressive
than individuals who expressed anger, fear, or no emotion. Interestingly,
Hess and colleagues further found that basic inferences of dominance and
affiliation were rather similar regardless of the ethnic group membership
or the sex of the expresser (although these factors did influence percep-
tions to some extent). This speaks to the universality debate by suggesting
that interpersonal trait inferences based on emotional expressions may be
fairly similar across social and biological groups.
Another relevant line of research shows that emotional expressions
may be used as cues regarding the expresser’s hierarchical standing.
Tiedens (2001) demonstrated that people who express anger (as opposed
to sadness) are more likely to be seen as high in status and to be afforded
status by others. Accurate perception of (and accommodation to) other
people’s positions in hierarchies is important for (social) survival because
power, status, and dominance serve as heuristic solutions to coordination
problems and thereby help to preempt conflict (Keltner, Van Kleef,
Chen, & Kraus, 2008). Interestingly, Tiedens and Fragale (2003) showed
that complementary responses to dominant nonverbal behaviors pro-
duced more comfortable interactions and greater interpersonal liking
among interaction partners. Thus, granting power to individuals who
display dominant nonverbal behavior (e.g., expressions of anger) by
deferring nonverbally leads to smoother interactions.
It is noteworthy that the various types of inferences from emotional
expressions discussed above all relate in one way or another to coopera-
tion versus competition. It makes theoretical sense, in light of the pre-
sumed evolutionary history of emotional expressions, that the key types
of information observers obtain from emotional expressions would have
implications for survival. Of course emotional expressions can convey
other, more specific types of information that depend on the social
 Emotions as social information 29
situation in which they are expressed, the object in relation to which they
are expressed, and the person at whom they are directed. For instance, it
would be quite straightforward to infer from a friend’s laughter in the
movie theater that she enjoys the film, and perhaps that she is a fan of the
director. But the more general trait inferences that people may make on
the basis of others’ emotional expressions are likely to be relatively
independent of the social setting, and these inferences probably relate
to interpersonal tendencies that have immediate repercussions for the
nature of the social interaction in terms of survival, bonding, and
reproduction.
In line with this idea, recent research indicates that emotional expres-
sions shape the construal of social situations in terms of cooperation
versus competition. Van Doorn, Heerdink, and Van Kleef (2012) con-
ducted a series of studies in which participants were asked to prepare
for an interaction with another person with whom they would suppo-
sedly perform a joint task. Participants received information about the
task (e.g., writing a paper, planning a vacation), and they were shown a
picture of their future interaction partner. The partner’s emotional
expression was systematically varied to reflect anger, disappointment,
happiness, or no emotion. Across studies, expressions of anger led parti-
cipants to construe the anticipated interaction as more competitive com-
pared to expressions of happiness or disappointment. Furthermore,
greater cooperative intentions were attributed to the expresser when
happiness or disappointment was expressed, compared to when anger
was expressed. Similar effects were found when the counterpart’s emo-
tion was manipulated by means of verbal rather than facial expressions,
and the effect held even when explicit information about the likely nature
of the situation (cooperative or competitive) was provided.
Complementary evidence was obtained in another series of studies.
Homan, Van Kleef, and Sanchez-Burks (2016) presented participants with
sketches of work situations that showed the facial emotional expressions
of two teammates. The teammates’ emotional expressions were system-
atically varied so that both showed happiness or both showed sadness.
Participants then indicated how they thought the interaction between the
team members would unfold. Participants anticipated more cooperative
interactions, greater interpersonal liking and trust, and less conflict when
both partners showed happiness than when both showed sadness.
Interestingly, Homan and colleagues further found that the effects of
the teammates’ emotional expressions on participants’ expectations
regarding the trajectory of their interaction were stronger when the
teammates had different ethnic backgrounds and when their pictures
had supposedly been taken after (rather than before) an initial meeting.
These results suggest that emotional expressions take on heightened
30 Part I Emotions as Social Information Theory
importance as cues of cooperation versus competition in situations that
present greater ambiguity and/or potential for conflict, such as interac-
tions between individuals from different cultural or ethnic backgrounds
(Hewstone, Rubin, & Willis, 2002; Van Knippenberg, De Dreu, & Homan,
2004). Furthermore, the findings indicate that observers are more likely to
use others’ emotional expressions as a source of information to the degree
that the emotional expressions are potentially relevant and diagnostic
(i.e., when they arose as part of the current social interaction).
Together, these findings support the idea that people use others’ emo-
tional expressions to draw inferences regarding their dominant versus
affiliative predispositions and to anticipate future levels of cooperation
versus competition.
Proposition 3: People use others’ emotional expressions to infer traits and
dispositions that are relevant to (social) survival and success (e.g., dominance,
affiliation) and to anticipate others’ behavior (e.g., collaboration vs. exploita-
tion) as well as the trajectory of social interactions (e.g., cooperative vs.
competitive).

When emotional signaling fails

One way of illuminating the importance of emotional expressions in
regulating our social lives is by considering what may happen when
emotional communication is thwarted. In this section I briefly discuss a
variety of clinical and subclinical conditions that may threaten individual
well-being, the quality of social relationships, and general life success by
undermining emotional signaling.

Clinical conditions
The importance of the social-informational function of emotional expres-
sions for well-adapted social relations becomes painfully clear when one
considers what can happen when emotional communication is frustrated.
Brain damage, psychological disorders, and physical conditions can con-
tribute to serious social-relational problems by undermining various
aspects of emotional functioning. Such conditions may threaten well-
being and the quality of social interaction by thwarting the perception
and understanding of emotions, the expression of emotions, and/or the
regulation of emotions. Although an in-depth treatment of such condi-
tions falls outside the scope of this book, a brief digression can illustrate
the importance of normal emotional functioning for effective communi-
cation and social adjustment.
 Emotions as social information 31
Brain trauma
A large body of research has documented that various types of brain
lesions can debilitate particular aspects of emotional functioning. For
instance, the famous incident of Phineas Gage, who suffered major
brain damage when a large iron rod was driven through his skull in an
explosion, revealed associations between lesions to the prefrontal cortex
and impaired emotional understanding, empathy, and impulse control,
which severely compromised the quality of Gage’s social relationships
after the accident (Damasio, 1994). Other illustrative studies have demon-
strated associations between amygdala lesions and impaired recognition
of particular facial emotional expressions (Adolphs, Tranel, Damasio, &
Damasio, 1994) and between cortical malfunctions and impairments in
emotion regulation that may result in impulsive violence and aggression
(Davidson, Putnam, & Larson, 2000). These and many other investiga-
tions point to the far-reaching social consequences of impaired emotional
functioning.

Psychopathology
Various psychopathologies can severely undermine the quality of social
life by impairing emotion recognition, emotional understanding, emo-
tional expression, and/or emotion regulation (Blair, 2003). Difficulties
surrounding the perception and understanding of other people’s emo-
tional expressions feature prominently in Mark Haddon’s (2003) novel
The curious incident of the dog in the night time. Upon discovering a dead
dog in the garden, the main character introduces himself as follows
(pp. 2–3):
My name is Christopher John Francis Boone. I know all the countries
of the world and their capital cities and every prime number up to
7,507. Eight years ago, when I first met Siobhan, she showed me this
picture ☹ and I knew that it meant “sad,” which is what I felt when I
found the dead dog. Then she showed me this picture ☺ and I knew
that it meant “happy,” like when I’m reading about the Apollo space
missions, or when I’m still awake at three or four in the morning and I
can walk up and down the street and pretend that I am the only person
in the whole world. Then she drew some other pictures [. . .], but I was
unable to say what these meant. I got Siobhan to draw lots of faces and
then write down next to them exactly what they meant. I kept the piece
of paper in my pocket and took it out when I didn’t understand what
someone was saying. But it was very difficult to decide which of the
diagrams was most like the face they were making, because people’s
faces move very quickly.

It is apparent from this passage that Christopher has difficulty recog-

nizing more intricate expressions of emotion. This makes it challenging
 Free ebooks ==> [Link]
32 Part I Emotions as Social Information Theory
for him to understand how others are feeling and to relate to them in a
socially appropriate way, as becomes clear in the rest of Haddon’s book.
Christopher most likely has some form of autistic spectrum disorder, a
heterogeneous set of developmental disorders that are characterized,
among other things, by difficulties in recognizing and responding to
other people’s emotional expressions (Uljarevic & Hamilton, 2013) and
associated problems with social functioning (Volkmar, Chawarska, &
Klin, 2005). These problems have been attributed to impairment in
theory of mind exhibited by patients with autism spectrum disorders
(Blair, 2003; Frith, 2001), that is, the ability to represent the mental states
of others (i.e., their thoughts, beliefs, desires, and intentions; Leslie, 1987;
Premack & Woodruff, 1978). Given that a lot of important information
can be gleaned from emotional expressions, as we have seen above, the
reduced ability to accurately perceive, represent, and/or understand
other people’s emotional displays poses a significant challenge for
patients with autism spectrum disorders. Although specific disorders
within the autism spectrum vary greatly in the degree to which they
handicap patients’ social skills (Volkmar et al., 2005), even high-function-
ing children and adults with autism often have fewer and lower-quality
relationships and are more likely to experience feelings of loneliness
(Bauminger & Kasari, 2000; Jobe & Williams White, 2007).
Other types of psychopathology influence patients’ social-emotional
lives by restricting the emotions they feel, the emotions they express,
and/or the degree to which they are able to regulate their emotions. A
prime example is unipolar depressive disorder, which is characterized
by chronic low levels of experienced positive affect and heightened
levels of experienced negative affect (Watson, Clark, & Carey, 1988).
These internal affective states may be reflected in depressive speech
patterns (Buck, 1984; Hargreaves, Starkweather, & Blacker, 1965;
Scherer, 1986) and limited facial and postural expressions of positive
emotion (Berenbaum & Oltmanns, 1992; Waxer, 1974), which may in
turn be picked up by interaction partners (Keltner & Kring, 1998). Due
in part to the negative affective reactions they elicit in other people
(Coyne, 1976; Joiner, 1994), individuals suffering from depressive
symptoms are more likely to experience social rejection by others
(Joiner, Alfano, & Metalsky, 1992). Accordingly, depressed individuals
tend to have fewer close relationships and smaller social networks
(Gotlib, 1992; Nezlak, Imbrie, & Shean, 1994), enjoy less social support
(Lara, Leader, & Klein, 1997), and experience more marital discord
(Beach, Smith, & Fincham, 1994). Furthermore, the lack of positive
emotional responsiveness of depressed parents may contribute to the
development of long-lasting negative affective states in their children
(Cohn & Tronick, 1983).

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 Emotions as social information 33
An example of a disorder that influences patterns of emotional expres-
sion is schizophrenia. Among other things, schizophrenia is character-
ized by diminished emotional expressivity, or “flat affect” (Berenbaum &
Oltmans, 1992). Schizophrenic patients’ inability to express their emo-
tions robs their interaction partners of critical cues as to their internal
feeling states, problems, and desires (Keltner & Kring, 1998). As a result of
this impaired emotional signaling, patients stand a serious risk of missing
out on social support that they might otherwise have received (Hooley,
Richters, Weintraub, & Neale, 1987). Accordingly, compared to controls,
schizophrenic patients tend to have smaller social networks (Hammer,
1986), exhibit poorer social adjustment (Mueser, Bellack, Morrison, &
Wixted, 1990), and experience greater marital dissatisfaction (Hooley
et al., 1987).
A final class of clinical conditions that is of interest here consists of
disorders that impair patients’ emotion regulation abilities and, thereby,
their patterns of emotional experience and expression. A chief example of
such a condition is the borderline personality disorder (BPD), which is
associated (among other things) with emotional oversensitivity, affective
instability, and extreme mood fluctuations (Farchaus-Stein, 1996;
Lumsden, 1993). Patients may also experience intense feelings of anger
and other negative emotions, which they find difficult to control
(Farchaus-Stein, 1996; Soloff & Ulrich, 1981). Most important in the con-
text of the current discussion is that these negative expressive patterns
may be interpreted by interaction partners as negative information about
the status of their relationship with the patient, which may trigger avoid-
ance tendencies (Keltner & Kring, 1998). These avoidant reactions may in
turn be perceived as signs of rejection by patients, thus further contribut-
ing to their negative emotional experience and expression. As a result of
these and other social dynamics, BPD patients are more likely than
healthy individuals to have hostile and conflict-ridden relationships
(Benjamin & Wonderlich, 1994; Modestin & Villiger, 1989).

Physical constraints on emotional expressivity

Conditions outside the realm of psychopathology can also threaten the
quality of social relationships by hampering emotional signaling. For
instance, patients who suffer from Parkinson’s disease often exhibit a
stiffness in their facial musculature that impairs (spontaneous) emotional
expressions (Smith, Smith, & Ellgring, 1996). This makes it difficult for
interaction partners to gauge how the patient feels and what she or he
wants, reducing the likelihood that they will respond adequately to the
patient’s needs. In addition, patients with Parkinson’s disease tend to
exhibit difficulties in decoding the emotional expressions of others
34 Part I Emotions as Social Information Theory
(Jacobs, Shuren, Bowers, & Heilman, 1995), which may reduce the quality
of their social relationships.
Social interaction may also be compromised when individuals undergo
a facelift or receive cosmetic injections of botulinum toxin type-A to com-
bat visible signs of aging in the face. First, the reduced muscle activity in
the face that results from these types of surgery logically undermines
emotional expression. Second, emotional understanding may be
impaired (Havas, Glenberg, Gutowski, Lucarelli, & Davidson, 2010),
because the blocking of facial mimicry interferes with recognition of
and (empathic) responses to others’ emotional expressions (Hawk,
Fischer, & Van Kleef, 2012; Niedenthal, Winkielman, Mondillon, &
Vermeulen, 2009; Oberman, Winkielman, & Ramachandran, 2007).

Subclinical conditions: the perils of expressive suppression

Besides physical and psychopathological conditions that undermine
emotional expressivity, people may develop maladaptive patterns of
emotional suppression as a result of their upbringing and socialization.
Even though such patterns may not meet the criteria of clinical patholo-
gies, their social consequences can be far-reaching nonetheless. Several
studies indicate that the discouragement of emotional expressivity
among infants is associated with developmental problems at a later age.
For instance, Eisenberg and Fabes (1994) found that parental punishment
of children’s displays of negative emotions was associated with chil-
dren’s avoidance of emotional expressions, particularly of anger. Such
minimization of (negative) emotional expressions on the part of young
children has been linked to insecure and avoidant attachment
(Cassidy, 1994).
Other work has yielded complementary evidence for the important
role of emotional expressions in parent–child relationships (Tronick,
1989). For instance, Roberts and Strayer (1987) reported that preschoolers
whose parents accepted and encouraged their expressions of distress
showed more social competence than children whose parents rejected
their expressions of distress. Similarly, Gottman, Katz, and Hooven
(1996) demonstrated in a longitudinal study that children whose parents
accepted their (negative) emotional expressions at age 5 exhibited higher
academic achievement at age 8. Findings such as these suggest that the
expression of emotions is a cornerstone of healthy child development and
the formation of secure attachment bonds and social competence.
The potential detriments of expressive suppression are not limited to
young children (Gross & John, 2003). Early work by Gottman and
Levenson yielded evidence that emotional withdrawal (which involves
reduced emotional expressivity) of husbands is associated with declining
 Emotions as social information 35
marital satisfaction of both partners (Gottman & Levenson, 1988;
Levenson & Gottman, 1985). More recent research by Butler and collea-
gues has demonstrated links between expressive suppression of emo-
tions and physical indicators of stress as well as reduced rapport and
inhibited friendship formation between conversation partners (Butler
et al., 2003). Another study similarly found that emotional suppression
predicted lower social support, less interpersonal closeness, and lower
social satisfaction (Srivastava, Tamir, McGonigal, John, & Gross, 2009).
One explanation of patterns such as these is that individuals who sup-
press the expression of internally felt emotions deny interaction partners
critical information as to their internal states, which makes it difficult for
partners to adequately respond to their situation.
Although positive emotional expressivity may be expected to have
especially favorable consequences for the quality of social relationships
(Mauss et al., 2011), negative emotional expressions serve a critical role in
drawing attention to problems that need to be addressed. In the face of
pertinent concerns, expressive suppression of negative emotions may
therefore have detrimental consequences for wellbeing and social adap-
tation. Clearly, however, the uninhibited expression of negative emotions
without regard for the social context is not likely to be very functional,
either. Successful adaptation depends on the ability to flexibly enhance or
suppress emotional expression in accord with situational demands
(Bonanno, Papa, Lalande, Westphal, & Coifman, 2004). In other words,
individual wellbeing and the quality of social relations depend on ade-
quate emotion regulation (Bell & Calkins, 2000), which is one of the
recurring themes of this book.
This brief foray into the effects of brain trauma, psychopathology, and
physical and psychological constraints on emotional functioning is far
from exhaustive, but it suffices to highlight the serious social difficulties
that may arise when individuals experience problems with respect to
perceiving the emotions of others and/or regulating and appropriately
expressing their own emotions. Many of the adverse social consequences
that are associated with these various conditions appear to result at least
in part from compromised communication and social connectedness.

Conclusion
Various literatures converge to show that emotional expressions play
a critical role in enabling effective communication and social coordina-
tion. Emotional expressions provide a wealth of information that allows
observers to gauge the social intentions of the expresser and to adjust
their own behavior accordingly. People deliberately target their emo-
tional expressions at others who in turn use those expressions as a source
36 Part I Emotions as Social Information Theory
of information when deciding how to respond. Considerable degrees of
continuity in the encoding and decoding of emotional expressions across
human cultures and across primate species point to the possibility that
our emotional expressions have evolved because they fulfill critical
social-communicative functions. Indeed, a host of clinical and subclinical
conditions that undermine the social-communicative functions of emo-
tions can have far-reaching consequences for the quality of social
interactions.
If we accept the premise that emotional expressions contribute vitally
to the regulation of social interaction, the next question is how this
regulation occurs. In the following two chapters I discuss the various
mechanisms that drive the social consequences of emotional expressions
(Chapter 3) as well as the contingencies that govern the nature of these
consequences (Chapter 4).
 CHAPTER 3

Mechanisms involved in the social

effects of emotions

Just as an outstretched finger tends to direct attention wherever it

points, a witnessed emotion encourages us to take account of its
implied perspective on events.
Parkinson, Fischer, and Manstead (2005, p. 179)

We have seen in the previous chapter that emotional expressions provide

pertinent cues into the internal states of expressers. These cues play a critical
role in social interaction by serving as communication devices that facilitate
interpersonal coordination (Keltner & Haidt, 1999). Whenever individuals
perceive the emotional expressions of others around them, they may be
influenced by those expressions. Thus, a spouse may be more willing to put
the garbage outside after her partner produced a sincere smile while asking
the favor; a child may tidy up his room after his father gave him an angry
glance; a shopper may donate some money to a good cause upon seeing the
charity collector’s disappointed reaction to impervious bystanders; a nego-
tiator may stand her ground after learning that her opponent feels guilty
about his last offer; an athlete may work harder for the team after being
reprimanded by his coach. Such instances of social influence by means of
emotional expressions are omnipresent (Van Kleef, Van Doorn, Heerdink,
& Koning, 2011), but how exactly do they come about?
Common sense suggests that people may respond to other individuals’
emotional expressions in a multitude of ways. For one thing, different
emotional expressions may elicit different responses in observers, as is
clear from the basic research on human infants and nonhuman primates
discussed in the previous chapter (e.g., infants whose caregivers smiled
were more likely to cross a visual cliff than infants whose caregivers
looked fearful; Klinnert, Campos, Sorce, Emde, & Svejda, 1983). But
even the exact same emotional expression may trigger a variety of
responses through different mechanisms. These mechanisms underlying
the social effects of emotional expressions are the focus of this chapter.
Building on the proposition that emotional expressions have evolved in
part because of the informational value they represent to observers (as
discussed at length in Chapter 2), I argue that the provision of informa-
tion is at the heart of the processes that drive the social consequences of

37
38 Part I Emotions as Social Information Theory
emotional expressions. The Emotions as Social Information (EASI) frame-
work identifies two classes of mechanisms underlying the interpersonal
effects of emotions: Emotional expressions may (1) trigger affective reac-
tions in observers and/or (2) elicit inferential processes in observers (Van
Kleef, 2009). Both types of processes provide information to observers
that helps them better understand the feelings, desires, motives, and
intentions of the person expressing the emotion, and to act accordingly.
I discuss both classes of processes in turn.

Emotional expressions trigger affective reactions in observers

Emotional expressions can evoke various types of affective reactions in
observers, which may subsequently inform their behavior. Affective
reactions can take the form of reciprocal or complementary feeling states
(Keltner & Haidt, 1999) as well as associated sentiments such as likes or
dislikes (Frijda, 1994). For instance, one person’s displays of distress may
evoke reciprocal feelings of distress and/or complementary feelings of
compassion in an observer (Batson, Fultz, & Schoenrade, 1987; Van Kleef
et al., 2008), and these affective states may be accompanied by feelings of
warmth or closeness and affectively laden behavioral tendencies, such as
a desire to provide consolation to the distressed person. As another
example, expressions of anger may inspire reciprocal anger and/or com-
plementary fear in observers (Dimberg & Öhman, 1996; Dimberg,
Thunberg, & Elmehed, 2000; Moody, McIntosh, Mann, & Weisser,
2007), which may motivate fight and flight responses, respectively.
Affective reactions thus constitute a mediating mechanism between the
emotional expressions of one person and the (behavioral) responses of
another, as shown in Figure 3.1.

Reciprocal affective reactions and their underlying processes: emotional

contagion, perspective taking, social appraisal, and embodiment
Most research in the realm of reciprocal affective reactions to emotional
expressions revolves around the notion of emotional contagion, the

Expresser’s Observer’s
Observer’s
emotional affective
response
display reactions

Figure 3.1 Affective reactions as a mediating mechanism between one

person’s emotional expression and another person’s response.
 Mechanisms involved in the social effects of emotions 39
tendency to “catch” other people’s emotions in social interaction on a
moment-to-moment basis (Hatfield, Cacioppo, & Rapson, 1994;
Lundqvist & Dimberg, 1995). One type of emotional contagion occurs
when individuals are exposed to others’ nonverbal displays of emotion
(e.g., facial, vocal, and postural expressions), which may be automatically
and nonconsciously mimicked and produce congruent emotional states
via various forms of afferent feedback (i.e., physiological feedback from
facial, vocal, and postural movements; e.g., Adelmann & Zajonc, 1989;
Hess & Blairy, 2001; Flack, 2006; Neumann & Strack, 2000; Wild, Erb, &
Bartels, 2001). Hatfield, Cacioppo, and Rapson (1992) referred to this
phenomenon as “primitive emotional contagion,” which they defined
as the “tendency to automatically mimic and synchronize movements,
expressions, postures, and vocalizations with those of another person
and, consequently, to converge emotionally” (pp. 153–154). Although
direct evidence for the full mediating chain from emotion perception →
mimicry → afferent feedback → emotional experience, as originally pro-
posed under the conceptualization of primitive emotional contagion, is
weak and inconclusive (see Hess & Fischer, 2013), there is abundant
evidence that people do indeed often unintentionally take on the emo-
tions of others, not just in the lab (e.g., Barsade, 2002) but also in real-life
situations (e.g., Anderson, Keltner, & John, 2003; Totterdell, 2000).
Despite the equivocal status of mimicry and concomitant afferent
feedback as explanatory mechanisms for primitive emotional conta-
gion, the extant literature puts a lot of emphasis on these mechanisms,
which sometimes goes at the expense of attention paid to other mechan-
isms of emotional contagion. Notably, however, Hatfield and colleagues
(1992) proposed that emotional contagion can also occur via processes
that do not require mimicry, such as classical conditioning and deliber-
ate perspective taking (also see Elfenbein, 2014). Although these non-
primitive forms of emotional contagion have received comparatively
little research attention, there is growing evidence that emotional con-
tagion can indeed occur in the absence of mimicry. For instance, several
studies indicate that people can come to feel the anger and happiness of
others even when these emotions are expressed verbally in computer-
mediated interaction (Cheshin, Rafaeli, & Bos, 2011; Friedman et al.,
2004; Van Kleef, De Dreu, & Manstead, 2004a). Such effects obviously
cannot be accounted for in terms of mimicry and afferent feedback (i.e.,
primitive emotional contagion), because lack of visual or auditory
access to the nonverbal emotional expressions of others precludes mimi-
cry in the traditional sense.
Other research has found that people can come to feel the emotions of
others when they deliberately take their perspectives and imagine what it
would feel like to be in their shoes, even in the absence of visible signs of
40 Part I Emotions as Social Information Theory
emotion. In a study by Hawk, Fischer, and Van Kleef (2011), participants
watched a video clip of an actor performing a silly dance. Participants
were instructed to watch the clip in an objective way or, in another
condition, to try and take the actor’s perspective. The actor either showed
nonverbal signs of embarrassment (including gaze aversion; smiling;
touching her face, hair, and clothing; and downward head movements;
see Keltner, 1995) or remained cool and aloof while dancing. The actor’s
embarrassment displays and the perspective-taking instructions both
produced reciprocal feelings of embarrassment in participants, and the
effect of perspective taking was significant also when the actor emitted no
visual signs of embarrassment. Thus, consistent with Hatfield and collea-
gues’ (1992, 1994) ideas, this study indicates that emotional contagion can
also occur via intentional perspective taking, and in the absence of
mimicry.
Parkinson and Simons (2009) further reported evidence suggesting that
emotions may spread both via traditional and relatively automatic forms
of emotional contagion and via more deliberate cognitive processes of
social appraisal (Manstead & Fischer, 2001), whereby individuals use the
emotions of others to interpret their situation and then come to feel
accompanying emotions as a result. Thus, one individual’s anxiety may
draw another person’s attention to potentially threatening aspects of a
common situation, thereby evoking reciprocal anxiety in that person. In a
diary study on the role of emotions in decision making in naturalistic
settings, Parkinson and Simons found that emotions spread between
interactants. This emotional convergence was partially mediated by
appraisals of risk and importance of the decisions, suggesting that more
deliberate social appraisal processes can account for part of the variance.
It is plausible that more automatic processes of emotional contagion
accounted for another part of the variance, but this could not be estab-
lished directly. Interestingly, transfer effects remained after controlling
for participants’ perceptions of the other person’s emotion, indicating
that emotional convergence does not require conscious registration of
other people’s emotions.
A final qualification of the traditional view of emotional contagion that
is relevant here comes from work in the realm of embodiment, which
views concordant responses to the emotional expressions of others as
“simulations” that facilitate emotional convergence and understanding.
According to embodiment theories, individuals process other people’s
emotional expressions by reactivating neural states involved in their own
prior affective experiences (Barsalou, Niedenthal, Barbey, & Ruppert,
2003; Niedenthal, 2007). Building on this idea, Hawk, Fischer, and Van
Kleef (2012) introduced the possibility of cross-channel imitation of dis-
crete emotions. Specifically, they investigated whether perceivers engage
 Mechanisms involved in the social effects of emotions 41
facial muscles when hearing emotional vocalizations of others (also see
Hietanen, Surakka, & Linnankoski, 1998; Magnée, Stekelenburg, Kemner,
& De Gelder, 2007), and whether such muscle activity contributes to
emotional convergence. In a series of experiments, Hawk and colleagues
demonstrated that listening to others’ discrete emotion vocalizations
activates the same facial behaviors and subjective states that are involved
in producing similar sounds oneself, and that cross-channel facial simu-
lations of others’ discrete emotion vocalizations are involved in proces-
sing these sounds and producing concordant emotional experiences.
Interestingly, even though primitive emotional contagion by definition
occurs automatically and nonconsciously, the fact that emotions tend to
spread between individuals appears to be well known. Consider the
following lyrics by Louis Armstrong:
When you’re smiling . . . when you’re smiling
the whole world smiles with you
When you’re laughing . . . when you’re laughing
the sun comes shining through
But when you’re crying . . . you bring on the rain
So stop your sighing . . . and be happy again
Yes, keep on smiling . . . keep on smiling
and the whole world smiles with you
We all share such experiences, whether with positive or with negative
emotions, and there appears to be considerable implicit awareness of the
phenomenon of emotional contagion (although perhaps not of its
mechanisms). Besides examples from popular culture, there is scientific
evidence that people are aware of the occurrence of emotional contagion
effects. Hendriks and Vingerhoets (2006) asked participants how they
expected to feel if they were to meet other individuals showing various
facial emotional expressions. Participants who imagined interacting with
a crying person were more likely to anticipate experiencing sadness
themselves than were participants who anticipated interacting with an
angry, fearful, or emotionally neutral individual. This further under-
scores the fact that emotional contagion in the broader nonprimitive
sense does not have to occur nonconsciously, something that was
acknowledged early on by Hatfield and colleagues (1992, 1994) but that
has been overlooked in much later research (also see Hess & Fischer,
2013). This is important, because it indicates that emotional contagion is a
more encompassing phenomenon than it is often portrayed to be.
In short, there appears to be considerable flexibility in the motoric and
affective systems involved in interpersonal emotion transfer (Hawk et al.,
2012). Emotional contagion may occur consciously or nonconsciously,
 Free ebooks ==> [Link]
42 Part I Emotions as Social Information Theory
and it may involve mimicry and feedback processes, within- or cross-
channel simulation, social appraisal, and/or deliberate perspective tak-
ing. This flexibility points to the possibility that various processes of
emotional contagion have evolved to facilitate emotional transfer and
understanding in diverse settings that may be conducive to different
types of emotional convergence (e.g., facial mimicry is more effective in
face-to-face interaction, while cross-channel mimicry is more effective
when people are within hearing distance but cannot see each other’s
faces; Hawk, Van Kleef, Fischer, & Van der Schalk, 2009).

Complementary affective reactions: different yet matching feeling states

The EASI framework recognizes that, besides the reciprocal emotional
experiences that may come about via emotional contagion and related
processes, emotional expressions can also arouse complementary emo-
tional experiences in observers. That is, individuals may respond with
particular patterns of emotional expressions and experiences that are
different from those displayed by the expresser yet match those expres-
sions in terms of their meaning and motivational implications. For
instance, expressions of sadness and distress may elicit sympathy
(Batson et al., 1987; Eisenberg, 2000) or compassion (Van Kleef et al.,
2008) in observers, expressions of anger may elicit fear (Dimberg &
Öhman, 1996; Moody et al., 2007), and expressions of disappointment
may elicit guilt (Lelieveld, Van Dijk, Van Beest, & Van Kleef, 2012, 2013).
Although research on complementary emotional reactions is relatively
scarce (compared to the abundance of studies on reciprocal emotional
responses), there is evidence for the incidence and functionality of com-
plementary emotional reactions.
Building on the assumption that the intricate facial musculature of
human and nonhuman primates has evolved to produce expressions
that signal information about the expresser’s emotional state and/or
social intentions (see Chapter 2), Dimberg and Öhman (1996) argued
that people should exhibit a tendency to spontaneously react with specific
emotional responses to particular facial expressions to facilitate under-
standing, communication, and behavioral adjustment. Besides support
for reciprocal emotional expressions and experiences, Dimberg (1988)
reported evidence that angry faces evoke more fear in observers than
happy faces – a finding that fits well with an evolutionary account of
human emotional expression. People who are disposed to experience a
certain degree of fear when confronted with others’ expressions of anger
may be more likely to avoid potentially dangerous encounters.
Another type of complementary emotional response that may be
highly functional for social adaptation occurs when observers experience

[Link]
 Mechanisms involved in the social effects of emotions 43
sympathy, concern, or compassion when confronted with the emotional
suffering of another person (Batson et al., 1987). As is the case with
reciprocal affective reactions, such complementary affective reactions
can emerge either relatively automatically (e.g., as conditioned
responses) or as a result of more conscious processes such as cognitive
perspective taking (Eisenberg, 2000). Several studies have shown that
expressions of sadness, worry, and fear can elicit sympathetic emotions
in observers, which may in turn motivate supportive responses
(Eisenberg et al., 1989; Kennedy-Moore & Watson, 2001). Such comple-
mentary emotional responses and concomitant behavioral tendencies can
be highly functional for the quality of social relationships (Côté, 2005;
Keltner & Haidt, 1999). For instance, Van Kleef and colleagues (2008)
found that strangers who were instructed to disclose episodes of emo-
tional suffering felt more understood and appreciated and expressed a
greater desire to befriend their conversation partner when the partner
showed more signs of compassion in response to their suffering than
when the partner exhibited less compassion.

Downstream consequences of affective reactions

The feeling states that result from exposure to other people’s emotions
have downstream consequences for observers’ cognitions, motivations,
and behaviors (Van Kleef, De Dreu, & Manstead, 2010). Cognitive effects
can come about via various types of “affect infusion” (Forgas, 1995). For
instance, according to the affect-as-information model (Schwarz & Clore,
1983), individuals may (mis)attribute their current affective state to the
situation at hand, using their feelings as input to their social judgments
and decisions – a “how do I feel about it?” heuristic (Schwarz & Clore,
1988; cf. Martin, Ward, Achee, & Wyer’s [1993] mood-as-input model).
Thus, if a traveler in a train catches a stranger’s happiness and thereby
comes to experience reciprocal positive feelings, she may judge the stran-
ger and/or the situation as benign, which may facilitate mutual trust,
understanding, and benevolence. Conversely, if she picks up a fellow
traveler’s irritability, she may judge the situation and the other traveler
more negatively, possibly resulting in less constructive behavioral
responses.
Affective reactions to the emotional expressions of others may also
influence judgment and behavior by modulating an individual’s repre-
sentation of the object of judgment. According to affect-priming models
(Bower, 1981; Forgas & Bower, 1987; Isen, 1987; Isen, Shalker, Clark, &
Karp, 1978; Singer & Salovey, 1988), affective states selectively prime
related concepts and memories that are part of an associative network,
which facilitates their accessibility when making subsequent judgments
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44 Part I Emotions as Social Information Theory
and decisions. A good mood temporarily increases the likelihood that
positive cognitions will be generated in response to subsequent stimuli,
whereas a bad mood increases the accessibility of negative cognitions.
Thus, if our traveler catches a fellow traveler’s joy, she may begin to
selectively focus on positive aspects of that person and/or the situation,
which may fuel prosocial tendencies. Conversely, if she picks up a stran-
ger’s grumpiness, the increased salience of negative concepts may con-
tribute to a more adversarial inclination toward that person.
It is also possible for the positive or negative valence of an emotional
expression to become directly associated with a stimulus via evaluative
conditioning (De Houwer, Thomas, & Baeyens, 2001). In this type of
process an emotional expression can come to serve as the unconditioned
stimulus that changes the subjective valence of a previously neutral
conditioned stimulus. Such conditioning can theoretically be established
with any object, concept, or person. Thus, our traveler may come to
associate the stranger’s joy or irritability with traveling by train, respec-
tively resulting in a more positive or more negative attitude toward
public transportation. Furthermore, the traveler may come to associate
the stranger’s emotional expressions with the stranger himself, which
may in turn influence her impressions of the stranger. It is well estab-
lished that joyful expressions generally inspire positive impressions in
observers, whereas angry expressions engender negative impressions
(Clark & Taraban, 1991). It is conceivable that such impressions are due
in part to evaluative conditioning. Moreover, the impressions that people
develop of others based on their emotional expressions may in turn
shape social behavior. Thus, the traveler may be more willing to help
the smiling stranger than the grumpy stranger, because the former insti-
gates a more favorable impression, and people tend to be more willing to
help others whom they like (Clark, Pataki, & Carver, 1996).
Besides the cognitive mechanisms of affect-as-information, affect prim-
ing, and evaluative conditioning, the emotions that individuals pick up
from others can influence social judgment and behavior through more
motivational processes of mood maintenance and negative state relief.
The core assumption in this type of model is that people strive to promote
and maintain positive mood states and to avoid experiencing negative
mood states (Carlson, Charlin, & Miller, 1988). This fundamental desire
motivates people in a negative mood to engage in behaviors associated
with positive feelings (e.g., helping others) in order to relieve their nega-
tive feeling state (Schaller & Cialdini, 1988). Likewise, individuals in a
positive mood are motivated to exhibit behaviors that produce positive
feelings and to abstain from activities that entail the risk of spoiling the
good mood (i.e., positive mood maintenance; Wegener & Petty, 1994).
This means that when our traveler encounters a cheerful stranger, she

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 Mechanisms involved in the social effects of emotions 45
may catch the stranger’s happiness and become motivated to maintain
the positive feeling by acting in a friendly and generous way.
Alternatively, when the other expresses sadness, the traveler’s mood
may drop and she may become motivated to relieve herself of the nega-
tive feeling, for instance by engaging in some form of prosocial behavior
(Van Kleef, De Dreu, & Manstead, 2010).
Finally, judgment and behavior may be influenced by complementary
affective reactions to the emotional expressions of others. For instance, as
indicated above, expressions of anger on the part of one individual may
induce a sense of fear in another person (Dimberg & Öhman, 1996;
Moody et al., 2007), which may in turn motivate that person to avoid
interactions with the angry individual. As another example, expressions
of sadness of one individual may induce feelings of compassion in
another (Van Kleef et al., 2008), and such feelings may in turn motivate
consolation and helping behavior in both children (Barnett, Howard,
Melton, & Dino, 1982) and adults (Clark, Ouellette, Powell, & Milberg,
1987; Yee & Greenberg, 1998). In a similar vein, crying has been found to
elicit helping (Cornelius, 1984; Hendriks, Croos, & Vingerhoets, 2008; cf.
Labott, Martin, Eason, & Berkey, 1991). It seems plausible that comple-
mentary emotions of concern and compassion play a role in motivating
such behavior.
In sum, a person’s affective reactions to the emotional expressions of
another individual may afford insight into the expresser and the situation
by informing the observer’s understanding of the other’s emotional state
(Keltner & Haidt, 1999). Thus, individuals may gain information about
other people by monitoring their own affective reactions to the emotions
of others, a method that is often practiced in psychotherapy (Hsee,
Hatfield, & Chemtob, 1992). Moreover, an observer’s reciprocal or com-
plementary affective reactions to another person’s emotional expressions
may have downstream consequences for the observer’s cognitions, atti-
tudes, motivations, and actions vis-à-vis that person.
Proposition 4: Emotional expressions elicit reciprocal and complementary affec-
tive reactions in observers, which in turn inform observers’ behavioral responses.

Emotional expressions elicit inferential processes in observers

EASI theory posits that observers can also glean information from others’
emotional expressions via a more deliberate and cognitively effortful
process, namely through the act of drawing inferences from another
person’s emotional expressions (Van Kleef, 2009). Specific emotions
arise in response to appraisals of specific situations (Frijda, 1986;
Lazarus, 1991). Because discrete emotions have such distinct appraisal
46 Part I Emotions as Social Information Theory
patterns (Manstead & Tetlock, 1989; Smith, Haynes, Lazarus, & Pope,
1993), they provide a wealth of information to observers (Hareli &
Hess, 2010; Keltner & Haidt, 1999; Van Kleef, 2009). For instance, emo-
tional expressions may convey information about the inner states of the
expresser (Ekman, 1993), his or her social intentions (Fridlund, 1994), and
his or her orientation toward other people (Ames & Johar, 2009; Hess,
Blairy, & Kleck, 2000; Knutson, 1996). In addition, emotional expressions
inform observers about the expresser’s appraisal of the situation
(Manstead & Fischer, 2001). Weisbuch and Adams (2012) further sug-
gested that emotional expressions function as forecasts of relevant
impending events, which may in turn inform observers’ responses.
The exact implications of an emotional display vary as a function of
the situation, but the basic informational value of discrete emotions
generalizes across situations (Van Kleef, 2009). For instance, according
to appraisal theories (e.g., Frijda, 1986; Ortony, Clore, & Collins, 1988;
Roseman, 1984; Scherer, Schorr, & Johnstone, 2001; Smith et al., 1993),
anger arises when a person’s goals are being frustrated and she or he
blames someone else for it. Expressions of anger therefore signal apprai-
sals of goal blockage and other blame. Conversely, happiness arises
when goals have been met (or good progress is being made toward
attaining them) and expectations are positive. Expressions of happiness
therefore signal that the environment is appraised as favorable and
benign. Guilt arises when a person feels that she/he has transgressed
some social norm or moral imperative. Expressions of guilt therefore
signal that one is aware of (and possibly troubled by) one’s misdemea-
nor. Sadness arises when one faces an irrevocable loss and experiences
low coping potential. Expressions of sadness therefore signal lack of
control and helplessness. By the same logic, expressions of fear signal
that there is something potentially threatening to a situation, expres-
sions of pride signal that the expresser feels superior in some way,
expressions of hope signal that there may be potential for favorable
outcomes, expressions of disappointment signal that the expresser had
expected a more favorable outcome or situation than she is currently
facing, and so forth.
Individuals may thus distill useful pieces of information from others’
emotional expressions. For instance, when one is the target of a collea-
gue’s anger, one may infer that one did something wrong, and this
inference may in turn inform one’s behavior (e.g., apologizing, changing
one’s conduct). When confronted with a sports coach’s happiness, an
athlete may conclude that things are going well, which may lead her to
stay the course. When one’s partner shows guilt after making a faux pas,
one may infer that the partner cares about the relationship and is willing
to make up for the mistake. And when confronted with a friend’s sadness,
 Mechanisms involved in the social effects of emotions 47

Expresser’s Observer’s
Observer’s
emotional inferential
response
display processes

Figure 3.2 Inferential processes as a mediating mechanism between

one person’s emotional expression and another person’s response.

one might infer that he faces a painful loss and experiences low coping
potential, which may lead one to offer help or consolation. In short,
besides affective reactions, inferential processes are a second mechanism
underlying the social effects of emotional expressions (see Figure 3.2).
Despite the intuitive plausibility of the idea that individuals
may infer relevant pieces of information from the emotional expres-
sions of others, it is less clear at this point exactly how such infer-
ences are drawn. There appears to be some consensus in the
literature that people may access information about others by think-
ing consciously about the meaning and implications of their emo-
tional expressions (Hareli, 2014; Hareli & Hess, 2010; Manstead &
Fischer, 2001; Parkinson & Simons, 2009; Van Kleef, 2009). EASI
theory maintains that such deliberate inferential processes depend
on the individual’s ability and motivation to engage in effortful
information processing (Van Kleef, De Dreu, & Manstead, 2010;
see Chapter 4). In line with this idea, neuroscientific evidence indi-
cates that the neural processing of emotional expressions requires a
certain degree of attention. One study showed that all brain regions
that respond differentially to emotional versus nonemotional faces
did so only when sufficient cognitive resources were available to
process the faces (Pessoa, McKenna, Gutierrez, & Ungerleider, 2002).
Another study found that the interpretation of others’ emotions
relies on cortical brain structures that are involved more generally
in mental state attributions (Ochsner et al., 2004). Participants who
were asked to judge others’ emotional expressions showed increased
activation in the medial prefrontal cortex, the medial occipital cor-
tex, and the left lateral prefrontal cortex, which also includes Broca’s
area (a structure that plays a critical role in producing speech).
These patterns suggest that developing an understanding of the
emotions of others requires a fair amount of cognitive processing
and perhaps a degree of conscious internal verbalization, although a
crude understanding of the nonspecific implications of others’ emo-
tional expressions in terms of imminent threats and opportunities
may require less conscious attention and cognitive processing
(Weisbuch & Adams, 2012).
48 Part I Emotions as Social Information Theory
Social appraisal, reverse appraisal, and access to emotion knowledge
Drawing on appraisal theories (see Scherer et al., 2001), various authors
have proposed that people extract information from the emotional
expressions of another person about how that person is appraising the
current situation. From this information they may then draw inferences
regarding the expresser’s personality, social motives, and intentions,
which in turn inform their own behavior. This process has been variously
referred to as “tracking” (Van Kleef et al., 2004a), “backtracking”
(Elfenbein, 2007), “reverse engineering appraisals” (Hareli & Hess,
2010), “reverse appraisal” (de Melo, Carnevale, & Gratch, 2011), and
“situation-oriented social appraisal” (Bruder, Fischer, & Manstead, 2014).
A number of studies provide support for the role of such processes
in shaping responses to others’ emotional expressions (e.g., Bayliss,
Frischen, Fenske, & Tipper, 2007; de Melo, Carnevale, Read, & Gratch,
2014; Hareli & Hess, 2010; Parkinson, Phiri, & Simons, 2012; Scherer &
Grandjean, 2008; also see Kaiser & Wehrle, 2001). Extending classic
appraisal theories to the interpersonal domain, Scherer and Grandjean
hypothesized that emotional expressions allow observers to infer infor-
mation about all components of the emotion process the expresser is
experiencing, including his or her felt emotions, appraisals, social
appeals, and action tendencies. Participants in their study were asked to
judge facial expressions of emotions from pictures on a number of dimen-
sions. The authors found that judgments of experienced emotions yielded
the highest accuracy scores, followed by inferences of appraisals. Inferred
information regarding social appeals and action tendencies showed com-
paratively lower accuracy rates, and participants were less confident of
these ratings than they were of their ratings of felt emotions and apprai-
sals. This study suggests that appraisals can indeed be reliably inferred
on the basis of emotional expressions.
In another study, Hareli and Hess (2010) investigated how people use
the emotional expressions of others to arrive at inferences concerning
their personality. They proposed that individuals reconstruct or “reverse
engineer” the appraisals underlying another person’s emotional reaction.
As they put it, “people infer from the way an individual reacted in a given
situation how that individual must have perceived the situation and use
this inference to reach conclusions about that person’s character” (p. 137).
In a person perception study, the authors obtained evidence that the
impact of an actor’s emotional expressions on personality inferences
were indeed, in some cases, mediated by appraisals. For instance, a
person who reacted with anger in a particular situation was perceived
as more aggressive than a person who remained emotionally neutral in
the same situation, and this effect was mediated by participants’
 Mechanisms involved in the social effects of emotions 49
judgments of how the person appraised the situation (in this case, in
terms of urgency).
Along similar lines, another study demonstrated that individuals may
use others’ emotional expressions to make sense of ambiguous situations,
in particular to arrive at attributions of agency and responsibility.
Consistent with the logic of reverse appraisal, individuals who witnessed
expressions of regret in the context of an adverse situation inferred that
the expresser was responsible for the situation, whereas those who
observed expressions of anger inferred that another person was respon-
sible (Van Doorn, Van Kleef, & Van der Pligt, 2015a). These findings
indicate that emotional expressions can help people make sense of situa-
tions by informing attributions that correspond with the emotion’s asso-
ciated appraisal structure (e.g., self-blame for regret and other-blame
for anger).
Perhaps the strongest support for a causal role of reverse appraisals in
shaping responses to emotional expressions comes from a recent series
of experiments by de Melo and colleagues (2014), who examined the
effects of emotional expressions in the context of social decision making.
In a first experiment, they tested the idea that the underlying informa-
tion that is communicated by an emotional expression is more critical
for the social effects of emotions than the emotional expression itself. In
support of this assertion, the authors found that the same emotional
displays had opposite consequences for behavior in a prisoner’s
dilemma depending on the cooperative versus competitive context in
which they were shown, suggesting that it is the interpretation of
another person’s emotion in light of the social context that drives beha-
vioral responses rather than the emotion per se (for a similar argument
and findings, see Fischer, Manstead, & Zaalberg, 2003; Lanzetta &
Englis, 1989; Van Kleef, De Dreu, & Manstead, 2010).
In a second study, de Melo and colleagues (2014) showed that textual
information about another person’s appraisals (e.g., “I like this outcome”)
had similar effects on expectations of cooperation as did corresponding
facial displays of emotion (e.g., happiness). Follow-up studies further
revealed the content of the appraisals observers distilled from others’
emotional expressions in the context of interdependent decision making.
Consistent with a reverse-appraisal framework, expressions of happiness
were interpreted as a sign that the outcome was conducive to the expres-
ser’s goals, sadness was interpreted as a signal of goal obstruction, anger
was interpreted as reflecting an appraisal of goal obstruction combined
with other blame, and regret was perceived as a sign of goal obstruction
combined with self-blame. Finally, the authors showed that these apprai-
sals (partially or fully) mediated the effects of the emotional displays on
participants’ social decision making.
50 Part I Emotions as Social Information Theory
Such processes of reverse appraisal evidently rely on the emotion
knowledge of individuals who observe another person’s emotional
expressions (an issue that will be discussed in greater depth in Chapter
4 in relation to emotional intelligence). If someone does not understand
what kind of eliciting events may trigger anger, happiness, disappoint-
ment, regret, or any other emotion, it will be difficult for him or her to
reverse engineer the appraisals that produced an expresser’s emotions. In
normally developing individuals, emotion knowledge is acquired
through direct or indirect socialization (Fischer et al., 2003). Thus indivi-
duals learn how people generally react to particular emotional events,
how they express their emotions, and what such expressions reveal
(Shaver, Schwartz, Kirson, & O’Connor, 1987).
To the degree that such emotion knowledge is well learned and firmly
embedded within individuals’ mental representations of the associations
among precipitating events, appraisal patterns, and emotional responses,
individuals may be able to quickly access relevant information from
associations stored in long-term memory when confronted with another
person’s emotional expressions. This implies that the act of drawing
inferences from emotional expressions becomes less effortful to the
degree that the relevant associations are well learned. This may be the
case, for instance, when one is very familiar with the specific situation at
hand and with the emotions it may trigger or when one knows the person
expressing the emotion very well. In contrast, when the situation and/or
the expresser is unfamiliar, more cognitive effort may be needed to
retrieve information from memory, and inferences regarding the expres-
ser’s appraisals, motives, and intentions may be paired with a greater
degree of uncertainty.

Downstream consequences of inferential processes

The information observers distill from others’ emotional expressions via
inferential processing may in turn influence their behavior. What form
this influence takes depends on the situation (Van Kleef, De Dreu, &
Manstead, 2010). Suppose a job candidate expresses disappointment
upon hearing the potential employer’s salary proposal. The employer
may infer from the candidate’s disappointment that she had expected a
higher starting salary. This information may lead the prospective
employer to increase the offer if he is eager to recruit the candidate, but
the information may be ignored (or even prompt the employer to con-
sider other options) if other suitable candidates are willing to accept the
proposed starting wage.
Although several personality and situational variables may influence
how an observer decides to act upon the information he or she has
 Mechanisms involved in the social effects of emotions 51
obtained from another person’s emotional expressions, perhaps the most
pervasive factor is the nature of the relationship between the expresser
and the observer. EASI theory posits that behavioral consequences of
inferential processes are shaped by the degree and nature of the per-
ceived interdependence between the expresser and the observer. In the
relatively rare event that individuals’ outcomes are perceived as being in
no way related to one another (i.e., pure independence), any information
an observer may infer from the emotional expressions of another person
is most likely to be ignored and will have no downstream consequences
for behavior (as when the employer in the previous example decides to
shift his attention to another candidate). More often, however, indivi-
duals in social interaction experience at least some degree of interdepen-
dence (Kelley & Thibaut, 1978; Rusbult & Van Lange, 2003).
Perceived interdependence is shaped to an important extent by fea-
tures of the situation. Although most social situations contain a mixture
of cooperative and competitive elements (Deutsch, 1973; Komorita &
Parks, 1995; Schelling, 1960), some situations offer comparatively more
cooperative than competitive incentives and thereby drive people toward
cooperation; other situations offer more competitive than cooperative
incentives and predispose individuals toward competition (Kelley et al.,
2003; Rusbult & Van Lange, 2003; Weber, Kopelman, & Messick, 2004).
For instance, friends planning a joint vacation, players in a soccer team,
and colleagues working on an advertisement campaign may be expected
to experience a degree of positive interdependence because they presum-
ably share at least one important goal (i.e., having a nice vacation, win-
ning a game, or developing a high-quality campaign). In other words,
their relationship is likely to be predominantly cooperative: All can
achieve their goals at the same time, and one person’s success also implies
success for the other. In contrast, a buyer and a seller negotiating the sale
of a second-hand car, opposing politicians in a public debate, and two
boxers preparing for the final game of a tournament find themselves in
situations of negative interdependence. Their relationship is predomi-
nantly competitive, because one can only be successful at the expense of
the other.
In addition to actual features of the situation, the perceived coopera-
tiveness versus competitiveness of situations is shaped by chronic dis-
positional tendencies. Due to temperament or socialization, some
individuals are more likely to emphasize the cooperative elements of a
situation and to de-emphasize or ignore competitive incentives, whereas
other individuals are more inclined to emphasize competitive rather than
cooperative aspects of a situation (Carnevale & Pruitt, 1992; De Dreu,
Beersma, Steinel, & Van Kleef, 2007; Deutsch, 1973; Komorita & Parks,
1995; Rusbult & Van Lange, 2003; Van Kleef & De Dreu, 2002). Thus, one
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52 Part I Emotions as Social Information Theory
and the same social situation may be perceived and interpreted quite
differently in terms of cooperative versus competitive interdependence.
Perceived cooperative versus competitive interdependence influences
how information conveyed through emotional expressions translates into
behavior (Van Kleef, De Dreu, & Manstead, 2010). Consider the example
of happiness. In cooperative settings, where parties’ goals are positively
correlated, one party’s happiness implies that the other also has reason to
be happy. Thus, in cooperative settings, the information that is conveyed
by expressions of happiness (e.g., that things are going well for the
expresser) is likely to elicit cooperative behavior in interaction partners.
By contrast, in competitive settings, a partner’s happiness may be taken
as a sign that the other is gaining at one’s own expense (Lanzetta & Englis,
1989), which may motivate competitive behavior. As another example, in
cooperative situations displays of “appeasement” emotions such as guilt
or regret may contribute to the quality of relationships by signaling
remorse and caring and a promise of better behavior in the future
(Baumeister, Stillwell, & Heatherton, 1994). As such, appeasement emo-
tions can be expected to reduce destructive tendencies that might other-
wise arise due to a social transgression. In competitive settings, by
contrast, appeasement emotions may invite competition and exploita-
tion. Because such emotions signal that the transgressor is willing to
make amends, competitors may seek to exploit the situation to further
their own goals (Van Kleef, De Dreu, & Manstead, 2010).
Proposition 5: Observers of emotional expressions may extract information from
these expressions about the expresser’s appraisal of and orientation vis-à-vis the
situation and the people involved, which in turn shapes observers’ behavioral
responses to the emotional expressions.

The relationship between affective reactions and inferential

processes
Affective reactions and inferential processes are the two key mechanisms
that drive the social effects of emotional expressions according to EASI
theory. It is important to note that the two processes are not always
perfectly orthogonal, because under particular circumstances, the activa-
tion of one process may influence the other. For instance, affective states
may influence information-processing depth (Schwarz, Bless, & Bohner,
1991) and thereby modulate inferential processes, and inferential pro-
cesses may to some extent shape emotional reactions to the emotions of
others (e.g., when one realizes that another person’s anger is unfair,
stronger negative emotional reactions may arise than if the anger were
perceived as reasonable; Van Kleef & Côté, 2007).

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 Mechanisms involved in the social effects of emotions 53
Despite this potential for mutual influence, there are good reasons for
distinguishing between affective reactions and inferential processes (Van
Kleef et al., 2011). First, the two processes are clearly distinguishable
theoretically, in the sense that one belongs to the family of cognitive
processes and the other to the family of affective processes (cf. Zajonc,
1980). Affective processes and cognitive processes are regulated in dif-
ferent areas of the brain (e.g., the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex,
respectively), even though there is also evidence of functional interaction
between these areas (Salzman & Fusi, 2010). LeDoux (1998) proposed that
“emotion and cognition are best thought of as separate but interacting
mental functions mediated by separate but interacting brain systems”
(p. 69). The separation of affective reactions and inferential processes in
EASI theory is consistent with this position.
Second, there is a long and rich tradition in social and cognitive psy-
chology of dual-process models that distinguish between responses to
stimuli (e.g., persuasive messages) that are based primarily on thorough
deliberation versus responses that are based on shallower heuristic,
affective, or experiential processes. Influential examples are the elabora-
tion-likelihood model (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986) and the heuristic-sys-
tematic model (Chaiken, 1980), among others (for reviews, see Chaiken
& Trope, 1999; Evans, 2008). EASI theory extends this dual-process tradi-
tion by distinguishing between inferential processes and affective reac-
tions to expressions of emotion.
Third, there is ample empirical evidence that affective reactions and
inferential processes can be measured separately. As we will see in Part II
of this book, affective reactions are typically operationalized in terms of
moods, emotions, and sentiments toward the expresser of an emotion.
Inferential processes are operationalized in terms of the information
observers distill from others’ emotional expressions and the conclusions
and implications they infer from these expressions. These inferences often
take the form of reverse appraisals (de Melo et al., 2011; Hareli &
Hess, 2010), whereby observers use their emotion knowledge to infer
from another person’s emotional expressions what has happened to
that person and what their own role in the situation is. For instance,
based on the fact that anger often arises in response to perceived injustice,
an observer may infer from another person’s expressions of anger that
that person feels unjustly treated, and if the anger is directed at the
observer personally, that he or she is seen as the cause of the injustice.
Reflecting this important conceptual distinction, affective reactions and
inferential processes vary largely independently of one another, and they
have distinct effects on people’s behavioral responses to others’ emo-
tional expressions (Van Kleef et al., 2011). The processes involved in
54 Part I Emotions as Social Information Theory
Table 3.1 Processes involved in producing the social effects of emotions

Affective Reactions Inferential Processes

Main Types Reciprocal affective states (e.g., Inferences regarding the
anger→anger, expresser’s appraisal of the
sadness→sadness) situation
Complementary affective Inferences regarding the
states (e.g., anger→fear, expresser’s personality
sadness→compassion)
Associated sentiments (e.g., Inferences regarding the
likes and dislikes) expresser’s social motives
and intentions
Eliciting Emotional contagion Reverse appraisal
Processes
Perspective taking Accessing emotion knowledge
Social appraisal Social appraisal
Embodiment
Downstream Behavioral tendencies are Inferences regarding expresser
Processes shaped by affect infusion and/or situation inform
(e.g., affect-as-information, behavioral tendencies
affect priming), evaluative
conditioning, mood
management motives, and
likes and dislikes

shaping the social effects of emotional expressions are summarized in

Table 3.1.
In some cases inferences and affective reactions lead to the same beha-
vior. For example, the distress of a significant other signals that she is
going through tough times and is experiencing difficulty coping with the
situation (inferences) but also triggers mutual concern and compassion
(affective reactions), both of which foster supportive behavior (Clark et
al., 1996). In other cases, however, inferences and affective reactions
motivate opposite behaviors. To return to the earlier example, a collea-
gue’s angry remark about one’s delay may instigate reciprocal feelings of
anger and antipathy (affective reactions), which may motivate destruc-
tive behavioral responses, but the colleague’s anger may also lead one to
realize that it is indeed annoying to come late to a meeting (inference),
which may motivate one to be on time on the next occasion. Which
process takes precedence in guiding behavioral responses to another’s
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Mechanisms involved in the social effects of emotions 55
emotional expressions depends on a number of factors that are addressed
in the next chapter.
Proposition 6: Affective reactions and inferential processes have mutually influ-
ential yet conceptually distinct and empirically separable effects on observers’
behavioral responses to others’ emotional expressions.

Conclusion
Building on and integrating previous lines of theorizing and research,
EASI theory posits that emotional expressions bring about social effects
by triggering affective reactions and/or inferential processes in obser-
vers. Affective reactions may take the form of reciprocal or complemen-
tary affective states and associated sentiments, which can come about via
emotional contagion, perspective taking, embodiment, social appraisal,
and/or evaluative conditioning. The resulting affective states may in turn
produce downstream (behavioral) consequences via various cognitive
affect infusion processes (e.g., affect-as-information, affect priming) as
well as motivational processes of mood maintenance and negative state
relief. Affective reactions can also take the form of sentiments such as
likes or dislikes, which may motivate prosocial versus antisocial beha-
vioral tendencies, respectively. Inferential processes involve more or less
conscious acts of “reverse appraising” the emotional expressions of
another person to arrive at inferences regarding how that person relates
to the situation, which requires a certain amount of emotion knowledge
and emotional understanding. The resulting inferences in turn inform
behavior. Given that affective reactions and inferential processes often
motivate different behavioral responses, a key challenge lies in under-
standing when one or the other process is prioritized. This question is
addressed in the following chapter.

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 CHAPTER 4

Contingencies of the social effects

of emotions

Anyone can become angry – that is easy. But to be angry with the right
person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose, and
in the right way – that is not easy.
Aristotle (350 BCE/2004)

Social-functional accounts of emotion postulate that emotional expres-

sions play a vital role in regulating social interaction (e.g., Fischer &
Manstead, in press; Frijda & Mesquita, 1994; Keltner & Haidt, 1999;
Parkinson, 1996; Van Kleef, 2009). An implicit assumption underlying
such accounts is that people accurately perceive others’ emotions. No
matter how informative emotions may be, and however critical their
social-regulatory functions, if emotions are not expressed and/or fail to
be perceived by others, their signaling function is evidently lost and social
interaction may be jeopardized. If a former colleague does not express her
disappointment about me missing her farewell party due to illness, I may
erroneously conclude that she didn’t mind my absence and, perhaps, that
our relationship wasn’t that close after all. And even if my colleague does
express her disappointment I may fail to pick up on it, thereby potentially
reaching the same misguided conclusion. Thus, logically, for any emotion
to have potential social consequences, it must be expressed to and per-
ceived by one or more other individuals. In this chapter I first consider
factors that influence the encoding and decoding of emotional expres-
sions, which may be conceived as general preconditions for any social
effects of emotions to occur. Next I discuss factors that determine the
relative influence of affective reactions and inferential processes in shap-
ing the social effects of emotions.

General prerequisites for the social effects of emotions

The example above illustrates that the social functionality of emotions is
undermined when there is noise on the line. Emotions that are felt may
not be expressed, or they may be expressed in ways that deliberately or
inadvertently alter the information they convey. Furthermore, emotions
that are expressed as intended may be lost on observers who lack the

56
 Contingencies of the social effects of emotions 57
attention or skill to accurately perceive and interpret the message.
Generally speaking, then, emotional communication may be hampered
by failure in the encoding stage and/or in the decoding stage. Besides the
various physical conditions and psychopathologies discussed in
Chapter 2, emotional communication is affected by subclinical variations
in emotional expressivity (encoding) and emotion perception ability
(decoding).

Encoding: the role of emotional expressivity

The first general precondition for any social effects of emotions is that the
emotion be expressed in one way or another, be it through facial expres-
sions, tone of voice, bodily postures, written or spoken words, and/or use
of symbols such as emoticons. Even though people have a tendency to
express the emotions they feel in one way or another, they do so to
various degrees. At one extreme, experienced emotions may be expressed
in an uncensored way, so that externally observable signs of emotion
provide full insight into the individual’s feelings. At the other extreme,
individuals may completely suppress the expression of any experienced
emotion, so that their nonverbal or verbal expressions provide no clues
whatsoever as to their internal feeling states. Emotional expressivity is
guided in part by implicit or explicit rules and scripts that may vary
across situations (e.g., gender roles, organizational norms, and cultural
customs and expectations; Ekman, 1993; Manstead, 1991), an issue I
return to later in this chapter in relation to the appropriateness of emo-
tional expressions. In addition, emotional expressivity varies as a func-
tion of chronic individual differences (Gross & John, 1997; Kring, Smith,
& Neale, 1994). Thus, two people who feel equally angry may show their
anger to very different degrees, depending on temperament and
demands of the social context.
It seems obvious that people who express their emotions in more out-
wardly visible ways provide more relevant social information to others in
their social environment than do individuals who hold back on their
emotional expressions. Still, this notion is important from the perspective
of a social-functional account of emotion. It implies that, other things
being equal, people who interact with more emotionally expressive
others should gain better insight into those others’ needs, desires, goals,
and intentions. Accordingly, emotional expressivity may contribute to
mutual trust and cooperation (Boone & Buck, 2003). Furthermore, people
who obtain a richer insight into the internal states of other individuals
should be able to respond more appropriately to others’ needs and
expectations, thus contributing to smoother social interactions. In line
with this idea, a study by Butler and colleagues (2003) showed that
58 Part I Emotions as Social Information Theory
explicit instructions to suppress the expression of any felt emotions dur-
ing face-to-face conversations increased levels of stress of both conversa-
tion partners, reduced rapport, and inhibited friendship formation.
Research in developmental psychology also points to the importance of
emotional expressivity for well-adjusted social relationships. For
instance, parental emotional expressivity has been linked to children’s
social-emotional competence (Boyum & Parke, 1995; Denham, Zoller, &
Couchoud, 1994) and social adjustment (Bronstein, Fitzgerald, Briones,
Pieniadz, & D’Ari, 1993). Moreover, parental expressivity has been asso-
ciated with the quality of parent–child relationships (Eisenberg,
Cumberland, & Spinrad, 1998), although effects are more consistent for
positive expressivity than for negative expressivity (Eisenberg et al.,
2001). These findings indicate that successful social communication
requires skillful expression of emotion (Côté & Hideg, 2011). For emo-
tions to have any social-communicative functionality, they must be
expressed in ways that make them potentially observable by others.

Decoding: emotional intelligence and emotion perception ability

The second general prerequisite for any social effects of emotions to occur
is that the emotional expressions be perceived by one or more others.
Although this seems self-evident, it is important to briefly consider this
notion in relation to the presumed social functions of emotions.
Theoretical perspectives on the social effects and/or functions of emo-
tions hinge on the implicit or explicit assumption that people perceive
one another’s emotional states, yet individuals vary in their ability to
accurately recognize and interpret their own and others’ emotions.
Besides the clinical conditions discussed in Chapter 2, emotion percep-
tion ability is shaped by individual differences in emotional intelligence,
which is defined as “the ability to monitor one’s own and others’ feelings,
to discriminate among them, and to use this information to guide one’s
thinking and action” (Salovey & Mayer, 1990, p. 189). The influential four-
branch ability model of emotional intelligence identifies four critical
emotional abilities: to accurately perceive emotions in oneself and others,
to use emotions to facilitate thinking, to understand emotional meanings,
and to manage emotions (Mayer & Salovey, 1997). Two of these four
branches (perception and understanding) are directly relevant to the
decoding of emotional expressions.
Branch 1 in the ability model of emotional intelligence denotes basic
emotion perception capability. It involves the capacity to recognize emo-
tions from others’ facial, vocal, and postural expressions (Mayer, Salovey,
& Caruso, 2004). Perceiving emotions can be said to represent the most
fundamental aspect of emotional intelligence, in the sense that it makes
 Contingencies of the social effects of emotions 59
all subsequent processing of emotional information possible (Salovey &
Grewal, 2005). Accurate perception of the emotions of other people is
vital to adequate social responding. Indeed, decoding of emotional
expressions has been identified as an important factor in the successful
negotiation of interpersonal relationships (Elfenbein, Foo, White, Tan, &
Aik, 2007). Moreover, emotional intelligence (and concomitant emotion
perception ability) is a significant predictor of relationship quality (Lopes
et al., 2004; Lopes, Salovey, & Straus, 2003; Malouff, Schutte, &
Thorsteinsson, 2014).
Branch 3 in the four-branch model refers to emotional understanding,
which directly relates to a central theme of this book – that emotions
convey information. Although work on emotional intelligence has typi-
cally stressed the importance of understanding, analyzing, and reflecting
on one’s own emotions (Mayer et al., 2004), emotional understanding
clearly is also critical for appreciating the emotions of others. Indeed,
comprehending emotion language is part of emotional understanding
(Salovey & Grewal, 2005). Moreover, comprehending where one’s own
emotions come from and how they develop over time probably informs
an understanding of the antecedents, meaning, and implications of the
emotions of others – an understanding that is vital to well-adjusted social
relationships and general life success. In line with this idea, research has
shown that the ability to understand emotions predicts leadership emer-
gence in groups (Côté, Lopes, Salovey, & Miners, 2010).
In sum, emotions can only be expected to bring about social con-
sequences when they are both successfully encoded by the sender and
successfully decoded by the receiver, as determined by the sender’s
expressive tendencies and the receiver’s emotion perception and
understanding. Furthermore, it is conceivable that characteristics of
sender and receiver interact to shape the success or failure of emo-
tional communication. In this respect, Planalp (1999) proposed that
emotional communication is likely to be more successful to the degree
that the emotional expressivity of the sender and the emotional
expressivity of the perceiver match. She suggested that an inexpres-
sive person listening to a highly expressive person is akin to someone
with a hearing aid turned up conversing with someone talking
through a megaphone. The sender’s emotional expression could easily
come across as exaggerated, thus disrupting smooth interaction.
Conversely, Planalp likened a highly expressive person listening to
an inexpressive person to someone with her hearing aid turned down
listening to someone whispering. In such a constellation, any emo-
tional message from the sender could easily be missed by the receiver.
In more general terms, it seems plausible that the expressive
60 Part I Emotions as Social Information Theory
tendencies of the sender and the perceptive sensitivity of the receiver
jointly determine the success of emotional communication.
Proposition 7: The informational value of emotions is more likely to be capitalized
upon to the degree that emotions are (a) successfully encoded by the sender (as
determined by the sender’s emotional expressivity), (b) successfully decoded by
the receiver (as determined by the receiver’s emotion perception and understand-
ing abilities), and (c) there is a match between the intensity of the sender’s
emotional expression and the receiver’s perceptual sensitivity.

Factors shaping the impact of inferential processes and affective

reactions
According to the Emotions as Social Information (EASI) theory, emo-
tional expressions bring about social consequences by triggering affective
reactions and/or inferential processes in observers. We have seen in
Chapter 3 that affective reactions and inferential processes may fuel
divergent social responses to the emotional displays of other people.
For instance, expressions of anger may trigger intransigence or competi-
tion by evoking mutual feelings of hostility in others, or they may enforce
compliance by signaling that the expresser is not prepared to take no for
an answer. Displays of happiness may facilitate cooperation by eliciting
reciprocal positive affect, or they may invite exploitation by signaling that
the expresser is easygoing and willing to accommodate. Expressions of
sadness or disappointment may elicit prosocial behavior by evoking
feelings of compassion or empathic concern, or they may invite exploita-
tion because they signal weakness (Van Kleef, De Dreu, & Manstead,
2010). In short, affective reactions and inferential processes often push
people’s behavior in different directions.
It is important to emphasize at this point that the influence of affective
reactions and inferential processes is conceptualized in relative terms in
the EASI framework (Van Kleef, Van Doorn, Heerdink, & Koning, 2011).
Any given emotional expression may trigger a combination of affective
reactions and inferential processes. In some cases, affective reactions and
inferential processes may work in tandem to produce the same beha-
vioral responses, such as when a close friend’s distress evokes reciprocal
distress and complementary compassion and at the same time signals
that the friend is struggling to cope with a tough situation, both of which
foster helping and consolation (Clark, Pataki, & Carver, 1996). In cases
where affective and inferential processes motivate differential responses,
however, as in the above examples, the social consequences of emotional
expressions depend on the relative strength of the processes involved. To
be able to understand and predict the interpersonal effects of emotions
 Contingencies of the social effects of emotions 61
we must therefore identify factors that determine the relative impact of
affective reactions versus inferential processes. EASI theory identifies
two broad classes of moderating variables that shape the relative predic-
tive power of these processes: the observer’s information processing and
the perceived appropriateness of the emotional display.

Information processing
Building on the idea that emotional expressions provide information,
EASI theory postulates that the interpersonal effects of emotional
expressions depend on observers’ information-processing mode (Van
Kleef, 2009). Dual-process models of human thinking and decision
making maintain that individuals assess situations and render judg-
ments either by means of quick, effortless, and heuristic information
processing or through more effortful, deliberate, and systematic proces-
sing that involves rule-based inferences (Chaiken, 1980; Chaiken &
Trope, 1999; Petty & Cacioppo, 1986; Smith & DeCoster, 2000). This
has important implications for how individuals process the emotional
expressions of others. Affective reactions are more immediate than
inferences, and they require less cognitive processing (cf. Zajonc,
1980). This implies that affective reactions can occur even when indivi-
duals engage in shallow information processing, as long as they register
the emotional expression. Inferential processes, in contrast, require a
degree of cognitive deliberation. As discussed in the previous chapter,
the amount of thought required to draw a particular inference from
another person’s emotional expression likely depends on how familiar
the situation, the person, and the emotional expression are to the obser-
ver and whether the emotional expression’s associated meanings are
well learned and easily accessible from the observer’s memory.
Generally speaking, however, inferences require more information pro-
cessing than affective reactions (Van Kleef, De Dreu, & Manstead, 2010).
It follows from the above that the predictive power of affective reac-
tions relative to inferential processes should be greater to the degree that
the observer of an emotional expression engages in shallower informa-
tion processing. An observer in a relatively superficial information-pro-
cessing mode can still pick up the emotions of others, because primitive
emotional contagion is not mediated by conscious cognitive processes
(Hatfield, Cacioppo, & Rapson, 1992; see Chapter 3), and the resulting
affective state may in turn influence the observer’s cognition and beha-
vior (Forgas, 1995). The observer would be less likely to draw deliberate
inferences from the other’s emotional expressions, however, because this
process requires conscious cognitive effort. By reverse logic, EASI theory
posits that the relative predictive power of inferential processes increases
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62 Part I Emotions as Social Information Theory
to the extent that an observer engages in more thorough information
processing (Van Kleef, 2009). This is not to say that affective reactions
become irrelevant under conditions of thorough information processing.
Rather, the relative influence of affective reactions on an observer’s (beha-
vioral) responses decreases as the influence of inferential processes
increases.
An influential idea in theorizing on social cognition is that humans are
“cognitive misers” who are motivated to employ their scarce mental-
processing resources as economically as possible (Fiske & Taylor, 1991).
Given the abundance of social information people encounter on an every-
day basis, and given that their cognitive resources are limited, people are
inclined to navigate the social world by relying on mental shortcuts and
heuristics (Fiske, 1993; Tversky & Kahneman, 1974). Thorough informa-
tion processing is effortful and cognitively taxing, and therefore indivi-
duals only engage in it when there is a good reason to do so and when the
required cognitive resources can be mobilized. In other words, systematic
information processing requires both motivation and ability (Chaiken,
1980; Petty & Cacioppo, 1986).

Epistemic motivation
Thoroughness of information processing is influenced by an indivi-
dual’s epistemic motivation, that is, his or her willingness to expend effort
to achieve a rich and accurate understanding of the world (Kruglanski,
1989). Such epistemic motivation is related to the perceived sufficiency
of the information that is currently available to the individual (Chaiken,
Liberman, & Eagly, 1989). The more a person feels that his or her current
information and understanding regarding a particular issue are insuffi-
cient to inform an optimal decision or an appropriate course of action,
the more he or she will be motivated to engage in systematic processing
of (additional) information that is pertinent to the issue at hand.
Conversely, when the person feels that the current information and
level of understanding are sufficient to reach a decision and guide
behavior, epistemic needs are satisfied and no additional search for
and processing of new information is required (De Dreu, Nijstad, &
Van Knippenberg, 2008; Kruglanski, 1989; Kruglanski & Webster, 1996).
In other words, individuals with higher epistemic motivation have a
higher threshold of information sufficiency than individuals with lower
epistemic motivation. As a consequence, people with higher levels of
epistemic motivation tend to engage in rather deliberate, systematic
information search and processing before making judgments and deci-
sions, whereas those with lower levels of epistemic motivation are more
likely to engage in shallower information processing.

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 Contingencies of the social effects of emotions 63
Epistemic motivation and associated perceptions of information suffi-
ciency are partly rooted in personality. For instance, individuals with a
higher need for cognition, lower need for cognitive closure, lower perso-
nal need for structure, and higher openness to experience have chroni-
cally higher epistemic motivation than their counterparts who score on
the opposite poles of these scales, and as a result they engage in more
deliberate information processing (De Dreu & Carnevale, 2003; Flynn,
2005; Homan et al., 2008; Neuberg & Newsom, 1993; Van Kleef,
Anastasopoulou, & Nijstad, 2010; Webster & Kruglanski, 1994). EASI
theory posits that these individuals are more likely to reflect on other
people’s emotions, meaning that the effects of others’ emotional expres-
sions on their behavior are driven by deliberate inferential processes (as
opposed to more automatic affective reactions) to a greater degree than is
the case for individuals with lower levels of epistemic motivation (Van
Kleef, De Dreu, & Manstead, 2010).
Epistemic motivation also varies as a function of the situation. For
instance, epistemic motivation is increased when a task is perceived as
attractive or personally involving (Eagly & Chaiken, 1993; Petty &
Cacioppo, 1986), when one is held accountable for one’s judgments and
decisions (Tetlock, 1992), when outcomes are framed as losses rather than
as gains (De Dreu, Carnevale, Emans, & Van de Vliert, 1994), and when a
situation is competitively rather than cooperatively structured (Van
Kleef, De Dreu, & Manstead, 2010). Conversely, epistemic motivation is
undermined by factors such as environmental noise (Kruglanski &
Webster, 1991), mental fatigue (Webster, Richter, & Kruglanski, 1996),
time pressure (De Dreu, 2003; Van Kleef, De Dreu, & Manstead, 2004b),
and power (De Dreu & Van Kleef, 2004; Fiske & Dépret, 1996; Keltner,
Van Kleef, Chen, & Kraus, 2008). By influencing epistemic motivation,
these factors influence the relative predictive strength of affective reac-
tions and inferential processes, with inferential processes becoming pro-
gressively more influential as epistemic motivation increases.

Processing capacity
Besides motivation, a person’s information-processing mode logically
depends on his or her ability to engage in effortful processing (Chaiken,
1980; Chaiken & Trope, 1999; Petty & Cacioppo, 1986; Smith & DeCoster,
2000). This ability is partly rooted in stable individual differences in
general intelligence and working memory capacity (Conway, Cowan,
Bunting, Therriault, & Minkoff, 2002; Engle, Tuholski, Laughlin, &
Conway, 1999; Vernon, 1983). In addition, the ability to engage in sys-
tematic information processing is determined by momentary variations
in (among other things) cognitive load and mental fatigue, which under-
mine people’s information-processing capacity (Ford & Kruglanski, 1995;
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64 Part I Emotions as Social Information Theory
Gilbert & Hixon, 1991; Lavie, 2010; Webster et al., 1996). Under increasing
cognitive load, working memory capacity is reduced (Engle, 2002). As a
result, cognitive control and the ability to engage in systematic informa-
tion processing are undermined (Lavie, Hirst, De Fockert, & Viding,
2004). Thus, individuals who are under high cognitive load should be
less likely to engage in thorough processing of another person’s emo-
tional expressions, meaning that affective reactions to the other’s emo-
tions take on heightened importance in driving behavioral responses.
Proposition 8: The relative influence of inferential processes (as compared with
affective reactions) in shaping responses to emotional expressions becomes
greater to the degree that the observer of the emotional expression is motivated
and able to engage in thorough information processing; the relative influence of
affective reactions increases to the degree that information processing motivation
or ability is reduced.

The perceived appropriateness of emotional expressions

In addition to observers’ information processing, a second key determi-
nant of the relative influence of affective reactions and inferential pro-
cesses in shaping responses to emotional expressions is the perceived
appropriateness of the emotional expression (Van Kleef et al., 2011).
Perceptions of inappropriateness arise when individuals feel that another
person’s emotional expression is somehow inconsistent with implicit or
explicit norms or rules that are salient within a particular context.
Violations of such norms can be qualitative (showing the wrong emotion)
or quantitative (showing the right emotion with the wrong intensity). In
other words, emotional expressions can be considered “appropriate” to
the degree that they are “correct for the situation and in correct propor-
tion to the evoking circumstances” (Shields, 2005, p. 7; see also
Parrott, 2001).
To some extent, this is of course a subjective call. Who is the judge of
whether an emotional expression is fitting within a particular situation?
According to Shields (2005), there is a political dimension to this question
in the sense that certain people (e.g., those belonging to a majority group
within a society) may have an interest in condemning the emotional
reactions of particular others (e.g., those belonging to a minority
group), for instance to preserve the status quo. A painful example of
such politics occurred in the Netherlands in the autumn of 2014, when
an old discussion about “Black Pete” came back to life. Black Pete is the
assistant of Saint Nicholas, who (according to Dutch tradition) celebrates
his birthday on December 5th by giving presents and candy to children.
Some Dutch citizens with Surinamese or Antillean roots feel hurt by the

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 Contingencies of the social effects of emotions 65
tradition because it reminds them of slavery, and they would like to
modernize the tradition (e.g., by introducing White Pete). Some indigen-
ous Dutch citizens have difficulties appreciating the sensitivity of the
matter due to their different perspective, and they feel that the negative
emotions of opponents are unwarranted. From a more objective stand-
point, it is easy to see why Surinamese and Antillean Dutch inhabitants
take offense at the role of Black Pete, and yet the White majority appears
to dictate that strong negative emotional reactions to Black Pete are
inappropriate because Black Pete is part of the Dutch cultural heritage.
As Shields observed, “when members of the dominant group discuss
issues concerning groups considered minority or ‘special interest’
groups, the question of ‘Why are they always so angry?’ almost invari-
ably arises. The answer depends on who is in a position to write the rules
as to what counts as a legitimate appraisal” (p. 9).
EASI theory posits that the relative influence of inferential processes in
shaping behavioral responses to the emotional expressions of others
decreases to the extent that the emotional expressions are perceived as
inappropriate (Van Kleef, 2009). This idea resonates with Shields’s (2005)
argument that emotional expressions that are perceived as inappropriate
are accorded less legitimacy, which implies that the appraisals that gave
rise to the emotions are less likely to be taken into account. In other words,
a person who deems another’s emotional expression inappropriate rather
than appropriate will be less inclined to engage in the effortful process of
drawing inferences from the emotional expression about the expresser’s
appraisals of the situation, which makes it less likely that the person will
reach the conclusion that behavioral change on his own part is required.
At the same time, the relative influence of (negative) affective reactions
in driving responses to others’ emotional expressions increases when
emotional expressions are perceived as inappropriate (Van Kleef et al.,
2011). Inappropriate emotions violate the shared reality of groups and
societies, thereby potentially endangering group harmony, coordinated
action, and the functioning of collectives (Kruglanski & Webster, 1991;
Mannetti, Levine, Pierro, & Kruglanski, 2010; Marques, Abrams, Paez, &
Martinez-Taboada, 1998). Beliefs about which emotions should be
expressed in which circumstances are therefore interpreted in the interest
of regulating the functioning of social groups (Shields, 2005).
Accordingly, emotional displays that are perceived as inappropriate for
the circumstances tend to evoke negative emotions in observers (Bucy,
2000), and (emotional) deviance is often socially sanctioned (Eidelman,
Silvia, & Biernat, 2006; Marques et al., 1998).
It is important at this point to distinguish inappropriateness from
unexpectedness. Perceptions of inappropriateness may stem from the
observation of unexpected emotional expressions, such as when one
66 Part I Emotions as Social Information Theory
sees a person laughing out loud during a sad speech at a funeral, or when
one gets an angry reaction from the recipient of a gift. In such cases, the
emotional reaction is probably perceived by most people as both unex-
pected and inappropriate. But not all unexpected emotional reactions will
necessarily be deemed inappropriate. If one expects an irritated reaction
from a colleague when arriving late to a meeting but receives a sincere
smile instead, the colleague’s emotional expression is unexpected but will
probably not be seen as inappropriate. The reverse also applies: An
emotional reaction does not need to be unexpected to be perceived as
inappropriate. Some people habitually display domineering or contemp-
tuous emotions, to a point where the expressions can be expected by
others. But even if anticipated, the expressions are still likely to be seen
as inappropriate because they violate prevailing norms.
The distinction between unexpectedness and inappropriateness is
important in light of evidence that expectancy violations can, under
particular circumstances, trigger increased information processing
(Hamilton & Sherman, 1996; Stern, Marrs, Millar, & Cole, 1984). When
something unanticipated happens, people may become motivated to
engage in more thorough information processing to increase their under-
standing of the situation (i.e., lack of understanding may increase epis-
temic motivation; Chaiken et al., 1989; Kruglanski & Webster, 1996).
There is also evidence, however, that negative affective reactions to
expectancy violations are primary (Bartholow, Fabiani, Gratton, &
Bettencourt, 2001; Olson, Roese, & Zanna, 1996) and that negative affec-
tive reactions to unexpected emotional expressions in particular are more
likely to arise to the degree that the expressions are considered inap-
propriate (Bucy, 2000; Van Kleef & Côté, 2007). Consider the case of a
person who starts laughing out loud during a funeral ceremony. Even
though other mourners may at some level be curious about what caused
the person to laugh, their sense that the amusement is utterly inappropri-
ate for the situation is likely to make them experience strong negative
affective reactions. Thus, even though inappropriate emotional displays
have the potential to trigger information processing when they are unex-
pected, EASI theory posits that – generally speaking – negative affective
reactions take precedence over inferential processes when individuals
are confronted with inappropriate emotional expressions (Van Kleef
et al., 2011).
In short, in light of the processes outlined above, EASI postulates that
the relative influence of negative affective reactions (as opposed to infer-
ential processes) in shaping responses to the emotional expressions of
others increases to the degree that the emotional expressions are per-
ceived as inappropriate. The perceived appropriateness of emotional
expressions depends on a number of social-contextual factors, including
 Contingencies of the social effects of emotions 67
characteristics of the situation (e.g., cultural norms regarding emotion
expression, the cooperative vs. competitive nature of the situation), char-
acteristics of the emotional expression (e.g., its authenticity, intensity,
target), characteristic of the expresser (e.g., gender, status, group mem-
bership), and characteristics of the observer (e.g., agreeableness, extra-
version, neuroticism). I discuss each of these in turn.

Characteristics of the situation: display rules, culture, and interdependence

The perceived appropriateness of emotional expressions is shaped to an
important degree by “display rules,” the often tacit social rules that
dictate when, how much, and which emotions should be expressed to
others (Ekman & Friesen, 1975; Shields, 2005). Display rules vary across
situations and social groups, and they play an important role in regulat-
ing social interaction by shaping emotional expressions (Saarni, 1999).
In general terms, display rules pertain to the appropriateness of an
emotional expression within a particular context (Shields, 2005).1
Perhaps the most basic and universal (albeit mostly implicit) expecta-
tion in this regard is that emotional expressions should reflect a proper
appraisal of the situation (Parrott, 2001). A person who gets angry upon
reaching a goal or starts laughing after a painful failure may be per-
ceived by others as showing the wrong emotion for the situation, and
this perception may evoke negative affective reactions.
More specific display rules vary as a function of culture, because
different cultures put differential emphasis on values associated with
cultural dimensions such as individualism-collectivism and power dis-
tance (Matsumoto, 1990). For example, in individualistic cultures,
expressions of anger tend to be relatively acceptable. In the United
States, Israel, and the Netherlands, expressions of anger are more likely
to be interpreted as a sign of assertiveness and individuality than as a
sign of aggression, provided that the expressions are not overly intense.
In more collectivistic cultures, however, expressions of anger are not
appreciated. In Japan, for instance, expressing anger tends to be per-
ceived as rather inappropriate (except perhaps when the anger is direc-
ted at an outgroup; Matsumoto, 1990) because anger poses a threat to
group harmony, which is highly valued in this cultural context
(Kitayama, Mesquita, & Karasawa, 2006; Markus & Kitayama, 1991).

1
A related concept is that of “feeling rules,” which prescribe qualities of a person’s
privately experienced emotions (Hochschild, 1983). Both types of rules speak to the
appropriateness of emotional reactions to events. I concentrate on display rules here
because they relate more directly to the appropriateness of emotional expressions (as
opposed to experiences).
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68 Part I Emotions as Social Information Theory
Display rules also vary according to social and organizational customs.
Situational scripts determine the extent to which certain emotional
expressions are deemed appropriate in a given setting. Within a
Western context, a person who displays happiness at a funeral violates
a consensual script and can expect to meet with negative affective reac-
tions and possibly social sanctions. Similarly, many organizations have
implicit or explicit guidelines with regard to emotional expression
(Rafaeli & Sutton, 1987). In some organizational settings, such as custo-
mer service professions, a lot of emphasis is put on providing “service
with a smile” (Grandey, Fisk, Mattila, Jansen, & Sideman, 2005). Other
occupational contexts, such as the construction industry, may be seen as
relatively “rough” in terms of behavioral norms and expectations regard-
ing emotional expression (Lindebaum & Fielden, 2011). The social-orga-
nizational context thus shapes emotional norms and display rules, which
in turn determine to what extent a given emotional expression is likely to
be perceived as appropriate or inappropriate within that context.
Furthermore, and in a somewhat related vein, the perceived appropri-
ateness of emotional expressions depends on the interdependence struc-
ture of the situation (Van Kleef, De Dreu, & Manstead, 2010). In
cooperative settings (e.g., colleagues working together on a task) there
tends to be a relative emphasis on collaboration, trust, support, and social
harmony, as compared with competitive settings (e.g., opponents in a
hockey match), which more commonly evoke feelings of rivalry and
antagonism. Accordingly, aggressive and domineering emotions such
as anger may be rather inappropriate in a cooperative context, but rela-
tively acceptable in more competitive settings, where aggression is part of
the situational script. In short, situational characteristics affect the degree
to which particular emotional expressions are likely to be perceived as
appropriate or inappropriate, thereby shaping the relative influence of
affective and inferential processes on responses to emotional expressions.

Characteristics of the emotional expression: authenticity, intensity,

and target
The perceived appropriateness of emotional expressions also depends on
characteristics of the emotional expression itself. Although it seems intui-
tively plausible that positive emotional expressions are generally per-
ceived as more appropriate than negative emotional expressions, upon
closer scrutiny it is more likely that the appropriateness of a particular
emotional expression depends on the degree to which the expression fits
situational norms and scripts. Even though cheerful emotional expres-
sions are often well received, expressing joy after learning about the
company’s disastrous financial performance is likely to be perceived as
unfitting. Similarly, even though expressions of anger may not be

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 Contingencies of the social effects of emotions 69
appreciated in many situations, a friend who tells us about how unfairly
she is treated by her boss would probably deem an angry response on our
part more appropriate than an indifferent response. In general, then, an
expresser’s emotions are more likely to be perceived as appropriate by an
observer to the degree that they fit the observer’s appraisal of the situa-
tion and his or her expectations based on display rules and situational
scripts (Shields, 2005). Nevertheless, several characteristics of emotional
expressions may influence perceptions of appropriateness across social
situations. These include the authenticity, intensity, and target of the
expression.
For various reasons, people may decide to express emotions that they
do not actually feel or to exaggerate or suppress felt emotions, for
instance in order to comply with prevailing display rules and expecta-
tions or to get something done. For example, people may deliberately
express happiness to make a positive impression, or express sadness to
elicit support (Clark et al., 1996), even if they do not actually feel these
emotions or feel them to a lesser extent than their displays would
suggest. People may also purposefully upregulate anger in an attempt
to influence others (Andrade & Ho, 2009; Fitness, 2000) and to further
their own goals (Tamir, Mitchell, & Gross, 2008). For example, bill
collectors reported that they displayed anger that they did not feel,
because they had learned that expressing anger could compel certain
debtors to pay (Sutton, 1991).
Emotions that are strategically expressed may come across as inauthen-
tic depending how they were regulated. One way of regulating emotions
is by means of antecedent-focused regulation or “deep acting,” which
involves regulating both one’s subjective feelings and one’s public dis-
plays of emotions (Côté, 2005; Grandey, 2003; Gross, 1998a; Hochschild,
1983). When individuals engage in this type of regulation, their subjec-
tively felt emotions match their external displays of emotion, and hence
emotional displays generated by deep acting tend to be perceived as
authentic (Grandey, 2003; Hennig-Thurau, Groth, Paul, & Hemler,
2006). An alternative way of regulating emotions is through response-
focused regulation or “surface acting,” which involves modifying one’s
external displays of emotion without changing one’s internal feeling state
(Côté, 2005; Grandey, 2003; Gross, 1998a; Hochschild, 1983). This type of
regulation creates a mismatch between publicly displayed and privately
felt emotions. This discrepancy may be noted by observers, because
feigned emotional displays appear different than spontaneous expres-
sions of truly felt emotions (Ekman, 2003; Ekman, Friesen, & O’Sullivan,
1988). For instance, compared to genuine facial displays of emotion,
feigned displays tend to be less symmetrical (Ekman, Hager, & Friesen,
1981; Hager & Ekman, 1985; Skinner & Mullen, 1991). Due to such subtle
70 Part I Emotions as Social Information Theory
cues, surface-acted emotional expressions are likely to be perceived as
less authentic than genuinely felt emotions (Côté, Hideg, & Van Kleef,
2013; Grandey et al., 2005).
In some cases, emotional expressions that appear inauthentic may also
be deemed inappropriate (Rafaeli & Sutton, 1989). Relative to authentic
emotional expressions, inauthentic emotional expressions are more likely
to be perceived as dishonest, unethical, or manipulative attempts to
influence others (Côté et al., 2013), and such perceptions may elicit nega-
tive affective reactions in observers (Van Kleef, Homan, & Cheshin, 2012).
In line with this idea, individuals who habitually engaged in surface
acting (and whose emotional expressions were therefore often inauthen-
tic) reported lower-quality relationships (Gross & John, 2003) and
received less social support (Srivastava, Tamir, McGonigal, John, &
Gross, 2009) compared to individuals who less frequently engaged in
surface acting. Other research found that surface acting emotions at work
was negatively related to coworker ratings of “affective delivery,” which
encompasses sincerity, warmth, courtesy, and friendliness (Grandey,
2003). Furthermore, experimental work revealed that female intervie-
wees who displayed inauthentic smiles during a simulated job interview
were rated less positively and were less often short-listed for the job than
were interviewees who displayed authentic smiles (Krumhuber,
Manstead, Cosker, Marshall, & Rosin, 2009). In other studies, participants
felt less trust toward and cooperated less with interaction partners who
exhibited inauthentic rather than authentic smiles (Johnston, Miles, &
Macrae, 2010; Krumhuber et al., 2007).
Anecdotal evidence from the political domain also indicates that
inauthentic emotional expressions may elicit negative affective reactions
in observers. During her campaign for the Democratic presidential nomi-
nation for US president in 2008, Hillary Clinton’s voice trembled and her
eyes got teary when she was asked how she managed to hang in there
during the long and tiring campaign. Although some applauded her for
showing humaneness, others doubted the genuineness of her displays:
“After a political lifetime of keeping her emotions secret, why was Mrs.
Clinton finally letting her guard down? Was it a spontaneous outburst or
a calculated show?” (Kantor, 2008). As another case in point, in the wake
of the British Petroleum oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, U.S.
president Barack Obama eventually showed anger about the incident
on a television show after having been criticized for his calm response
(Pareene, 2010). Obama drew considerable skepticism, however, because
his display was perceived as inauthentic. Veteran newscaster Sam
Donaldson commented: “It’s not authentic. He is mister cool. He is no
drama Obama. Someone told him, get out there and show your anger . . .
And we say, that’s not him” (Chalian, 2010).
 Contingencies of the social effects of emotions 71
Not all feigned emotions may be perceived as equally inappropriate,
however. It seems plausible that inauthentic positive emotional expres-
sions (e.g., fake smiles) are generally more welcome than inauthentic
negative expressions (e.g., fake tears). Nevertheless, an insincere smile
can still be expected to elicit more negative affective reactions than a
genuine smile, even if these negative reactions may be relatively mild.
In addition, the perceived appropriateness of inauthentic emotional dis-
plays depends on the context. A fake smile may be perceived as relatively
more appropriate in a customer service setting than in an intimate rela-
tionship, and feigned grumpiness may be more acceptable from a boun-
cer than from a doctor. Despite these nuances, inauthentic emotional
expressions are more likely than authentic expressions to be perceived
as inappropriate and, accordingly, to trigger negative affective reactions
in observers.
Another characteristic of emotional expressions that shapes their per-
ceived appropriateness is intensity. Emotional expressions are perceived
as appropriate to the degree that they match situational expectations
(Shields, 2005). Besides factors such as display rules and cultural influ-
ences, the appropriateness of an emotional expression in a given situation
depends on the congruence between the severity of the eliciting event and
the intensity of the emotion. An emotional expression whose severity
does not seem to match the situation, for instance because the emotion
appears too grave in light of its minor cause, may evoke negative affective
reactions in observers due to its perceived inappropriateness (Van Kleef
et al., 2012).
Parrott (2001) argued that the functionality of emotions depends on
the accuracy of the appraisals that underlie them, proposing that
emotions that are too intense (or not intense enough) for the eliciting
event are likely to be dysfunctional. Although Parrott’s argument
focused primarily on the intrapersonal dysfunctionality of ill-cali-
brated emotional intensity, the argument can easily be extended to
the interpersonal domain. A person who grieves intensely over a
trivial loss or exhibits excessive enthusiasm over a minor success
stands the risk of being perceived by others as mannered or inauthen-
tic, which may trigger negative affective reactions. Conversely, some-
one whose emotional expressions apparently fail to reflect the severity
of an event may elicit negative affective reactions in others because
emotional unresponsiveness suggests a disregard for the significance
of the situation.
In general terms, then, emotional expressions are more likely to elicit
negative affective reactions to the degree that there is a greater discre-
pancy (whether positive or negative) between their intensity and the
severity of the situation (Van Kleef et al., 2012). Thus, a customer who is
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72 Part I Emotions as Social Information Theory
confronted with an overly enthusiastic car salesman may experience
distrust and negative affect that may prevent him from buying a car
from that dealer. Likewise, a service worker who is confronted with a
disproportionately angry customer may be less likely to invest effort in
finding a way to accommodate the customer’s request (Geddes &
Callister, 2007).
A final characteristic of emotional expressions that warrants discussion
here concerns the target of the expression. It is important to distinguish
among the cause of an emotion (i.e., the eliciting stimulus, be it a person or
an event), the target of the emotion (i.e., the person, object, or situation the
emotion is directed at, which may or may not have caused the emotion),
and the observer of the emotion (i.e., the person who witnesses the emo-
tional expression, who may or may not be the cause of the emotion and
who may or may not be its target). Consider the following example.
Someone promises a friend to help him paint his new house, and then
calls up on the agreed-upon day that he is too busy with something else
and backs out. If the friend expresses his irritation about this decision
during the same phone call, then the nonhelper is at the same time the
cause of the emotion, the target of the emotion, and the observer of the
emotional expression. Now consider another example. Someone pain-
fully bangs his head on a kitchen cupboard and then angrily kicks his dog
that happens to get in the way, in the presence of his wife. In this case the
pain from the cupboard is the cause of the emotion, the dog is its momen-
tary target, and the wife is the observer of the expression.
This distinction is relevant for the present argument, because certain
emotional expressions are more likely to be perceived as inappropriate
and to elicit negative affective reactions in an observer when the obser-
ver is also the target of the emotion. Consider the case of anger. As
discussed previously, a given expression of anger may be seen as more
or less appropriate depending on the circumstances and depending on
its intensity. All else being equal, however, due to self-serving and ego-
defensive biases in perception and attribution, people may perceive
expressions of anger as relatively more uncalled for when they are
themselves the target of the expressions than when another person is
the target.
People have a well-documented tendency to overestimate the role of
dispositional as opposed to situational factors in explaining their own
success versus adversity, while they tend to make the opposite pattern of
attributions with regard to the success and adversity of others (Bradley,
1978; Miller & Ross, 1975). Due to such self-serving attributions, obser-
vers may deem expressions of anger directed at a third party or common
enemy more appropriate (e.g., more deserved) than the same expressions
directed at themselves. This tendency may be further enhanced by the

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 Contingencies of the social effects of emotions 73
fact that people tend to underestimate the severity of social pain (as
induced, among other things, by expressions of anger) unless they are
actively experiencing it themselves (Nordgren, Banas, & MacDonald,
2011). Furthermore, ego-defense motives may lead people to perceive
expressions of anger as less appropriate when they are directed at them
personally rather than at their behavior or at some aspect of the situation.
For these reasons, expressions of unwelcome emotions such as anger may
be perceived as more inappropriate and elicit more negative affective
reactions in observers when they are themselves the targets of the expres-
sions than when they are not.

Characteristics of the expresser: gender, group membership, and status

Several characteristics of the expresser of an emotion also influence the
extent to which the expression is likely to be perceived as (in)appropriate
by observers. Stereotypes play an important role in this regard, the most
pervasive of which relate to gender. Although gender stereotypes vary
somewhat across cultures, there is a widely shared belief that women and
men differ in the experience and expression of emotion (Condry &
Condry, 1976; Fischer, 2000; K. Lewis, 2000; Plant, Hyde, Keltner, &
Devine, 2000). The female role has traditionally been associated with
“soft” and “caring” emotions, while the male role has been associated
with “strong” and “dominant” emotions (Reddy, 2001; Shields, 2005). For
instance, anger is often regarded as fitting the male rather than the female
gender role, and accordingly expressions of anger tend to be perceived as
more appropriate when emitted by men than by women (Eagly, Karau, &
Makhijani, 1995; Kring, 2000; K. Lewis, 2000; Timmers, Fischer, &
Manstead, 1998). Conversely, sadness is considered to be more gender
endorsed for women than for men, and hence expressions of sadness by a
woman are likely to be perceived as more appropriate than expressions of
sadness by a man (Plant et al., 2000).
The perceived appropriateness of emotional expressions also depends
on the group membership of the expresser and the observer. As discussed
previously in the context of the example of “Black Pete,” individuals tend
to ascribe greater legitimacy to the appraisals of members of their ingroup
than to the appraisals of members of the outgroup (Shields, 2005). Thus,
whenever there is ambiguity or tension concerning the “correct” apprai-
sal of a situation, observers are likely to deem the appraisals and con-
comitant emotional expressions of ingroup members more appropriate
than those of outgroup members. This means that, all else being equal, the
emotional expressions of outgroup members are more likely to elicit
negative affective reactions in observers than the emotional expressions
of ingroup members.
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74 Part I Emotions as Social Information Theory
A final characteristic of the expresser that is relevant in the current
context is his or her standing within the social hierarchy. Research by
Tiedens and colleagues (Tiedens, 2001; Tiedens, Ellsworth, &
Mesquita, 2000) has shown that high-status individuals are expected
to respond with anger (rather than sadness or guilt) to negative
outcomes and with pride (rather than appreciation) to positive out-
comes. Accordingly, people with lower relative standing in hierar-
chies reported controlling their expressions of anger more than did
those with higher relative standing (Diefendorff, Morehart, &
Gabriel, 2010). By reverse logic, individuals are perceived as having
higher status and power when they display anger and pride than
when they show sadness, guilt, shame, or appreciation (Shariff,
Tracy, & Markusoff, 2012; Tiedens, 2001; Tiedens et al., 2000).
Tiedens and colleagues suggested that expressions of anger and
pride are seen as reflecting appraisals of other-blame and controll-
ability (which are consistent with a powerful role), whereas expres-
sions of guilt and appreciation reflect appraisals of self-blame and
low control (which are consistent with a powerless role).
Interestingly, people also believe that high-status individuals have
more legitimate right to be angry in adverse situations than low-
status individuals, a belief that may be fueled by the implicit
assumption that individuals in higher positions are more competent
than those in lower positions and therefore less likely to be respon-
sible for any negative outcomes (Tiedens et al., 2000).
Given such stereotypes, expressions of “dominant” and social-dis-
tancing emotions such as anger and pride can be expected to be
perceived as relatively more appropriate when shown by higher-
status people, whereas expressions of “supplication” emotions such
as sadness and disappointment, “appeasement” emotions such as
guilt and shame, and “submissive” emotions such as gratitude and
appreciation may be perceived as more appropriate when shown by
lower-status people. Although research in this domain is scarce, there
is some indirect evidence for the case of anger. Kuppens, Van
Mechelen, and Meulders (2004) found that people more often overtly
expressed their anger at individuals who had lower rather than
higher status than themselves, while they more often suppressed
their anger toward higher-status than toward lower-status indivi-
duals. This suggests that people estimate the likelihood of getting
away with expressions of anger in light of their relative status vis-à-
vis the target, anticipating that expressions of anger will be perceived
as less appropriate and will arouse more negative reactions to the
degree that their relative status is lower.

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 Contingencies of the social effects of emotions 75
Characteristics of the observer: agreeableness, extraversion,
and neuroticism
The perceived appropriateness of emotional expressions is also influ-
enced by characteristics of the observer. Some observer characteristics
cannot be seen in isolation from expresser characteristics, as is the case for
instance with group membership. As such, the arguments about group
membership in the previous paragraph also apply to the observer. People
are more likely to perceive the emotional expressions of others as appro-
priate rather than inappropriate when they belong to the same rather than
a different group. Similarly, the status of expresser and observer may be
conceptualized in relative terms. This means that the foregoing argu-
ments about the expresser’s status are also relevant when it comes to
the effects of the observer’s status, except that the direction of the effects is
the opposite. Thus, observers may deem others’ expressions of anger
and pride more appropriate to the degree that they themselves have
lower status.
Besides such relative factors, perceptions of appropriateness are
shaped by more stable personality attributes of the observer. In this
respect it is useful to consider conceptual relationships between discrete
emotions and personality dimensions. Personality traits reflect patterns
of goals and values that are relatively stable and consistent across situa-
tions and over time (Roberts & Robins, 2000; Roccas, Sagiv, Schwartz, &
Knafo, 2002). Emotional expressions signal appraisals, social motives,
and intentions that may be more or less compatible with such goals. In
general terms, EASI postulates that emotional expressions are more likely
to be perceived as appropriate by observers to the extent that the social
signals that are conveyed by the expression fit with the goals and values
of the observer, as shaped in part by his or her personality.
A considerable amount of variance in personality is captured by the
classic Five-Factor Model, which encompasses extraversion, agreeable-
ness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness to experience (Costa
& McCrae, 1988; McCrae & Costa, 1987). Several of these factors are
relevant in the context of the present argument. Consider the case of
agreeableness. Individuals who score high on agreeableness have a
strong desire to achieve and maintain social harmony and to avoid con-
flict, whereas low-agreeable people have less of such a desire (McCrae &
Costa, 1987). Highly agreeable people should therefore be more likely to
perceive expressions of anger as inappropriate and to respond negatively
to such expressions, because such expressions may create hostility and
conflict and thereby undermine the social harmony that agreeable people
value and strive for (Graziano, Jensen-Campbell, & Hair, 1996; Suls,
Martin, & David, 1998). Even though agreeable individuals may be reluc-
tant to directly confront the anger expresser in the interest of securing
76 Part I Emotions as Social Information Theory
social harmony, their elevated perceptions of inappropriateness may
become manifest in their responses to angry people in less explicit ways
(e.g., in the form of reduced compliance or helpfulness). Conversely,
highly agreeable individuals should welcome expressions of happiness
(perhaps more so than their less agreeable counterparts), because such
expressions inspire trust (Stouten & De Cremer, 2010) and facilitate social
connection (Clark & Taraban, 1991), and as such are compatible with
agreeable individuals’ preference for harmonious relations.
Extraversion also seems relevant when it comes to predicting the
perceived appropriateness of emotional expressions. Extraverted peo-
ple are outgoing, talkative, emotionally expressive, and energetic,
whereas introverted people are more reserved, solitary, and less emo-
tionally expressive (Costa & McCrae, 1988; McCrae & Costa, 1987). It
stands to reason, then, that extraverted people would generally
appreciate others’ emotional expressions more than would introverted
people, particularly when the expressions are relatively intense.
Compared to extraverted individuals, introverted individuals may be
more likely to perceive others’ emotional expressions as unwarranted
and inappropriate in light of their own standards of restrained emo-
tional expression.
Finally, there are some interesting conceptual links between neuroti-
cism and emotional expression. Neuroticism is associated with the
experience of negative affective states, such as anxiety and depression.
Individuals who are low on neuroticism are more emotionally stable
and less susceptible to anxiety-provoking situations (Costa & McCrae,
1988; McCrae & Costa, 1987). It is conceivable, therefore, that neurotic
individuals are better able than their less neurotic counterparts to
relate to others’ anxiety, and that they would perceive displays of
anxiety by others as more appropriate because they resonate with
their own patterns of emotional experience and expression. Similarly,
people with a chronic prevention focus, who are preoccupied with
avoiding negative outcomes and prone to experience agitated emo-
tions (Higgins, 1997, 1998), may perceive others’ displays of anxiety
and agitation as more appropriate than individuals with a chronic
promotion focus, who are more focused on attaining positive out-
comes. In short, the perceived appropriateness of any emotional
expression is likely to depend on the match between the signals that
are conveyed by the expression and the salient goals and values of the
observer, as rooted in his or her personality. These arguments can be
summarized in the following proposition.
Proposition 9: The relative influence of negative affective reactions (as compared
with inferential processes) in shaping observers’ responses to others’ emotional
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Contingencies of the social effects of emotions 77
expressions increases to the degree that observers perceive the emotional expres-
sions as inappropriate rather than appropriate, which depends on characteristics
of the situation, the emotional expression, the expresser, and the observer; the
relative influence of inferential processes increases to the degree that emotional
expressions are perceived as appropriate.

Conclusion
EASI theory posits that emotional expressions exert interpersonal effects
on observers by triggering affective and/or inferential processes in obser-
vers, as discussed in Chapter 3. The theory identifies two general pre-
conditions of such effects. The first prerequisite for any social effects of
emotions to occur is that the emotions be encoded in a way that makes
them perceptible by others (i.e., through facial expressions, tone of voice,
bodily postures, written or spoken words, and/or use of symbols such as
emoticons), which depends on the emotional expressivity of the expres-
ser. The second precondition is that the emotional expression be detected
and decoded, which depends on the emotional intelligence and asso-
ciated emotion perception abilities of the observer.
The theory further specifies two classes of moderators that determine
the relative predictive strength of observers’ affective reactions and infer-
ential processes in shaping (behavioral) responses to others’ emotional
expressions. The first moderator is the observer’s information-processing
depth, which is shaped by dispositional characteristics as well as situa-
tional factors that determine information-processing motivation and abil-
ity. The second moderator is the perceived appropriateness of the
emotional expression, which is shaped by characteristics of the situation,
the expression, the expresser, and the observer. These various moderators
are summarized in Table 4.1.
EASI posits that the predictive strength of inferential processes relative
to affective reactions increases to the extent that the observer of an emo-
tional expression is motivated and able to engage in thorough informa-
tion processing and perceives the emotional expression as appropriate.
Conversely, the relative predictive power of inferential processes
decreases to the extent that the observer’s information processing is
reduced and/or she or he perceives the emotional expression as inap-
propriate. In this regard it is important to bear in mind the critical
distinction between unexpectedness of emotional expressions (which
may enhance careful scrutiny) and inappropriateness of emotional
expressions (which may trigger negative affective reactions), as elabo-
rated above. By specifying the various ways in which emotional expres-
sions may bring about social effects and the contingencies that govern the

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78 Part I Emotions as Social Information Theory
Table 4.1 Moderators of the social effects of emotions

General Preconditions of the Social Effects of Emotions

• Encoding: Expresser’s emotional expressivity
• Decoding: Observer’s emotional intelligence and emotion perception ability
Moderators of the Relative Influence of Inferential Processes and Affective
Reactions
• Observer’s information processing
Epistemic motivation
– Dispositional characteristics (e.g., need for cognitive closure, need for
cognition, personal need for structure, openness to experience)
– Situational characteristics (e.g., involvement, accountability, loss
framing, environmental noise, mental fatigue, power)
Processing capacity
– Dispositional characteristics (e.g., general intelligence, working memory
capacity)
– Situational characteristics (e.g., cognitive load, mental fatigue)
• Perceived appropriateness of the emotional expression
Characteristics of the situation (e.g., culture, display rules, cooperative
vs. competitive interdependence)
Characteristics of the expression (e.g., authenticity, intensity, target)
Characteristics of the expresser (e.g., gender, status, group membership)
Characteristics of the observer (e.g., agreeableness, extraversion,
neuroticism)

relative primacy of these processes, EASI theory enables specific predic-

tions about the social effects of emotional expressions across domains
of life.
Now that the basic tenets of EASI theory have been laid out, we can
move on to consider the empirical record. In the following chapters I
provide a comprehensive overview of research on the social effects of
emotions. I organize my review according to the five main domains of
research in which the social effects of emotions have been investigated so
far, namely close relationships, group life, conflict and negotiation, cus-
tomer service and consumer behavior, and leadership.
PART II

Social effects of emotions:

the empirical record
 CHAPTER 5

Social effects of emotions in close

relationships

There was a time when you let me know

what’s really going on below
but now you never show it to me, do you?
Leonard Cohen

The theoretical framework of Emotions as Social Information (EASI)

outlined in the previous section of this book emphasizes the social func-
tionality of emotions. Emotional expressions help to regulate social inter-
action by eliciting reciprocal and/or complementary emotional responses
in others and by providing insight into the expresser’s inner feelings,
desires, motives, and intentions (Keltner & Haidt, 1999; Van Kleef, 2009).
Theorizing about the functionality of emotional expressions has high-
lighted the role of emotional expressions in developing and maintaining
well-adjusted personal relationships (Keltner & Kring, 1998; Parkinson,
Fischer, & Manstead, 2005). This is for good reasons, because emotions
and relationships are inextricably intertwined. There is abundant evi-
dence that emotions predominantly arise in social situations (Anderson
& Guerrero, 1998; Planalp, 1999), and, more specifically, in the context of
close relationships (Berscheid & Ammazzalorso, 2001). I therefore begin
my review of research on the interpersonal effects of emotions by con-
sidering the domain of close relationships. If emotional expressions are
indeed functional, their benefits should surely be apparent in situations
in which interaction partners are concerned about each other’s welfare
and are motivated to understand each other’s predicaments, to alleviate
each other’s distress, and to secure a healthy and stable relationship.

The functionality of emotions in close relationships

There are good reasons to believe that emotions are an essential ingredi-
ent of healthy social relationships, and particularly of close relationships.
Clark and Taraban (1991) found that emotions are more frequently
experienced and expressed in “communal” relationships (which are
characterized by relatively high levels of intimacy and trust) than in
“exchange” relationships (which are characterized by lower levels of

81
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82 Part II Social effects of emotions
closeness and a more transactional mind-set). In one experiment, partici-
pants were paired with either a friend (communal relationship) or a
stranger (exchange relationship) with whom they expected to have a
conversation. When asked what they would prefer to talk about with
the other person, participants in the friend condition indicated a greater
preference for emotional topics than did participants in the stranger
condition. In another experiment, participants were led to desire either
a communal relationship or an exchange relationship with another per-
son who expressed happiness, sadness, irritability, or no emotion. When
the other person expressed no emotion, participants rated the person as
equally likeable in the exchange condition as in the communal condition.
When the person expressed happiness, sadness, or irritability, however,
participants liked the person significantly more in the communal than in
the exchange condition. These findings suggest that emotional expres-
sions play a special role in close relationships, and that positive as well as
negative emotions may be functional. This conclusion is underscored by
the fact that people are strongly inclined to share their emotional experi-
ences with others, especially with close ones (Rimé, Finkenauer, Luminet,
Zech, & Philippot, 1998).
Whereas the idea that positive emotional expressions benefit close
relationships is not particularly provocative, the possibility that negative
emotional expressions have favorable consequences in such a context is
more controversial (Locke & Horowitz, 1990; Sommers, 1984).
Nevertheless, there is evidence that the expression of negative emotions
is associated with positive relationship outcomes. A series of studies by
Graham and colleagues suggests that expressing negative emotions (e.g.,
distress, nervousness, anxiety, annoyance) helps to elicit support, build
new relationships, and heighten intimacy in existing close relationships
(Graham, Huang, Clark, & Helgeson, 2008). In a vignette study, partici-
pants indicated that they would provide more support to a person who
expressed a negative emotion that she or he felt than to a person who did
not express a felt negative emotion. A longitudinal field study among
college students further revealed that the self-reported willingness to
express negative emotions was a positive predictor of friendship forma-
tion and intimacy, and received support from roommates. Findings such
as these suggest that negative emotional expressions can indeed have
beneficial consequences in close relationships.
As elaborated in the previous chapter, the social functionality of emo-
tions (whether positive or negative) hinges on the willingness and capa-
city of interaction partners to express their own emotions and to attend to,
register, interpret, and respond to the emotional expressions of the other.
When emotions fail to be expressed or registered, vital information may
be lost, and social responding, coordination, and mutual understanding

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 Social effects of emotions in close relationships 83
7

5 Partner’s instructions
Allowed to express
4 emotions
Asked to suppress
3 emotions

1
Experienced Willingness to
rapport affiliate

Figure 5.1 Effects of emotional expression versus suppression in face-

to-face interaction on conversation partners’ self-reported experience
of rapport and willingness to affiliate (on a scale of 0–10; based on
Butler et al., 2003, Study 2).

may be impeded. This implies that lack of emotional expressivity poses a

threat to social relationships, because failure to express experienced
emotions robs one’s interaction partner of the opportunity to respond to
one’s situation.
In line with this idea, Butler and colleagues demonstrated experimen-
tally that the suppression of felt emotions in conversations can have
deleterious consequences for both interaction partners (Butler et al.,
2003). The authors conducted two laboratory studies in which dyads of
previously unacquainted women discussed an upsetting topic in face-to-
face conversations. Unbeknownst to the conversation partner, one of the
participants was either instructed to suppress any felt emotions, or was
not given such instructions and was therefore presumably allowed to
freely express any felt emotions. The authors found that emotional sup-
pression increased stress in both conversation partners, as reflected in
cardiovascular responses. Moreover, partners of emotion suppressors
experienced less rapport and reported a lower willingness to affiliate
with their conversation partner (as shown in Figure 5.1), suggesting
that expressive suppression can hinder friendship formation. A long-
itudinal field study by Srivastava, Tamir, McGonigal, John, and Gross
(2009) similarly showed that emotional suppression predicted lower
social support, less interpersonal closeness, and lower social satisfaction
among college students, as reflected in self-reports as well as peer reports.
84 Part II Social effects of emotions
Together, these studies indicate that emotional suppression may jeopar-
dize the quality of social relationships.
Other research has examined the effects of perceptive abilities. Mayer,
DiPaolo, and Salovey (1990) demonstrated that the ability to perceive
affective content in ambiguous visual stimuli (e.g., reproduced faces,
abstract designs) was positively associated with the ability to respond
empathically to others. Expanding on this finding, Schutte and colleagues
(2001) examined links between self-reports of emotional intelligence and
the quality of social relationships. Across a series of studies, they found
that self-reported emotional intelligence was positively correlated with
empathic perspective taking, general social skills, cooperative responses
toward partners, and relationship closeness and affection. Moreover,
they found that partners of individuals with higher self-ratings of emo-
tional intelligence reported greater marital satisfaction than partners of
individuals with lower self-rated emotional intelligence. Later studies
yielded compatible findings, indicating that emotional intelligence and
concomitant emotion perception ability predict relationship quality
(Lopes et al., 2004; Lopes, Salovey, & Straus, 2003; Malouff, Schutte, &
Thorsteinsson, 2014).
The functionality of emotional expressions further depends on the
perceived appropriateness of the expressions (see Chapter 4). Emotional
expressions are more likely to have beneficial consequences for social
relationships to the degree that they are perceived as fitting for the
circumstances. In other words, people should express the right emotions
at the right time and in the right way. When people express emotions that
do not fit the circumstances or when they display overly intense emo-
tions, observers are more likely to perceive the emotions as inappropriate
(Shields, 2005), which undermines observers’ tendency to process the
meaning and implications of the emotional expressions (Van Kleef,
2010). Thus, the ability to regulate emotions is an important prerequisite
for the functionality of emotional expressions in close relationships.
Accordingly, research has documented links between emotion regulation
ability and relationship quality, as reflected in self-reports and peer
reports of interpersonal sensitivity and reciprocal friendship nominations
among college students (Lopes, Salovey, Côté, & Beers, 2005).

Emotional convergence in interpersonal relationships

Social-functional analyses of emotion emphasize the role of emotional
expressions in the coordination of social interactions (e.g., Fischer &
Manstead, in press; Frijda & Mesquita, 1994; Keltner & Haidt, 1999; Van
Kleef, 2009). One way in which such coordination may be enhanced is
through emotional convergence (Anderson, Keltner, & John, 2003; Butler,
 Social effects of emotions in close relationships 85
Table 5.1 Emotional similarity at Time 1 (in correlations) of couples who were
still together at Time 2 (six months later) and those who had broken up.

Correlation between Partners’ Emotions at T1

Positive Negative Total
Emotion Emotion Emotion
Couples still together at .32* .43** .30*
T2
Couples broken up at T2 −.05 −.02 −.06

* p < .05; ** p < .01. Based on Anderson et al. (2003, Study 1).

2011). Emotional similarity has been proposed to facilitate coordinated

thoughts and actions, mutual understanding, and interpersonal closeness
and attraction (Hatfield, Cacioppo, & Rapson, 1994; Keltner & Kring,
1998; Preston & de Waal, 2002; Schachter, 1959). Anderson and colleagues
(2003) reasoned that if emotional similarity is so vital to personal relation-
ships, relationship partners should become more emotionally similar
over time as they develop a long-term bond, and such convergence
should be positively associated with favorable relationship outcomes.
Anderson and colleagues (2003) examined these possibilities in a series
of studies among opposite-sex dating couples and same-sex dormitory
roommates. In one study, pairs of roommates were invited to the labora-
tory and shown positive and negative emotionally evocative film clips in
separate rooms, after which their emotional reactions were recorded. The
researchers compared the emotional reactions of the students within and
across pairs. They found that independent emotional reactions to the film
clips were more similar between roommates than between nonroom-
mates. Other studies reported by Anderson and colleagues revealed
that the similarity between romantic partners’ emotional reactions to
events increased over a period of six months, and that such emotional
convergence predicted relationship satisfaction. Moreover, as shown in
Table 5.1, partners who were more emotionally similar at Time 1 were
more likely to be together at Time 2. Later studies produced compatible
evidence for the occurrence of emotional convergence, not only in terms
of subjective feelings but also in terms of facial expressions and appraisals
(Bruder, Dosmukhambetova, Nerb, & Manstead, 2012).
The tendency of romantic partners to converge emotionally over time
appears to be so strong that uninvolved observers can pick up on the
similarities in emotional expressiveness between romantic couples. De
Waal (2009) described a study on the facial resemblance of married
couples, in which participants were shown pictures of men and women
and were asked to indicate who was married to whom. Some of the
86 Part II Social effects of emotions
pictures had been taken on the partners’ wedding day, whereas other
pictures had been taken twenty-five years later. Participants could not
determine above chance who had married whom based on the pictures
taken on the wedding day, but they were able to do so based on the
pictures that had been taken twenty-five years later. Interestingly, the
observable expressive similarities were greater among couples who indi-
cated that they were happily married. This study suggests that the grow-
ing emotional similarity between people in close relationships becomes
engrained in their everyday facial expressions, and that such similarity is
associated with relationship success.
In light of the apparent benefits of emotional convergence in interper-
sonal relationships, it is interesting to consider factors that may modulate
such convergence. In this regard, research has examined the role of power
(Van Kleef et al., 2008). Several studies have shown that people who feel
more powerful are less motivated to pay attention to individuating infor-
mation about other people, because they feel less of a need to fully
understand others as they do not depend as much on others as low-
power people do (for reviews, see e.g. Fiske & Dépret, 1996; Keltner,
Van Kleef, Chen, & Kraus, 2008). To examine the possibility that power
reduces responsiveness to the emotions of other people, Van Kleef and
colleagues prompted unacquainted same-sex dyads to talk about
instances in their life that had caused them great suffering and distress.
Participants with a higher sense of power exhibited lower emotional
responsiveness to the distress of their conversation partner than did
participants with a lower sense of power, as reflected in lower levels
of distress and compassion and physiological markers of autonomic
emotion regulation (i.e., respiratory sinus arrhythmia reactivity).
Accordingly, participants who had told their emotional story to a high-
power partner felt less of a social connection with the partner than did
those who had talked to a low-power partner.

Social consequences of emotional expressions for relationships

It is clear from the above that emotional responsiveness and convergence
are important for smooth social interaction, and that lowered emotional
responsiveness may jeopardize the quality of social relationships. But
how about the specific effects of discrete emotional expressions? In the
remainder of this chapter I consider the interpersonal effects of four broad
classes of emotions or “emotion families” (Ekman, 1992) that have been
studied in the context of close relationships: affiliative emotions such as
happiness, supplication emotions such as sadness and disappointment,
dominant and other-blaming emotions such as anger, and appeasement
emotions such as guilt, embarrassment, and interpersonal regret (see Van
 Social effects of emotions in close relationships 87
Kleef, De Dreu, & Manstead, 2010, for a more elaborate discussion of
these particular classes of emotions).1

Affiliation: displays of happiness facilitate social bonding

The first class of emotions that is relevant in the context of close relation-
ships consists of positive emotions that are associated with opportunity
and affiliation, of which happiness is a prime example. Happiness arises
when people feel that they are making good progress toward the realiza-
tion of their goals (Lazarus, 1991). Happiness is associated with a state of
pleasure, security, and generosity, which is manifested in outgoingness
and approach-related behaviors. It is also associated with well-being and
a broadening of momentary thought-action repertoires, which enables
individuals to identify and seize opportunities to build enduring (social)
resources (Fredrickson, 1998, 2001).
Numerous studies have documented associations between happiness
and success in various domains of life, including marriage, friendship,
income, work performance, and health (for an extensive review, see
Lyobomirsky, King, & Diener, 2005). There is growing evidence that
these links exist not only because success makes people happy, but also
because happiness engenders success. In a meta-analytic review of cross-
sectional, longitudinal, and experimental studies, Lyobomirsky and col-
leagues obtained converging support for the effects of happiness on
various indicators of success in life. Their model emphasized the intra-
personal effects of positive affect on cognition, well-being, and success,
suggesting that the success of happy people stems from the fact that the
frequent experiences of positive emotions propel them toward active goal
pursuit, and that happy people can capitalize on skills and resources that
they acquired during previous episodes of pleasant moods. This conclu-
sion resonates with a famous quote by Bertrand Russell: “The good life, as
I conceive it, is a happy life. I do not mean that if you are good you will be
happy – I mean that if you are happy you will be good” (Russell, 1951).
Although research has established associations between happiness and
various measures of life success, it has devoted relatively little attention
1
Obviously, love is also a prominent affective state in close relationships. It is debatable,
however, whether love should be considered an emotion, because the common con-
ception of love does not qualify as an acute and relatively short-lived response to a
concrete eliciting event; rather, love is a long-lasting feeling of closeness, caring, and
attachment, or, in Ekman’s (1992) terms, an “emotional attitude” that typically involves
multiple emotions. Some have argued for a distinction between a “momentary surge of
love” (which would qualify as an emotion) and “relational love” (which would not;
Shaver, Morgan, & Wu, 1996). Given that research has almost exclusively focused on
relational love, a discussion of this literature falls outside the scope of this book.
88 Part II Social effects of emotions
to the interpersonal effects of happiness. Nevertheless, many of the
positive consequences that have been associated with happiness can
also be explained from an interpersonal perspective. It seems plausible
that people who are prone to experience positive emotions enjoy social
benefits because they more frequently express these positive emotions in
the presence of others. These positive emotional displays may elicit
favorable responses from others, which in turn help the expresser to
build (social) resources, garner goodwill and support from others, seize
opportunities, and ultimately achieve success in social and occupational
life. In this section I consider evidence that speaks to this possibility.
At the interpersonal level of analysis, expressions of happiness signal a
desire to affiliate, socialize, and play (Fridlund, 1994). Indeed, as dis-
cussed in Chapter 2, several scholars have argued that smiles can be
seen as communicative acts aimed at facilitating affiliation and social
bonding (Fridlund, 1991b; Hess, Banse, & Kappas, 1995; Jakobs,
Manstead, & Fischer, 1999a, 1999b; Kraut & Johnston, 1979; Manstead,
Fischer, & Jakobs, 1999). In line with this idea, research has documented
that people commonly smile deliberately in order to get others to like
them and to establish or maintain social bonds (Clark, Pataki, &
Carver, 1996; Godfrey, Jones, & Lord, 1986; Rosenfeld, 1966).
In the context of social relationships, expressions of happiness and
related emotions tend to trigger positive responses in observers (Fischer
& Manstead, in press; Van Kleef, De Dreu, & Manstead, 2010). Sincere
smiles signal that a person is nonthreatening, friendly, and playful, and
thereby invite others to approach (Frijda & Mesquita, 1994; Keltner &
Kring, 1998). Expressions of happiness are associated with increased liking
(Clark & Taraban, 1991; Shaver, Schwartz, Kirson, & O’Connor, 1987), and
smiling people are more likely than their nonsmiling counterparts to be
ascribed positive traits such as kindness, humor, intelligence, and honesty
(Hess, Beaupré, & Cheung, 2002; Reis et al., 1990). Furthermore, studies
have shown that expressing happiness and related positive emotions can
have favorable outcomes at work in terms of supervisor evaluation and
coworker support (Staw, Sutton, & Pelled, 1994). Accordingly, employees
have been found to exaggerate their expressions of positive emotions
toward their bosses (Duck, 1986).
Other work has shown that individuals high on trait positive affect enjoy
more intimate social contact with others and trigger their interaction part-
ners to engage in higher-quality exchanges (Berry & Hansen, 1996).
Individuals prone to positive affect tend to be socially engaged with others
(Watson, 1988), and their positive emotions may spread to those around
them via processes of emotional contagion (Hatfield et al., 1994). Given that
feelings of happiness promote prosocial behavior (George & Brief, 1992;
Isen, 1987), expressions of happiness can thus contribute to mutually
 Social effects of emotions in close relationships 89

Smile Personal
intensity well-being

Observers’
Marital Marital
approach
status satisfaction
and
acceptance
tendencies

Age 20–21 27 52

Figure 5.2 Women’s smiles in college yearbook photographs taken

around the age of 20 positively predict observers’ approach and
acceptance tendencies, marital status at age 27, and personal well-
being and marital satisfaction at age 52 (based on Harker & Keltner,
2001).

rewarding social interactions that serve to build and strengthen social

bonds (Harker & Keltner, 2001). Indeed, the expression of positive emo-
tions during conflict discussions has been found to predict relationship
satisfaction and a reduced likelihood of relationship dissolution
(Carstensen, Gottman, & Levenson, 1995; Gottman & Levenson, 1992).
Accordingly, individuals who are prone to experience (and therefore pre-
sumably express) positive emotions are more likely than their less cheerful
counterparts to be involved in a romantic relationship (Berry &
Willingham, 1997).
The positive outcomes associated with expressions of happiness were
nicely highlighted in a longitudinal study of the relationship between
smiling and life success. Harker and Keltner (2001) examined photo-
graphs of female college students from college yearbooks of 1958 and
1960. The researchers coded the women’s faces for smiles using the Facial
Action Coding System developed by Ekman and Friesen (1976, 1978),
focusing on the activation of the zygomatic major (which pulls up the
corners of the lips) and the orbicularis oculi (which raises the cheeks and
creates crow’s feet next to the eyes) muscles. Smile intensity was then
used to predict various aspects of the women’s life trajectories. The key
findings of the study are visualized in Figure 5.2. Women who smiled
more in their yearbook pictures were perceived as more pleasant com-
pany (as reflected in observers’ approach and acceptance tendencies),
were more likely to be married by age 27, and reported greater personal
well-being and marginally higher marital satisfaction by age 52 (i.e., 30
90 Part II Social effects of emotions
years after their yearbook pictures had been taken). Although it is impos-
sible to determine how these positive effects came about, it seems plau-
sible that at least some of the positive outcomes associated with smiles
can be attributed to the affiliative signals they convey and the favorable
responses they elicit from interaction partners. In short, expressions of
happiness may contribute to life success because they facilitate the for-
mation of social bonds.

Supplication: displays of sadness and related emotions elicit social support

The second class of emotions that is germane to close relationships
consists of emotions that arise when individuals face a loss (sadness),
when outcomes fall short of expectations (disappointment), or when
negative events may occur (worry, fear). Although these emotions have
different secondary appraisal components (Lazarus, 1991; Smith,
Haynes, Lazarus, & Pope, 1993), they share a supplication function
(Van Kleef, De Dreu, & Manstead, 2010) – that is, they serve as a call
for help (Clark et al., 1996; Eisenberg, 2000; Eisenberg & Miller, 1987;
Kennedy-Moore & Watson, 2001; Timmers, Fischer, & Manstead, 1998).
Sadness has been found to increase perceptions of neediness and depen-
dency (Clark & Taraban, 1991), and worry and fear have been shown to
communicate a need for assistance (Côté, 2005; Eisenberg, 2000;
Kennedy-Moore & Watson, 2001; Yee & Greenberg, 1998).
Accordingly, displays of supplication emotions trigger prosocial ten-
dencies in observers (Barnett, Howard, Melton, & Dino, 1982; Clark,
Ouellette, Powell, & Milberg, 1987; Labott, Martin, Eason, & Berkey,
1991; Small & Verrochi, 2009; Yee & Greenberg, 1998).
In an illustrative study described by Clark and colleagues (1996),
participants were invited to the lab supposedly to take part in a text-
proofing experiment together with two other students. Participants were
led to believe that they would work in a group of three, and that one
person would be allowed to leave early while the other two would proof-
read each other’s work. The experimenter explained to each participant
that the other two students were hoping that they would be allowed to
leave early, and that the participant could choose who would be dis-
missed and who would have to stay. Participants then received the work
of the other students, which included self-reports of how they were
supposedly feeling at the time. The results showed that fellow students
who were described as sad were more likely to be selected by partici-
pants to leave the experiment early than those who were described as
nonemotional or angry. In another study, Clark and colleagues (1987)
found that expressions of sadness had stronger effects on helping
among individuals desiring a communal relationship than among
 Social effects of emotions in close relationships 91
0.8
0.7
0.6
Intended donation
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
No emotion Disappointment Anger

Figure 5.3 Intended donations (in euros) to a charity collector as a

function of the collector’s emotional expression (based on Van Doorn
et al., 2015b, Study 2).

those desiring a more business-like exchange relationship, suggesting

that the expression of supplication emotions is particularly effective in
close relationships.
Other studies have investigated the interpersonal effects of emotional
expressions on compliance with explicit requests for help (Van Doorn,
Van Kleef, & Van der Pligt, 2015b). In one experiment, participants were
asked to imagine that while out shopping they encountered a charity
collector. After the participant had donated 50 cents, the charity collector
paused in front of them, as if he expected an additional donation.
Participants were shown a picture of the collector’s face, which expressed
either anger, disappointment, or no emotion. As shown in Figure 5.3,
participants in the disappointment condition were willing to more than
double their initial donation, while those in the neutral and angry condi-
tions did not intend to make an additional donation. In fact, several
participants in the anger condition indicated that they wanted to take
back their initial donation. The difference between the disappointment
and anger conditions was mediated by the perceived appropriateness of
the charity collector’s emotional expression, which was higher in the case
of disappointment than in the case of anger.
In another experiment by Van Doorn and colleagues (2015b), partici-
pants played a computer-simulated donation game. They first made a
donation in a practice round, upon which they were informed that pre-
vious players had on average made either low or high allocations (i.e., a
descriptive norm; Cialdini, Reno, & Kallgren, 1990). Then they received a
message from their “partner,” who asked them to be more generous in the
92 Part II Social effects of emotions
real game than they had been in the trial round. This request was paired
with anger or disappointment about the participant’s allocation in the
trial round, or with no emotion. In the absence of an emotional expression
participants conformed to the descriptive norm, giving more or less
generously according to what others had given in the past. When the
partner had expressed disappointment, participants donated substan-
tially more regardless of the norm; when the partner had expressed
anger, participants donated substantially less regardless of the norm.
The difference between the anger and disappointment conditions was
again mediated by perceived appropriateness.
These studies demonstrate that expressing emotions as part of a request
can affect targets’ willingness to comply with the request. Interestingly, the
predictive value of emotional expressions outweighed that of an explicit
descriptive norm, indicating that emotional expressions can be a powerful
source of social influence (Van Kleef, Van Doorn, Heerdink, & Koning,
2011). The studies also corroborate EASI theory’s proposition that the
effectiveness of emotional expressions in engendering social influence
depends on their perceived appropriateness within the social context. In
the context of a request for help, expressions of disappointment are per-
ceived as more appropriate than expressions of anger, which explains why
the former are effective whereas the latter are not.
A particular way of expressing sadness is by crying (Vingerhoets,
Cornelius, Van Heck, & Becht, 2000). Similar to other displays of sadness,
crying communicates to others that one is suffering and in need of atten-
tion or support (Cornelius & Labott, 2001; Nelson, 2005), and the visible
presence of tears may further strengthen this signal. Cornelius and col-
leagues found that tearful faces were rated as sadder than the same faces
with the tears digitally removed (Cornelius, Nussbaum, Warner, &
Moeller, 2000). They also reported that participants were more inclined
to comfort a crying person than a noncrying person (Cornelius &
Lubliner, 2003). Similar findings were reported by Hendriks and
Vingerhoets (2006). Compared to individuals expressing anger, fear, or
no emotion, crying individuals were perceived as less emotionally stable
and less aggressive. Participants reported feeling more sadness them-
selves upon seeing crying faces as compared to faces showing other
emotional expressions, and they reported a greater inclination to provide
emotional support in response to crying than noncrying faces. In another
study, participants reported that they would express less anger toward a
crying person than toward a noncrying person (Hendriks, Croon, &
Vingerhoets, 2008), suggesting that tears may not only elicit social sup-
port but also buffer against aggression.
Interestingly, however, participants in the latter study also judged
crying individuals less positively than noncrying individuals, and they
 Social effects of emotions in close relationships 93
reported experiencing more negative emotions in the presence of crying
individuals (Hendriks et al., 2008). This raises the question of why people
are inclined to provide support to crying people: Is it because they wish to
alleviate the crying person’s negative state or their own negative state
(Batson, O’Quin, Fultz, Vanderplas, & Isen, 1983; Cialdini et al., 1987)?
The broader altruism-versus-egoism debate is beyond the scope of this
book, but this more specific question is relevant to theorizing about the
downstream consequences of affective reactions to the emotional expres-
sions of others (see Chapter 3). The data reported by Hendriks and
colleagues are consistent with an interpretation in terms of negative
state relief, according to which the motivation to help a suffering person
is fueled by the desire to relieve one’s own distress (Cialdini et al., 1987).
The altruism account cannot be ruled out, however, because it is unclear
whether the reciprocal sadness that observers of others’ crying tend to
experience is a key mediating mechanism or a mere by-product, leaving
open the possibility that altruistic considerations are (partly) responsible
for the effect.

Dominance and blame: how displays of anger shape close relationships

The third group of emotions that is of interest here consists of negative
emotions associated with the (deliberate) frustration of goals. A promi-
nent example is anger, which arises when a person’s goals are thwarted
and he or she blames someone else for it. Anger is associated with a
tendency to aggress against the person (or object) seen as responsible
for the goal blockage and with a desire to bring about change (Averill,
1982; Fischer & Roseman, 2007). Anger is facilitated when the individual
perceives attack as a viable option to restore the unfavorable situation
(Lazarus, 1991). Perhaps in part because of the associated action tenden-
cies of coercion and attack, anger signals power and dominance (Tiedens,
2001). Anger is commonly expressed in close relationships, most notably
when partners feel unjustly treated (Averill, 1982; Fitness & Fletcher,
1993; Shaver et al., 1987).
How do expressions of anger influence the development of close rela-
tionships? Research into this question is relatively scarce, and the evi-
dence is mixed. Some studies point to the potential benefits of expressing
anger in close relationships. Averill (1982) asked respondents to describe
situations in which they had been angry at somebody else or someone
else had been angry at them. The majority of the respondents indicated
being angry at someone else on average once or twice a week, with the
anger being targeted mostly toward close relatives (e.g., parent, child),
romantic partners, and friends. Participants generally experienced the
episodes of anger as negative, both when they were the expresser and
94 Part II Social effects of emotions
when they were the target of the anger. Nevertheless, 62 percent of the
expressers and 70 percent of the targets deemed the anger episode useful,
because it had prompted partners to address a relational problem.
Another study revealed that a common response tendency to expressions
of anger in intimate relationships is to talk things over rather than express
aggression (Fehr, Baldwin, Collins, Patterson, & Benditt, 1999), which
helps explain why expressions of anger can be beneficial in close
relationships.
Further evidence for the functionality of anger in personal relation-
ships comes from a study by Fischer and Roseman (2007). They invited
participants to describe instances in which they had felt either anger or
contempt toward someone else and to indicate what they were hoping
to accomplish by expressing the emotion and how the interaction had
evolved. A common theme in participants’ responses was that they
expressed anger to make clear that the other person had done something
wrong, and that they hoped to change the other person’s behavior and/
or make the other apologize. Another common theme in participants’
stories was that their anger had had favorable long-term consequences,
despite eliciting initial negative affective reactions from the partner. A
prototypical anger episode started with short-term attacks (mostly ver-
bal aggression) but often resulted in reconciliation and relationship
improvement later on. Consistent with Fehr and colleagues’ (1999)
findings, respondents reported that their displays of anger had led to
constructive conversations that were geared toward resolving relational
problems. Fischer and Roseman concluded that, compared to contempt,
anger is characterized more by short-term verbal attack, longer-term
reconciliation and reparation of harm done, and ultimately higher rela-
tionship quality.
The conclusions that can be drawn from this study are somewhat
limited by the fact that anger was contrasted only with contempt.
Contempt is a particularly toxic emotion in close relationships – it is the
emotion that is most predictive of marriage dissolution (Gottman, 1993).
This raises the question of whether expressions of anger are more or less
beneficial than expressions of emotions that are less destructive than
contempt, such as sadness or disappointment. In this respect, a study
on the communication of negative emotions in marital conflicts revealed
that statements communicating anger evoked more antagonistic tenden-
cies in partners than did statements communicating distress (Kubany,
Bauer, Muraoka, Richard, & Read, 1995). The authors of this study con-
cluded that, compared to expressions of distress, the explicit verbaliza-
tion of anger may actually be maladaptive because it undermines social
support and contributes to marital dissatisfaction (also see Guerrero, La
Valley, & Farinelli, 2008, for a similar conclusion).
 Social effects of emotions in close relationships 95
Given the mixed evidence and the different comparison emotions
involved in the extant body of research, it is unclear at this point how
beneficial expressions of anger really are in the context of close rela-
tionships. It stands to reason that any functionality of anger displays is
subject to boundary conditions, many of which may relate to the
perceived appropriateness of the anger expression. EASI theory pre-
dicts that positive consequences of anger expressions are more likely to
the degree that the target perceives the partner’s anger as reasonable
and appropriate in light of the situation (Van Kleef et al., 2011). In such
cases, anger should be more likely to elicit inferential processes that
may be beneficial for the relationship (e.g., the target may come to
realize that she or he did something wrong). In contrast, expressions of
anger can be expected to threaten the quality of relationships to the
degree that the target perceives the anger as inappropriate, for instance
because it seems uncalled for given the situation, or because it is too
intense, expressed too frequently, or expressed in an overly confronting
way. In such instances, displays of anger are more likely to trigger
negative affective reactions in the target (e.g., hostile feelings).
Although research is lacking, it has been proposed that frequent
expressions of anger may have detrimental effects both at the intraper-
sonal level and at the interpersonal level, as they may solidify a hostile
attitude, overshadow other emotions that are potentially more advan-
tageous, and/or instigate a vicious cycle of hostility (Tavris, 1984).
Besides the perceived appropriateness of anger expressions, EASI the-
ory points to the importance of information processing. Again, research is
lacking, but it seems plausible that the consequences of anger expressions
in close relationships depend in part on the target’s information-proces-
sing depth. When information processing is high, individuals are more
likely to consider the various implications of their partner’s anger and to
draw inferences as to how their own behavior might have given rise to the
anger and how they might alleviate the situation by changing their con-
duct. In contrast, when information processing is low, affective reactions
take on heightened prominence in driving behavioral responses to
expressions of anger. In such cases expressions of anger would be more
likely to instigate a vicious cycle of anger and hostility that may pose a
serious threat to the relationship.
Consistent with this argument, a recent series of studies revealed that
the effects of anger expressions in close relationships depend on the
communal motivation of the target of the anger (Yoo, Clark, Lemay,
Salovey, & Monin, 2011). In one study, married couples reported on the
communal strength of their marriage, the expression of anger within their
relationship, and their relationship satisfaction. Lower communal moti-
vation was associated with more negative evaluations of angry partners
96 Part II Social effects of emotions
and with reduced relationship satisfaction. In another study, college
students reported on the communal strength of their best friendships
and on the anger expressions that occurred within those friendships. In
addition to replicating the previous study, the data revealed effects on the
provision of social support. Lower communal motivation was associated
with less support provided to angry partners, whereas higher communal
motivation was associated with greater support. Even though these stu-
dies did not directly consider the role of information processing, it is
conceivable that greater communal motivation is associated with a stron-
ger motivation to consider and reflect upon the meaning and implications
of a partner’s anger, which would promote inferential processing and
behavioral adaptation in response to a partner’s anger expressions rather
than hostile reactions and conflict escalation. Future research is needed to
examine this possibility directly.

Appeasement: expressions of guilt and related emotions restore relationships

The fourth class of emotions that is pertinent to close relationships con-
sists of emotions such as guilt, embarrassment, and interpersonal regret.
Such emotions serve an appeasement function in that they communicate
submissiveness and signal that one is aware that one did something
wrong and is willing to make up for it, thereby pacifying observers of
social transgressions (Castelfranchi & Poggi, 1990; Keltner, 1995;
M. Lewis, 2000; Miller & Leary, 1992). Especially in predominantly coop-
erative settings such as close relationships, expressions of appeasement
reduce tendencies among observers to “move against” the expresser, thus
defusing conflict and competition and contributing to the restoration of
threatened relationships (Van Kleef, De Dreu, & Manstead, 2010).
Baumeister, Stillwell, and Heatherton (1994) made a powerful case for
the inherently interpersonal nature and social functionality of guilt,
which arises in social relationships as a result of the (perceived) infliction
of harm, loss, or distress on a relationship partner. Baumeister and
colleagues suggested that feelings of guilt are stronger, more prevalent,
and more influential in close relationships than in distant ones (cf. Clark
et al., 1996), and they argued that (the expression of) guilt strengthens
social bonds in three partly interrelated ways. First, guilt may contribute
to healthy relationships by showing that one cares about the relationship
and is willing to make amends for a transgression. Second, guilt may
restore relationships by redistributing emotional distress and alleviating
emotional imbalances that arose within the relationship due to some
misdemeanor. Third, the deliberate evocation of guilt in a relationship
partner may produce desired behavioral changes and discourage future
transgressions. Although direct evidence for effects on relationship
 Social effects of emotions in close relationships 97
quality is scarce, expressions of guilt have been found to increase percep-
tions of perspective taking (Leith & Baumeister, 1998), cooperativeness,
likeability, and interpersonal sensitivity, and to decrease perceptions of
competitiveness, self-centeredness, and hostility (Van Kleef, De Dreu,
& Manstead, 2006), suggesting that displays of guilt are indeed beneficial
for social relationships.
Whereas guilt is associated with actions that harm others, embarrass-
ment arises from transgressions of conventions that govern public inter-
actions (Keltner, 1996). Despite this difference in the antecedents of guilt
and embarrassment, the social functions of both emotions appear to be
similar. Displays of embarrassment and related expressions such as
blushing signal that one feels bad about a faux pas and imply that one
will conform to social norms in the future (Goffman, 1967; Keltner,
Young, & Buswell, 1997; Leary, Britt, Cutlip, & Templeton, 1992). Such
signals may facilitate social bonding. An early study by Semin and
Manstead (1982) showed that displays of embarrassment after a social
transgression had equally favorable effects on evaluations of likeability
as actual restitution behavior, suggesting that visible signs of embar-
rassment can help to maintain or restore cooperative relations.
Embarrassment displays have further been found to evoke sympathy,
positive evaluations, and helpful behavior in others (Keltner &
Anderson, 2000; Miller, 2004; Miller & Leary, 1992).
A review by Keltner and Buswell (1997) highlighted interesting parallels
between the functions of nonhuman appeasement and human embarrass-
ment. In terms of antecedents, social situations that may evoke nonhuman
appeasement and human embarrassment as well as related phenomena
such as blushing include interactions with high-status individuals (de
Waal, 1986, 1988; Keltner et al., 1997) and strangers (Tangney, Miller,
Flicker, & Barlow, 1996), the distribution of resources (Öhman, 1986), and
being the center of (undesirable) social attention (Leary et al., 1992). In
terms of behavioral consequences, nonhuman appeasement and human
embarrassment involve similar responses that may have evolved to reduce
social threats and restore cooperative relationships, such as submissive
and affiliative behaviors (de Waal, 1986, 1988; Eibl-Eibesfeldt, 1989;
Keltner, 1995).
A final appeasement emotion that merits discussion is interpersonal
regret.2 The favorable social consequences of interpersonal regret
were demonstrated in a study by Zeelenberg, Van der Pligt, and
Manstead (1998), who found that feelings of interpersonal regret can

2
I use the adjective “interpersonal” to distinguish the feeling of regretting something
that happened to another person from the more commonly studied feeling of regretting
something that happened to the self (Gilovich & Medvec, 1995).
98 Part II Social effects of emotions
motivate “behavioral repair work.” In one study, they coded cases from
a Dutch television show called “I Am Sorry” – a show that provides
people with the opportunity to undo regrets arising in close relation-
ships by apologizing and offering flowers to the target of the regret.
Zeelenberg and colleagues found that apologies were indeed often
motivated by interpersonal regrets, especially those stemming from
action rather than inaction. Apologies, in turn, signal interpersonal
sensitivity and a willingness to appreciate another person’s perspective
– important relationship repairing qualities that facilitate reconciliation
(Steiner, 2000; Tavuchis, 1991). Empirical evidence indicates that apol-
ogizing after a transgression or explicitly communicating regret may
reduce blame and punishment (Darby & Schlenker, 1982), increase for-
giveness (Bachman & Guerrero, 2006), reduce aggression (Ohbuchi,
Kameda, & Agarie, 1989), and enhance liking and positive impressions
(Darby & Schlenker, 1982; Ohbuchi et al., 1989; Van Kleef, De Dreu, &
Manstead, 2006). Thus, just like expressing guilt and embarrassment,
expressing interpersonal regret and making an apology can prevent
hostile responses and help sustain close relationships.

Conclusion
The research reviewed in this chapter indicates that emotions have critical
social functions and consequences in close relationships. Expressions of
affiliation emotions such as happiness facilitate social bonding. Displays
of supplication emotions such as sadness, disappointment, worry, and
fear help to garner social support. Expressions of dominant emotions
such as anger may serve to identify relational problems and enforce
changes in a partner’s behavior. And displays of appeasement emotions
such as guilt, embarrassment, and interpersonal regret contribute to the
quality of close relationships by signaling that one cares about the rela-
tionship, feels bad about a transgression, and is willing to make up for it.
Even though most research on the social effects of emotions in close
relationships has not been designed with the aim of disentangling affec-
tive reactions from inferential processes, examples of both mechanisms
appear throughout this literature. In the case of affiliative emotions such
as happiness, extant research mostly points to a role for affective pro-
cesses. People tend to prefer interactions with cheerful others because
such exchanges lift their own spirits and contribute to constructive social
relationships (Clark et al., 1996; Hatfield et al., 1994). Research to date has
not paid close attention to inferential processes that may be triggered by
expressions of happiness, but several studies indicate that observers
make positive trait inferences based on displays of happiness (Hess et
 Social effects of emotions in close relationships 99
al., 2002; Reis et al., 1990). Future studies could investigate such inferen-
tial processes in greater depth.
Research on the social effects of sadness and related supplication
emotions contains examples of both affective reactions (e.g., personal
distress; Cialdini et al., 1987) and inferential processes (e.g., inferences
of neediness and dependence; Clark & Taraban, 1991). Displays of
sadness, disappointment, worry, and fear help to garner social support
by communicating dependence and lack of coping potential as well as
by instilling distress in observers, which observers then aim to alleviate
through prosocial behavior. It is not clear at this point to what extent
behavioral responses to displays of supplication in close relationships
are driven by affective reactions versus inferential processes. From a
practical point of view this may not be a problem, because the affective
reactions and inferential processes that are triggered by displays of
supplication are likely to produce similar behavioral tendencies. From
a theoretical point of view, however, it would be desirable to gain a
deeper understanding of the relative importance of affective and infer-
ential processes.
Studies on anger and similar dominance-asserting emotions have also
documented a role for negative affective reactions (e.g., reciprocal anger,
hostile tendencies; Guerrero et al., 2008; Kubany et al., 1995) as well as
more constructive inferential processes (e.g., inferences that there is a
problem that requires attention; Averill, 1982; Fischer & Roseman, 2007).
To date, no study has compared the relative influence of negative affec-
tive reactions and inferential processes in response to expressions of
anger in the context of close relationships. As a result, no firm conclusions
can be drawn regarding the functionality of anger expressions in deter-
mining relationship quality. EASI theory would predict that expressions
of anger are more likely to produce beneficial outcomes to the extent that
the target is more motivated and able to engage in thorough information
processing and the anger is perceived as appropriate. Research is needed
to test this prediction.
Finally, work on appeasement emotions such as guilt, embarrassment,
and interpersonal regret has documented evidence for the occurrence of
inferential processes as triggered by emotional displays of appeasement
(e.g., inferences of interpersonal concern; Van Kleef, De Dreu, & Manstead,
2006). There is also some evidence that expressions of guilt and embarrass-
ment elicit positive affective reactions in observers (Baumeister et al., 1994),
which might be fueled by the inference that the expresser cares about the
relationship despite his or her transgression. Here, too, more research is
needed to better disentangle the role of affective and inferential processes.
In sum, there is some evidence for the role of affective and inferential
processes in shaping responses to emotional expressions in close
100 Part II Social effects of emotions
relationships, but more research is welcome. In particular, future studies
are needed to examine the proposed moderating influences of the obser-
ver’s information-processing motivation and ability and the perceived
appropriateness of the emotional expression. Such research is especially
critical for our understanding of the (dys)functionality of anger in close
relationships, because the affective versus inferential processes that are
triggered by expressions of anger motivate opposite behavioral tenden-
cies (i.e., hostility vs. reconciliation, respectively).
 CHAPTER 6

Social effects of emotions in groups

A certainty in the mystery of managing effective work groups is that

groups are emotional. By understanding their emotionality, we may
come closer to understanding the mystery.
Barsade and Gibson (1998, p. 98)

Being innately social animals, humans spend a considerable proportion of

their lives in various types of groups. Groups are a natural breeding
ground for emotions (Barsade & Gibson, 1998). Social interactions are the
primary elicitors of emotions (Anderson & Guerrero, 1998; Parkinson,
1996; Planalp, 1999), and the opportunity for such emotionally evocative
encounters increases exponentially with the size of social groups. Whether
we think of work groups, school classes, groups of friends, sports teams, or
any other type of interacting social collective, emotional influences abound
in groups (Kelly & Barsade, 2001). This makes the group setting ideal for
studying the social effects of emotional expressions – or so one would
think. Despite the fact that group processes are at the heart of what defines
much of social and organizational psychology and adjacent disciplines,
empirical research on the social effects of emotional expressions in groups
is relatively scarce. This is all the more surprising given that the study of
emotions in groups got off to an early start.
Scientific interest in the interplay of emotions and group dynamics dates
back at least to Le Bon’s (1895) classic work on the role of the “group mind”
in crowd behavior. Le Bon argued that any individual who is immersed in a
large group for a sufficient period of time will sooner or later find him- or
herself in a special state characterized by increased emotionality, impul-
siveness, incapacitated reasoning, and lack of critical judgment. Similarly,
McDougall (1923) characterized the experience of crowd membership as
being “carried away by forces” which one is “powerless to control” (p. 57).
These overpowering forces were thought to create collective emotional
attributes that transcend the consciousness of the individual group mem-
bers (Barsade & Gibson, 1998).
Contemporary views on the role of emotions in groups are consider-
ably more positive (Van Kleef & Fischer, 2016). Over the past two dec-
ades, several theorists have proposed that emotions fulfill critical social
functions in groups that help their members to address the various

101
102 Part II Social effects of emotions
problems associated with living and working in groups (Keltner & Gross,
1999). For instance, emotions have been proposed to play a role in the
development and maintenance of interpersonal bonds and group cohe-
sion, the allocation of roles and responsibilities among group members, the
resolution of problems associated with deviance and defection, and the
coordination of collective efforts toward the achievement of shared goals
(e.g., Barsade & Gibson, 1998; Fischer & Manstead, in press; Frijda &
Mesquita, 1994; Keltner & Haidt, 1999; Spoor & Kelly, 2004).
Although few scholars doubt the importance of emotions for under-
standing group processes, empirical research on the social conse-
quences of emotions in groups is still in its infancy. The relatively
immature status of this field may be due in part to inherent character-
istics of groups that render them difficult, time-consuming, and costly
to study. Surely, these difficulties have hampered progress in group
research more generally. Over forty years ago, Steiner (1974) lamented
the fact that social psychology was becoming increasingly individua-
listic and that interest in the group as a system had given way to a
focus on intrapersonal processes, exclaiming in the title of his article:
“Whatever happened to the group in social psychology?” Countering
the suggestion that group research was dead, Levine and Moreland
(1990) later noted that “groups are alive and well, but living else-
where” (p. 620). Indeed, the study of (small) groups now occurs
predominantly in the field of organizational science, where the impor-
tance of the group as a social system is clearly recognized.
The focus in this chapter is on small groups engaging in actual or
simulated interaction rather than on larger and more abstract collectives
such as organizations, nations, or groups defined by demographic char-
acteristics such as age, gender, ethnicity, or socioeconomic status.
Although the role of emotions is also being studied quite fruitfully in the
context of larger collectives and intergroup relations (Iyer & Leach, 2008),
most notably in the interrelated areas of group-based emotions (e.g.,
Doosje, Branscombe, Spears, & Manstead, 1998), intergroup emotions the-
ory (e.g., Mackie, Devos, & Smith, 2000; Smith, Seger, & Mackie, 2007), and
collective action (e.g., Van Zomeren, Spears, Fischer, & Leach, 2004), this
research tends to focus on the social origins and consequences of emotional
experience rather than on the social consequences of emotional expressions.
As such this work falls outside the scope of this book, which is chiefly
concerned with the social effects of emotional expressions.

The functionality of emotions in group life

Several theorists have argued that emotions serve vital functions in
groups, which may have played a role in promoting group survival
 Social effects of emotions in groups 103
over evolutionary history (Keltner & Gross, 1999; Keltner, Haidt, &
Shiota, 2006; Spoor & Kelly, 2004). For example, some scholars have
proposed that emotions such as fear, hatred, disgust, and contempt
function to sharpen group boundaries (Frijda & Mesquita, 1994; Heise
& O’Brien, 1993; also see Dunham, 2011). Suggestive evidence for this
idea is provided by research in the area of terror management, where it
has been found that the experimental induction of fear of death (i.e.,
mortality salience) increases ingroup solidarity and outgroup derogation
(Greenberg et al., 1990). Other work has shown that expressions of con-
tempt serve a social-distancing function (Fischer & Roseman, 2007),
which may contribute to clear group boundaries by keeping outgroup
members at a distance, both psychologically and physically.
Other scholars have proposed that the differential experience and
expression of emotions help group members define and negotiate their
respective roles and statuses within the group (Clark, 1990; Collins, 1990).
Consistent with this idea, research has revealed associations between
status and the expression of discrete emotions such as anger, sadness,
embarrassment, contempt, pride, and fear (Keltner, Young, Heerey,
Oemig, & Monarch, 1998; Tiedens, Ellsworth, & Mesquita, 2000).
Reflecting such associations, expressions of anger and pride tend to be
perceived by observers as signals of high status, whereas displays of
sadness and gratitude are perceived as signs of low status (Tiedens,
2001; Tiedens et al., 2000). The actual or stereotypical association between
discrete patterns of emotional responding and particular power roles
contributes to a sense of role clarity, predictability, and stability in groups
that may serve as a heuristic solution to conflict and that may facilitate the
achievement of group goals (Keltner, Van Kleef, Chen, & Kraus, 2008).
Finally, theorists have proposed that collective emotional behavior
helps group members deal with group-related problems (Keltner &
Gross, 1999). Some evidence for this claim is provided by a study on
chimpanzee groups (de Waal, 1996). The chimpanzees in this study were
observed to engage in exuberant affiliation immediately prior to the
allocation of scarce resources. The shared and cultivated positive emo-
tions presumably served to strengthen social bonds that might be threa-
tened by conflict over the distribution of scarce resources. Such behavior
is not too different from the routines exhibited by diplomats involved in
complicated international negotiations, in which a considerable amount
of time tends to be devoted to building and sustaining positive emotions
and rapport prior to discussing contentious issues.
Upon reviewing the primarily theoretical body of work on the pre-
sumed functionality of emotions in group life, Spoor and Kelly (2004)
proposed that emotions serve a coordination function in groups. They
suggested that this coordination function may become manifest in two
104 Part II Social effects of emotions
different ways. First, when they become shared, emotions may facilitate
coordinated action by fostering group bonds and group loyalty. Second,
emotional expressions may provide information about the group and the
current situation to other group members, which may help to coordinate
joint activities and goal pursuit (also see Chapter 2 for a discussion of
emotional expressions as communicative signals). These presumed func-
tions of emotions in groups show interesting conceptual parallels with
the two mechanisms underlying the social effects of emotions identified
in Emotions as Social Information (EASI) theory (i.e., affective reactions
and inferential processes). In the next sections I review research that
speaks to various types of affective reactions and inferential processes
in groups and I consider the consequences of these phenomena for group
functioning in cases where such data are available.

Affective reactions, affective composition, and group functioning

A considerable proportion of the empirical research on emotions in
groups has been concerned with the question of when and how emotions
become shared in groups. The lion’s share of research has focused on
various types of affective convergence. After reviewing this research, I
discuss studies on the related phenomena of affective divergence and
affective diversity.

Affective convergence, group emotion, and group affective tone

A recurring theme in empirical work on the role of emotions in groups is
the notion that individual group members’ emotions may, over time,
become shared by other members of the group. Such affective similarity
among group members arises from the combination of bottom-up affec-
tive compositional effects (e.g., individual group members’ emotions)
and the group’s top-down affective context (e.g., an emotionally evoca-
tive situation the group members are in together; Barsade & Gibson, 1998;
Kelly & Barsade, 2001). The resulting affective state of the group has been
variably referred to as “group affective tone” (e.g., Collins, Lawrence,
Troth, & Jordan, 2013; George, 1990; Sy, Côté, & Saavedra, 2005) or
“group emotion” (e.g., Kelly & Barsade, 2001; Smith et al., 2007).
Several theorists have proposed that the sharedness of emotions among
group members promotes group functioning and survival. For instance,
Dezecache et al. (2013) argued that the (nonconscious) attunement to and
spreading of emotional signals in groups is a form of spontaneous coop-
erative behavior that functions to share survival-value information to
conspecifics, and Spoor and Kelly (2004) suggested that the sharedness
 Social effects of emotions in groups 105
of emotions among group members facilitates bonding and coordinated
action toward joint goals.
In some of the earliest studies on affective convergence within teams,
Totterdell and his associates examined whether the emotional states of
team members become linked over time. In a first study, Totterdell,
Kellett, Teuchmann, and Briner (1998) investigated in teams of commu-
nity nurses how people’s moods are influenced by the collective mood of
their teammates. They found a significant association between the nurses’
moods and the collective moods of their teammates, which could not be
accounted for by shared hassles. In a second study Totterdell and collea-
gues (1998) found similar evidence for mood linkage within a team of
accountants.
A later study demonstrated a similar form of affective convergence in
sports teams. Totterdell (2000) had players from two professional cricket
teams provide ratings of their moods during a competitive match
between the teams. The results showed that the players’ moods were
more strongly correlated with the current aggregate mood of their own
team than with the aggregate mood of the other team or with the aggre-
gate mood of their own team at other times. Mood linkage was not
affected by the score of the game. In Kelly and Barsade’s (2001) terms,
these various studies point to the workings of bottom-up (rather than top-
down) processes of affective convergence in groups.
Compatible findings were reported by Bartel and Saavedra (2000), who
investigated affective convergence in work groups. The authors com-
pared observers’ reports of group mood with group members’ own
mood ratings. Groups converged for eight distinct mood categories,
and observers’ ratings of work group mood were positively correlated
with the groups’ aggregated self-report scores. The study also revealed
that moods characterized by high arousal (e.g., cheerful enthusiasm,
hostile irritability) yielded more accurate observer assessments and
were more likely to spread among the group members than moods
characterized by low levels of arousal (e.g., serene warmth, depressed
sluggishness).
Interestingly, later work has demonstrated that the emotions of one
group member can even spread to the rest of the group in situations
where nonverbal cues are very difficult or impossible to perceive. For
instance, a study on virtual teams yielded evidence of emotional conta-
gion in the absence of visual access to nonverbal emotional displays
(Cheshin, Rafaeli, & Bos, 2011). When confronted with a confederate
who expressed anger or happiness via text messages, other team mem-
bers caught the emotion and in turn displayed that emotion via text
messages to other teammates, thus reinforcing the emotional state within
the team. Another study found that displays of joy and fear by one person
106 Part II Social effects of emotions
were involuntarily transmitted via a second person to a third one, even if
the third person could not explicitly recognize the second person’s emo-
tional expression (Dezecache et al., 2013).
Clearly, then, moods and emotions can spread among group members,
resulting in affective convergence. But how does the resulting affective
state of the group shape group processes and outcomes? Several studies
have identified effects of the shared emotional states of group members
on various indices of group functioning. For instance, an early field study
by George (1990) revealed that positive group affective tone (i.e., shared
positive affect) in work groups was negatively related to absenteeism,
while negative group affective tone (i.e., shared negative affect) was
negatively associated with prosocial behavior. A longitudinal field
study of workgroups of government employees similarly showed that
positive affective tone was negatively associated with group absence
rates (Mason & Griffin, 2003). Other studies revealed favorable effects
of positive group affect on group efficacy (Gibson, 2003), customer ser-
vice performance (George, 1995), and group creativity (Grawitch,
Munz, & Kramer, 2003).
Research also speaks to the consequences of affective convergence for
group interaction. In a seminal laboratory study, Barsade (2002) exam-
ined the downstream effects of emotional contagion on cooperation and
conflict in ad hoc groups. Participants in groups that included a confed-
erate who displayed positive emotions reported more pleasant moods
later on than did those in groups with a confederate showing negative
emotions. Moreover, the extent to which group members caught the
confederate’s affective state was predictive of levels of cooperation and
conflict, with dispersion of positive affect leading to greater cooperation
and reduced conflict in the group, as summarized in Figure 6.1. In a
similar vein, Sy and colleagues (2005) demonstrated in a study of ad
hoc laboratory groups that positive group affective tone was associated
with better group coordination.
In another lab experiment, Klep, Wisse, and Van der Flier (2011) com-
pared the consequences of dynamically versus statically emerging group-
level affective states. In the dynamic condition, groups of students
watched an emotionally evocative film clip together, and they were
encouraged to share their emotional responses to the film with one
another. This procedure facilitated interactive affective sharing processes,
such as emotional contagion, affective comparison, and deliberate social
sharing of emotions. In the static condition, students watched the same
film clip in individual cubicles before they joined their fellow group
members. Group members were thus exposed to the same situation, but
interactive affective sharing processes were precluded. Klep and collea-
gues found that group affect arising from the dynamic and interactive
 Social effects of emotions in groups 107

Improved
cooperation

Confederate’s
Spreading of
positive
positive affect
emotional
in group
displays

Decreased
conflict

Figure 6.1 Effects of a confederate’s positive emotional displays on

the positive affective state of the group and downstream consequences
for cooperation and conflict (based on Barsade, 2002).

exchange of emotions through emotional contagion and deliberate

social sharing (cf. bottom-up compositional effects in the model proposed
by Kelly & Barsade, 2001) improved feelings of group belongingness and
information sharing on a later group task compared to statically created
group affect. This study suggests that the process through which emo-
tions become shared in groups adds explanatory value above and beyond
the sharedness per se, a conclusion that resonates with theoretical argu-
ments about the functionality of emotional contagion and related pro-
cesses (e.g., Hatfield, Cacioppo, & Rapson, 1994; Keltner & Haidt, 1999;
Spoor & Kelly, 2004; see Chapter 3).
Although most research speaks to the favorable consequences of
shared positive affect, there is also some evidence for potential bene-
fits of shared negative affect. Locke and Horowitz (1990) examined the
effects of similarity versus dissimilarity among dyad members in
levels of dysphoria, a mild form of depression. They found that
people in homogeneous dyads (in which both partners were dyspho-
ric or both partners were nondysphoric) were more satisfied with the
interaction than were people in heterogeneous dyads. Individuals in
heterogeneous dyads also perceived each other as colder and spoke
about increasingly negative topics as the interaction progressed.
Although it is unclear to what extent these dyadic effects generalize
to larger groups, this study suggests that the sharedness of emotions
can contribute to smoother group interactions, even if the shared
emotions are (mildly) negative.
Additional evidence for the potential benefits of shared negative
affect comes from an experimental study on group decision making
(Kooij-de Bode, Van Knippenberg, & Van Ginkel, 2010). Drawing on
108 Part II Social effects of emotions
classic findings that negative affect is associated with more extensive
information processing and greater openness and attention to new
information (Forgas, 1995; Forgas & George, 2001; Schwarz & Bless,
1991), the authors argued that the presence of negative affect in
groups may be important in tasks in which information is distributed
among members and thus needs to be shared and elaborated for
optimal team performance (also see Van Knippenberg, Kooij-de
Bode, & Van Ginkel, 2010). In line with this idea, they found that
negative affectivity stimulated group information processing and
decision quality in groups in which information was distributed
among group members, but not in groups in which information was
fully shared. Other research in different task settings has found
adverse effects of negative group mood for team performance
(Jordan, Lawrence, & Troth, 2006), suggesting that the favorable
effects observed by Kooij-de Bode and colleagues are indeed limited
to particular circumstances.
Complicating matters further, some scholars have suggested that
shared positive affect can be harmful to groups in certain circum-
stances because it may undermine the critical mind-set that is
required for certain types of performance (George & King, 2007).
Indeed, one study found that high positive affective tone was detri-
mental to creative task performance in teams whose members were
less likely to express divergent opinions and thoroughly explore
different options (Tsai, Chi, Grandey, & Fung, 2012). This suggests
that positive affective tone is a potential liability for groups who are
prone to “groupthink” (Janis, 1972), the phenomenon that a strong
drive toward consensus leads members of highly cohesive decision
making groups to suppress dissent and neglect alternative decisions
or courses of action.
These arguments and findings suggest that the functionality of
positive versus negative affective tone in groups depends on particu-
larities of the situation, including the nature of the task the group is
carrying out. The aforementioned study by Klep and colleagues (2011)
provides some evidence for this possibility. Consistent with prior
theorizing and research on the intrapersonal effects of emotions on
individual cognition (e.g., Amabile, Barsade, Mueller, & Staw, 2005;
Ashby, Isen, & Turken, 1999; Forgas, 2000; Fredrickson, 2001; Isen,
2004; Schwarz & Bless, 1991), they found that shared positive affect
enhanced performance on a task that required breadth of cognitive
scope and creativity, whereas shared negative affect boosted perfor-
mance on a task that demanded analytical information processing and
attention to detail.
 Social effects of emotions in groups 109
Affective divergence and affective diversity
Based on the preceding review, affective convergence appears to be more
prevalent within groups than affective divergence. Nevertheless, several
situational characteristics may contribute to affective divergence. An
early study by Lanzetta and English (1989) revealed that patterns of
affective convergence versus divergence depend on the cooperative ver-
sus competitive nature of social relationships. Participants who expected
a cooperative interaction with another person were more likely to mimic
the other person’s smiles versus grimaces, thus producing converging
affective states. Participants who expected a competitive interaction,
however, were more likely to respond to the other person’s emotional
expressions with complementary rather than reciprocal affective reac-
tions, matching smiles with grimaces and vice versa.
Although not a group study, this experiment suggests that affective
convergence in groups is more likely to occur to the degree that group
members’ goals are cooperatively linked (Van Kleef, De Dreu, &
Manstead, 2010), and that affective divergence becomes more likely to
the degree that goals are competitively linked. This conclusion is in line
with Totterdell’s (2000) finding that cricket players’ moods were more
strongly correlated with the aggregate mood of their own team members
(with whom they had a cooperative relationship) than with the mood of
the other team’s members (with whom they had a competitive
relationship).
Related work speaks to the role of group membership in shaping
processes of affective convergence versus divergence. In a series of
experiments involving affective priming and lexical decision tasks,
Weisbuch and Ambady (2008) examined affective reactions to the emo-
tional expressions of ingroup versus outgroup members (operationalized
in terms of race as well as sports team endorsement). They observed
relatively more positive affective reactions to fear expressions and more
negative affective reactions to joy expressions among outgroup percei-
vers compared to ingroup perceivers, indicating differential affective
divergence as a function of group membership.
Compatible evidence was reported by Van der Schalk and colleagues
(2011). In two experiments they used facial electromyography (fEMG),
coding of facial displays based on the Facial Action Coding System
(FACS; Ekman & Friesen, 1978), and self-reports of emotion to examine
patterns of mimicry in response to emotional expressions by ingroup and
outgroup members. Across the board, the studies yielded evidence that
displays of anger and fear by outgroup members were mimicked to a
lesser extent than displays of the same emotions by ingroup members.
Specifically, FACS data revealed greater activation in participants’ facial
110 Part II Social effects of emotions
4

Frequency of facial behavior

3

2 Ingroup
Outgroup

0
Anger Fear

Figure 6.2 Frequency of facial behavior in FACS action units AU4

(associated with anger) and AU5 (associated with fear) in response to
anger and fear displays as a function of the expresser’s ingroup versus
outgroup membership (based on Van der Schalk et al., 2011, Study 2).

“action units” AU4 (associated with anger) and AU5 (associated with
fear) when participants viewed emotional displays of anger and fear by
ingroup as opposed to outgroup members (see Figure 6.2). In addition,
participants’ self-reports yielded some evidence of divergent affective
reactions to outgroup anger and fear displays, with outgroup anger
evoking fear and outgroup fear evoking aversion.
Given that certain situational factors can produce patterns of affective
divergence as opposed to convergence, the question that arises is how
such affective divergence shapes group dynamics. Few studies speak to
this question, and the studies that have been performed paint an incon-
sistent picture. Barsade, Ward, Turner, and Sonnenfeld (2000) investi-
gated the effects of mean group trait affect and affective homogeneity
versus heterogeneity on group processes in a sample of top management
teams of large corporations. They found that emotional similarity in trait
positive affectivity (which logically predicts state positive affect) pre-
dicted more favorable self-reported team processes and even marginally
better corporate financial performance. Affectively diverse groups that
scored low on mean group positive trait affectivity experienced the great-
est task and emotional conflict and the least cooperation. This study thus
suggests that affective diversity undermines group functioning.
There are also reasons to believe, however, that affective diversity may
have beneficial consequences for groups. Spoor and Kelly (2004) sug-
gested, for instance, that heterogeneous affect can function as a signal of
 Social effects of emotions in groups 111
a changing environment. Affective heterogeneity can thus conceivably
alert group members to important events that require their attention. It is
also possible that affective diversity would make group members aware
of the fact that their appraisals of the situation differ. Although differen-
tial appraisals of the same situation could undermine coordinated group
action, awareness of diverging views and perceptions may also motivate
group members to take each other’s perspectives and to exhibit better
information exchange in an attempt to develop a more accurate under-
standing of the situation (Jehn, Northcraft, & Neale, 1999; Van
Knippenberg, De Dreu, & Homan, 2004).
There is indeed some evidence that affective diversity can prompt
better group decision processes. Tuncel and Doucet (2005) examined
the impact of mood diversity on confirmation bias and decision accuracy
in four-person groups working on a hidden-profile task (a group task in
which the discovery of the correct solution requires pooling of unshared
information rather than seizing on shared information; Stasses & Titus,
1985). They found that mood diversity in groups was positively related to
decision accuracy. This effect could be explained in terms of the degree of
consideration given to individual pieces of disconfirming information,
which was greater in affectively diverse rather than homogeneous
groups. This study suggests that affective diversity can counteract group-
think (Janis, 1972). Given that group cohesiveness is one of the key
antecedents of groupthink, a certain degree of affective diversity may
contribute to more rational group decision making by motivating group
members to critically evaluate alternative viewpoints.
Finally, returning to the idea that emotional expressions help group
members to negotiate their respective roles and statuses within the group
(Clark, 1990; Collins, 1990; Keltner & Haidt, 1999), affective heterogeneity
may be beneficial for groups to the degree that diverse emotional expres-
sions are associated with differential levels of dominance versus submis-
sion (Elfenbein, 2007; Keltner et al., 2008). Displays of emotions such as
sadness, fear, and embarrassment are associated with submissiveness
and low status (Keltner et al., 1998; Knutson, 1996; Tiedens et al., 2000),
whereas emotions such as anger and to some degree happiness are
associated with dominance and high status (Hess, Blairy, & Kleck, 2000;
Knutson, 1996; Tiedens, 2001). Tiedens and Fragale (2003) showed that
interactions in which dominant nonverbal behaviors of one partner (e.g.,
expanded bodily postures) were complemented with submissive non-
verbal behaviors by the other (e.g., constricted bodily postures) were
experienced as more comfortable and inspired greater interpersonal lik-
ing than interactions that were characterized by less nonverbal comple-
mentarity. This suggests that complementary affective reactions to
emotional displays (e.g., fearful, embarrassed, or guilty responses to
112 Part II Social effects of emotions
expressions of anger) may contribute to coordinated and well-adjusted
group interactions by clarifying group members’ relative standing.
Research is needed to examine this possibility.

Emotional expressions and inferential processes in groups

Although most research on the role of emotions in groups has been
concerned with affective reactions to emotional expressions and/or the
effects of the affective composition of groups (as discussed above), a
handful of studies have considered the role of inferential processes driven
by emotional expressions in group settings. In some of these studies
third-person observers were asked to judge various aspects of a group’s
interaction from an outsider’s perspective, whereas other studies inves-
tigated what types of inferences group members themselves draw on the
basis of the emotional displays of their fellow group members. I discuss
both types of research in turn.

Outside observers’ inferences from group members’ emotional displays

In a pioneering study, Magee and Tiedens (2006) found that outside
observers inferred certain characteristics of three-person groups based
on the valence and the consistency of the emotions displayed by the
group members in a picture. Specifically, participants perceived a greater
degree of common fate when all group members displayed either positive
(happiness) or negative (sadness) emotions than when they displayed
different emotions, as can be seen in Figure 6.3. This effect of emotional
consistency on perceptions of common fate was mediated by inferences
of psychological similarity. Furthermore, as also shown in the figure,
groups were perceived as more cohesive when all members displayed
happiness than when they displayed sadness or showed variance in their
emotions. This effect of emotional valence on perceptions of group cohe-
sion was mediated by inferences of interpersonal liking. Interestingly, the
emotion composition effects were stronger than the effects of the race or
sex composition of the group. This led the authors to conclude that
“information about the feelings of group members could be a preferred
basis for judgments about group characteristics” (p. 1705).
Additional support for this general conclusion was obtained in later
research using a similar procedure. Homan, Van Kleef, and Sanchez-
Burks (2016) showed participants pictures of the facial emotional expres-
sions of the members of a two-person team, of which both members
showed either happiness or sadness. Participants anticipated more coop-
erative interactions, higher satisfaction, greater interpersonal liking and
trust, and less conflict when both teammates showed happiness than
 Social effects of emotions in groups 113
7

3 sad, 0 happy
5 2 sad, 1 happy
1 sad, 2 happy
0 sad, 3 happy
4

3
Common fate Cohesiveness

Figure 6.3 Observers’ ratings of group members’ common fate and

cohesiveness (on a scale of 1–9) as a function of the group members’
constellation of facial emotional expressions (based on Magee &
Tiedens, 2006, Study 1).

when both showed sadness – inferences that are consistent with the
effects of positive and negative group affect on actual conflict and coop-
eration reported by Barsade (2002). The study further revealed that emo-
tional expressions triggered stronger inferences when there was greater
ambiguity surrounding the future success or failure of the team (i.e.,
when the team was racially diverse; Van Knippenberg et al., 2004) and
when the emotional expressions were more likely to reflect team pro-
cesses rather than dispositional tendencies toward positive or negative
emotionality (i.e., when the pictures had supposedly been taken after
rather than before the team interaction).

Group members’ inferences from their fellow members’ emotional displays

A few studies have examined the inferential processes and concomitant
behavioral reactions exhibited by members of a group (as opposed to
outside observers) in response to the emotional displays of one or more
fellow group members. For instance, Cheshin, Israely, and Rafaeli (2015)
investigated the effects of expressions of anger versus happiness of a
confederate in a computer-mediated team interaction. They found that
the confederate’s expressions of anger reduced the self-efficacy as well
as the performance of the other teammates. In interpreting these findings,
the authors suggested that targets of the confederate’s anger may have
inferred that their performance was inadequate, which in turn under-
mined their self-efficacy. This conclusion complements earlier evidence
114 Part II Social effects of emotions
that positive affect in teams is associated with greater team efficacy
(Gibson, 2003).
Another recent line of research has begun to address the possibility that
emotional expressions in groups help to delineate group boundaries and
assist groups in negotiating problems of deviance and lack of consensus.
Heerdink and colleagues proposed that emotional expressions fulfill this
function by acting as signals of group members’ inclusionary status
(Heerdink, Van Kleef, Homan, & Fischer, 2015). Inclusion in social groups
is of vital importance to human survival and well-being. Given the
evolutionary significance of group life (Cosmides & Tooby, 1992;
Dunbar, 1992), it would be adaptive for human beings to be sensitive to
moment-to-moment variations in the extent to which fellow group mem-
bers accept them (Baumeister & Leary, 1995). Heerdink and colleagues
argued that individuals use the emotional expressions of their fellow
group members as implicit signals of acceptance versus rejection.
In six experiments employing the affect misattribution paradigm
(Payne, Cheng, Govorun, & Stewart, 2005), Heerdink et al. (2015) exam-
ined to what extent observers associate expressions of anger, happiness,
sadness, fear, or no emotion with three different operationalizations of
inclusionary status that vary in terms of abstractness (i.e., acceptance vs.
rejection, warm vs. cold, and close vs. distant). A meta-analysis on the
experiments revealed that angry expressions were most strongly asso-
ciated with rejection and that happy expressions were most strongly
associated with acceptance, regardless of the particular operationaliza-
tion of inclusionary status. These results extended earlier findings show-
ing that displays of happiness are construed as a signal of affiliation,
whereas displays of anger are seen as a signal that one’s behavior is
inappropriate and needs to be adapted (Averill, 1982; Cacioppo &
Gardner, 1999; Clark, Pataki, & Carver, 1996; Fischer & Roseman, 2007).
If people use their fellow group members’ emotional displays to gauge
their moment-to-moment levels of acceptance in the group, a question
that arises is what the behavioral consequences of such inferences may be.
Given humans’ fundamental desire to be included in social groups
(Baumeister & Leary, 1995), individuals who realize that their group
membership is in doubt may become motivated to change their behavior
so as to secure their future acceptance in the group (Williams, 2007). One
way of promoting acceptance is by showing increased conformity, that is,
changing one’s behavior to match the responses of others (Cialdini &
Goldstein, 2004). Accordingly, Heerdink, Van Kleef, Homan, and Fischer
(2013) hypothesized that individuals who are confronted with expres-
sions of anger on the part of their fellow group members experience
pressure to conform to the apparent group norm, because expressions
of anger signal potential rejection.
 Social effects of emotions in groups 115
In one of the studies conducted to test this idea, Heerdink and collea-
gues (2013) asked participants to recall an incident in which their opinion
had differed from that of the majority of the group they belonged to. After
describing the situation, participants reported which emotions the major-
ity of the group members had shown and how this had made them feel.
The more anger the majority had expressed, the more the participant had
felt rejected. Conversely, the more happiness the majority had expressed,
the more the participant had felt accepted. These inferences of inclusion
versus rejection in turn predicted the extent to which participants experi-
enced pressure to conform to the majority position.
A follow-up study demonstrated effects of emotional expressions on
actual conformity in a face-to-face interaction study in which three-per-
son groups worked together on a problem-solving task (Heerdink et al.,
2013). The researchers manipulated the emotion expressed by the major-
ity by instructing two of the three group members to express either anger,
happiness, or no emotion in response to ideas voiced by the third (focal)
group member. Conformity was operationalized as the relative influence
of the focal group member on the ultimate group decision, based on the
logic that conformity of the focal member to the preference of the majority
should be reflected in relatively lower influence of the focal member on
the group decision. The results showed that participants who were con-
fronted with an angry majority had less influence on the ultimate group
decision compared to those who were confronted with a neutral or happy
majority. The effect of the majority’s emotional displays on the focal
group member’s conformity was mediated by the focal member’s infer-
ences of rejection.
Related research indicates that emotional expressions may similarly
contribute to the learning of (group) norms. Specifically, Hareli and
colleagues found that norm violators who were confronted with expres-
sions of anger were better able to successfully infer the norm for correct
behavior than were those who were confronted with expressions of
sadness or neutral emotion (Hareli, Moran-Amir, David, & Hess, 2013).
Together, these studies suggest that particular patterns of emotional
responding assist groups in reinforcing desired behavior of individual
members (e.g., rewarding welcome ideas with expressions of happiness)
and discouraging undesired behavior (e.g., sanctioning deviance with
expressions of anger).

Contingencies of the social effects of emotional expressions in groups

We have seen in the preceding sections that emotional expressions can
evoke reciprocal and/or complementary affective reactions in fellow
group members. We have also seen that individuals may draw inferences
116 Part II Social effects of emotions
from group members’ emotional expressions about characteristics of the
group and its interaction as well as about their own standing in the group.
These findings beg the question of when affective reactions or inferential
processes are primary in driving behavioral responses to emotional
expressions in groups. Even though no studies to date have directly
examined the relative influence of both types of process, there is some
evidence for moderating influences on affective reactions as well as on the
behavioral consequences of inferential processes.

Identification, entitativity, and affective convergence

Perhaps the most proximal predictor of affective convergence in groups is
the receptiveness of the individual group members to emotional conta-
gion (Hatfield et al., 1994). Such receptiveness depends on individual
differences as well as on situational factors and group characteristics. The
cricket study by Totterdell (2000) revealed that team members who
scored higher on the dispositional susceptibility to emotional contagion
were more likely to converge affectively with their team members than
were those who scored lower on susceptibility to contagion. Similarly, a
longitudinal study of the affective linkages among team members’ affec-
tive states in the context of a team performance task revealed that the
strength of affective linkages was moderated by individual differences in
team members’ susceptibility to emotional contagion (Ilies, Wagner, &
Morgeson, 2007).
Other studies point to situational factors and group characteristics that
shape individuals’ receptiveness to affective convergence. For instance,
the studies by Totterdell and colleagues revealed greater affective con-
vergence among team members who were more committed to the team,
who perceived the team climate as more positive, who were engaged in
collective rather than individual activities, and who experienced fewer
hassles with fellow teammates (Totterdell, 2000; Totterdell et al., 1998).
Along similar lines, other work has demonstrated stronger affective con-
vergence among collectivistic (Ilies et al., 2007) and more identified group
members (Tanghe, Wisse, & Van der Flier, 2010) than among individua-
listic and less identified individuals. Interestingly, the latter study also
yielded some evidence that the effects of group affective tone on group
effectiveness were stronger in higher identifying groups.
The common denominators in these studies appear to be the individual
group members’ level of identification with and commitment to the
group and the concomitant entitativity or “groupiness” of the group.
The various studies suggest that greater levels of identification, commit-
ment, and entitativity increase individuals’ susceptibility to affective
convergence with their fellow group members, whereas lower levels of
 Social effects of emotions in groups 117
identification, commitment, and entitativity reduce the likelihood of
affective convergence.
This tentative conclusion resonates with the insights stemming from
research on affective divergence, which has shown that divergent affec-
tive responses to others’ emotional displays are more likely when people
anticipate or experience a competitive rather than a cooperative interac-
tion (Lanzetta & Englis, 1989) or when they are part of a different rather
than the same social group (Van der Schalk et al., 2011; Weisbuch &
Ambady, 2008). The conclusion also aligns with research on power and
emotional convergence among dating partners and college roommates
(Anderson, Kelner, & John, 2003). This work revealed that individuals are
less likely to converge with the affective states of their interaction part-
ners to the degree that they feel more powerful in their relationship.
Together with emerging insights that power increases people’s subjective
psychological distance from others (Magee & Smith, 2013), this finding,
too, suggests that affective convergence hinges on a sense of togetherness,
identification, and commitment. This moderating role of groupiness in
shaping affective convergence among individuals resonates with the
presumed evolutionary benefits of affective sharing for groups (cf.
Spoor & Kelly, 2004).

Inferences of rejection, motivation to be accepted, and conformity

We have seen that the emotional expressions of group members can
trigger inferential processes in fellow group members as well as outside
observers regarding group members’ psychological similarity and com-
mon fate (Magee & Tiedens, 2006), satisfaction, interpersonal liking, trust,
cooperation, and conflict (Homan et al., 2016) and inclusionary status
(Heerdink et al., 2015). Research so far has not paid a great deal of
attention to potential moderators of the link between such inferential
processes and behavioral responses in groups. The only available evi-
dence to date comes from the work by Heerdink and colleagues (2013) on
the effects of emotional expressions on conformity in groups. Viewing
conformity as strategic behavior aimed at gaining (re)acceptance in
groups, they argued that the effects of group members’ emotional expres-
sions on conformity of deviant individuals should be moderated by
social-contextual factors that determine deviant individuals’ motivation
to be accepted by the group.
In one of Heerdink et al.’s (2013) studies participants read about a
situation in which they were attempting to decide on a holiday destina-
tion with three of their friends. It turned out that the three friends all had
the same holiday destination in mind, but the participant preferred a
different destination. The majority did not agree with the participant’s
118 Part II Social effects of emotions
proposal. Depending on the condition, the majority expressed anger,
enthusiasm, or no emotion about the situation. The researchers also
manipulated the availability of an alternative group with which partici-
pants could go on holiday, reasoning that expressions of anger might
prompt conformity in the absence of a salient alternative, but not in the
presence of an alternative. Expressions of anger by the majority led to
greater inferences of rejection on the part of the deviant than did expres-
sions of enthusiasm, with neutral expressions falling in between. These
rejection inferences in turn motivated participants to conform when no
alternative group was available, whereas they motivated participants to
leave the group when such an alternative was available.
In another study, Heerdink and colleagues (2013) examined the effects
of emotional expressions in the context of a computer-simulated group
discussion about aesthetic preferences. In one condition, participants
learned that their responses on several questionnaires indicated that
they were very prototypical members of the group, meaning that their
personality overlapped strongly with the personalities of the other group
members. In the other condition they learned that they were peripheral
members of the group, because their personality structure was different
from that of the other group members. Participants then privately rated a
number of abstract paintings. To generate discussion, their ratings were
supposedly sent to the other group members, who were preprogrammed
to express different preferences than the participant.
Next, all group members sent a few messages to the rest of the group to
initiate the discussion. Depending on the condition, participants received
messages expressing anger or happiness about their deviating opinion,
with emotions being communicated by means of words and emoticons.
Then participants rated the paintings for a second time, and this time
their ratings could supposedly be viewed by the rest of the group. As can
be seen in Figure 6.4, participants who occupied a prototypical position in
the group were not influenced by their group members’ emotional
expressions, presumably because they felt little fear of social exclusion
and, consequently, experienced little pressure to change their opinion.
However, participants who occupied a peripheral position in their group
were almost three times more likely to conform to the majority’s position
after receiving angry reactions than after receiving happy reactions.
Strikingly, Heerdink et al. (2013) found that these patterns of conformity
were still manifest three weeks later. Both immediate and longer-term
conformity of peripheral group members were mediated by inferences of
rejection, which were higher after expressions of anger than after expres-
sions of happiness. These findings speak to some of the moderating
conditions that determine whether and how individuals use the emo-
tional expressions of their group members to inform their own behavior.
 Social effects of emotions in groups 119
70

60

Likelihood of conformity 50

40
Happiness
30
Anger
20

10

0
Prototypical Peripheral

Figure 6.4 Percentage of participants conforming to the majority’s

position as a function of the majority’s expressions of happiness versus
anger and the participant’s prototypical versus peripheral position in
the group (based on Heerdink et al., 2013, Study 5).

Conclusion
Various theorists have proposed that emotions play a vital role in reg-
ulating group behavior (e.g., Barsade & Gibson, 1998; Keltner & Haidt,
1999; Spoor & Kelly, 2004; Van Kleef & Fischer, 2016). Although empirical
research on the role of emotions in groups is still in a relatively early
stage, several studies speak to the various ways in which emotional
displays influence behavior in groups. There is a tendency in the litera-
ture to view emotions in groups as functional, and much of the work
reviewed in this chapter certainly fuels that conception. Observers may
extract pertinent information from group members’ emotional expres-
sions about various characteristics and processes that may be critical to
the group’s success or failure (Homan et al., 2016; Magee & Tiedens,
2006). Individual members may use their fellow group members’ emo-
tional displays to draw inferences regarding their own standing in the
group (Heerdink et al., 2013). To the degree that emotions become shared
in groups, the resulting affective state of the group may facilitate coordi-
nated action by fostering group bonds and creating a shared mind-set for
approaching joint tasks (Barsade, 2002; Sy et al., 2005). Even affective
diversity may be functional in particular circumstances (Tiedens, Sutton,
& Fong, 2004), for instance because it may alert group members to their
differential appraisals of events, which may prompt critical discussion.
As tempting as it may be to construe all of these phenomena in terms of
their usefulness for groups, we should be cautious not to fall prey to a
functionality fallacy. Several of the effects mentioned in the previous
120 Part II Social effects of emotions
paragraph could just as well be framed as constituting a potential liability
to group success. For instance, although high levels of affective homo-
geneity in groups may facilitate joint goal pursuit, they may also imperil
the group’s success by contributing to groupthink. Conversely, even
though affective heterogeneity could function as a signal of divergent
goals or views that may spark much-needed renegotiation of the group’s
mission, it may also debilitate the group’s capacity to render joint deci-
sions. As is true for the broader literature on the social functionality of
emotions, the presumed functions of emotional expressions should be
critically scrutinized in light of the available evidence and weighed
against evidence of dysfunctional outcomes (see Parrott, 2001).
In the quest to better understand the beneficial and detrimental effects
of emotions in groups, it will be important to take into account moderat-
ing influences that govern the (dys)functionality of various patterns of
emotional expression and affective composition. Although previous
research has begun to consider some of these moderators (e.g.,
Heerdink et al., 2013; Klep et al., 2011; Tanghe et al., 2010), much more
work is needed to map out the intricate contingencies of the functionality
of emotional expressions in groups. In doing so, future theorizing and
research would do well to examine the effects of discrete emotional
expressions (rather than diffuse displays of positive or negative mood)
and to consider these in the context of the group’s goals and in relation to
any problems the group may be facing in attaining those goals.
Different emotions (or families of emotions) have been proposed to
serve different social functions, which may help to address various types
of problems that can emerge in group life (Keltner & Gross, 1999; Morris
& Keltner, 2000; Van Kleef, De Dreu, & Manstead, 2010). Logically, then,
the functionality of a particular emotional display should depend on the
degree to which it helps to remedy a current problem in the group. For
instance, a group that has difficulties reaching consensus on a task that
requires unanimity might benefit from affective convergence, because the
resulting group emotion would help members to approach the decision
problem with similar mind-sets. A positive affective tone would be par-
ticularly conducive to reaching consensus, because the sharedness of
positive emotions reduces conflict and increases cooperation (Barsade,
2002). However, when a group’s capacity to take decisions is hampered
by a power vacuum or a lack of role clarity, differential displays of high-
status (e.g., anger, pride) versus low-status (e.g., embarrassment, guilt)
emotions by different group members may facilitate coordination by
instilling a rudimentary sense of hierarchy that may serve as a heuristic
solution to decision making. The functionality of particular patterns of
emotional responding should thus be considered in conjunction with the
main problems that stand in the way of group success.
 Social effects of emotions in groups 121
Along similar lines, future research should consider the effects of
emotional expressions and affective compositions in relation to the cur-
rent goals and tasks of the group. When the task requires cooperation,
cognitive broadening, and/or creativity, groups may be best off when
they develop a positive affective tone (Barsade, 2002; Grawitch et al.,
2003; Klep et al., 2011). When the task requires careful planning, analy-
tical information processing, and critical evaluation of ideas, groups may
be better off when they develop a (mildly) negative affective tone (Forgas,
2000; Klep et al., 2011; Kooij-de Bode et al., 2010; Schwarz & Bless, 1991).
Logically, then, group performance on tasks that require a combination of
cognitive broadening and critical evaluation may benefit from affective
heterogeneity.
Given the many complexities and contingencies surrounding the
effects of emotions in groups, it stands to reason that group success
depends on the degree to which group members are able to regulate the
emotions in the group in a way that is conducive to group functioning.
This means that a group’s functioning should be enhanced to the degree
that its members have higher levels of emotional intelligence (Elfenbein,
2005; also see Chapter 4). Group members with higher levels of emotional
intelligence are more likely than their less emotionally intelligent coun-
terparts to appreciate how the group’s emotional state influences its
mode of operation (Côté, 2007), and they should be better able to regulate
their own (Gross, 1998b) and/or their fellow group members’ emotions
accordingly (Niven, Totterdell, & Holman, 2009). Some support for these
ideas is provided by studies in which group member emotional intelli-
gence was identified as a positive predictor of team performance (Chang,
Sy, & Choi, 2012; Jordan, Ashkanasy, Härtel, & Hooper, 2002; Jordan &
Troth, 2004), although the processes by which emotional intelligence may
benefit team success remain unclear. Other work has found that the
ability to accurately perceive the collective affective state of a group of
individuals (i.e., emotional aperture; Sanchez-Burks & Huy, 2009) is
positively associated with leadership performance (Sanchez-Burks,
Bartel, Rees, & Huy, 2016).
In conclusion, it is clear from the current body of evidence that emo-
tions have pervasive effects on group functioning. Consistent with the
EASI framework, several studies point to the reciprocal and complemen-
tary affective reactions that may be elicited by emotional expressions in
groups, as well as to the situational factors that shape the nature of these
effects. Other studies have begun to document various types of inferential
processes and the contingencies that govern their occurrence and their
impact on group members’ behavior. What remains unclear is how the
affective reactions and inferential processes that may arise in groups
relate to each other, and how the relative strength and downstream
122 Part II Social effects of emotions
consequences of these processes for behavior and group functioning are
shaped by the social context. Addressing these issues constitutes a big
challenge for future research on emotions in groups. Awaiting such
efforts, we can draw insights regarding the interplay between moderat-
ing influences and mediating mechanisms from the literature on emotion
in conflict and negotiation, which is considered in the following chapter.
 CHAPTER 7

Social effects of emotions in conflict

and negotiation

To make a good salad is to be a brilliant diplomatist – the problem is

entirely the same in both cases. To know how much oil one must put
with one’s vinegar.
Oscar Wilde

Conflict is an inevitable fact of life. Whether we focus on interactions

between individuals, groups, organizations, or nations – conflicts are
omnipresent. Salespersons disagree with potential buyers about the
price of their merchandise. Divorcing partners quarrel about the condi-
tions of their breakup. Organizational departments hold conflicting
views about the distribution of company resources. Companies fight
over the terms of a merger. Diplomats argue about the time frame of a
cease-fire. The divergent interests that lie at the heart of social conflict
often give rise to intense emotions, which may in turn strongly influence
conflict development (Barry & Oliver, 1996; Morris & Keltner, 2000; Van
Kleef & Sinaceur, 2013).
The most common and constructive way of dealing with conflict is
through negotiation, which can be defined as a discussion between two or
more parties aimed at resolving a (perceived) divergence of interests
(Pruitt & Carnevale, 1993). The outcomes of negotiations can be highly
consequential. When negotiators create high-quality agreements that
satisfy all parties’ interests, they create order and stability, foster har-
mony, reduce the probability of future conflict, and stimulate economic
prosperity. When negotiators create poor agreements, or fail to agree,
they leave dissatisfied, create frustration and annoyance, face continued
conflict and disharmony, and undermine productivity (De Dreu,
Beersma, Steinel, & Van Kleef, 2007; Rubin, Pruitt, & Kim, 1994). Given
that conflicts are inherently emotional, attempts to resolve them through
negotiation are also likely to be pervaded by emotions.
How do emotions shape conflict and negotiation? Are they a liability or
an asset? It turns out that both professional negotiators and management
scholars differ widely in their beliefs about the functionality or dysfunc-
tionality of emotions in negotiation (Thompson, Medvec, Seiden, &

123
124 Part II Social effects of emotions
Kopelman, 2001). Some believe that negotiators should remain emotion-
ally detached, because showing emotions could be construed as a sign of
weakness and an indication that one has departed from the path of
rationality. Accordingly, negotiation training programs are often aimed
at teaching negotiators how to control (in practice, suppress) their emo-
tions rather than instructing them how to use emotions to their advantage
(Leary, Pillemer, & Wheeler, 2013; Raiffa, 1982).
Others believe that negotiators are better off adopting a positive emo-
tional approach (Thompson et al., 2001). As discussed before, research
shows that positive emotions help to establish and maintain social bonds
(Harker & Keltner, 2001), facilitate interpersonal understanding (Fischer
& Manstead, in press), and foster cognitive flexibility (Fredrickson, 1998;
Isen, 1987). Nourishing positive emotions could therefore be beneficial in
negotiations, whose success often depends on mutual understanding,
perspective taking, and creativity (Pruitt & Carnevale, 1993). Indeed, it
is not uncommon for professional negotiators and diplomats to spend a
considerable amount of time building a positive emotional atmosphere
before getting down to business.
Still other people believe that a negative emotional approach is more
likely to be effective in negotiations (Thompson et al., 2001). Expressing
emotions such as anger may serve to create a sense of urgency, portray an
image of intransigence, and lend credibility to ultimatums and threats
(Frank, 1988; Schelling, 1960). Consider the following quote from Richard
Holbrooke, a US diplomat who mediated in the war between Bosnia-
Herzegovina and Serbia.
Karadzic . . . said that our draft proposal was unacceptable. Suddenly,
Mladic erupted. Pushing to the center of the circle, he began a long,
emotional diatribe . . . This was the intimidating style he had used with
the Dutch commander at Srebenica, with Janvier, and with so many
others. He gave off a scent of danger . . . I did not know if his rage was
real or feigned, but this was the genuine Mladic, the one who could
unleash a murderous rampage. (Holbrooke, 1999, pp. 150–151)
Such emotional expressions are common in negotiations, especially when
the stakes are high. As reflected in the disparate views on the utility of
emotion in conflict and negotiation, however, the effects of emotional
expressions on negotiation processes and the resolution versus escalation
of social conflict are not easy to predict. This is due in part to the intricate
mixed-motive nature of many conflict settings, where parties simulta-
neously experience incentives to compete so as to maximize their own
outcomes and to cooperate in order to secure an agreement (Schelling, 1960).
The mixed-motive setting provides a particularly interesting arena for
examining the interpersonal effects of emotional expressions. On the one
 Social effects of emotions in conflict and negotiation 125
hand, the intrinsically emotional nature of social conflict paves the way
for emotional expressions that may evoke affective reactions in counter-
parts. On the other hand, strategic considerations lead parties in social
conflict to pay close attention to the meaning and implications of their
counterpart’s emotional expressions, because an accurate interpretation
of such expressions could help them to develop a strategic advantage
(Van Kleef, De Dreu, & Manstead, 2010). As we shall see in this chapter,
Emotions as Social Information (EASI) theory provides a useful frame-
work for understanding this tension between affective and inferential
processes and for analyzing the interpersonal consequences of emotional
expressions in social conflict.

Affective reactions and their behavioral consequences

Systematic empirical research on the interpersonal effects of emotions in
conflict and negotiation was kick-started by a series of studies on the
interpersonal effects of anger versus happiness. Although later studies
have also considered other emotions, this literature is still characterized
by a predominant focus on a small subset of emotions. As a result,
evidence pertaining to the role of affective reactions to emotional expres-
sions in negotiations also stems primarily from studies on anger and
happiness. I discuss this literature first and then consider more recent
studies on other emotions.

Anger and happiness elicit reciprocal affective reactions

Researchers have used a variety of correlational and experimental
research methods to examine the interpersonal effects of emotional
expressions in negotiations, employing computer-mediated negotiation
simulations, observation and coding of actual face-to-face or online nego-
tiations, pictures and videos of emotional expressions, and emotional
expressions delivered by professional actors. Despite the diversity of
research methods, these studies consistently show that expressions of
anger and happiness tend to trigger reciprocal affective reactions in
negotiation partners.
An initial investigation of the interpersonal effects of emotions in
negotiations focused on the effects of verbal expressions of anger and
happiness in a computer-mediated negotiation task (Van Kleef, De Dreu,
& Manstead, 2004a). In the course of the negotiation, participants
received emotional messages from their (simulated) opponent (e.g.,
“This negotiation pisses me off”; or “I feel good about this negotiation”).
Participants who received angry messages became angrier themselves as
well, whereas those who received happy messages from their opponent
126 Part II Social effects of emotions
became happier. Similarly, in a study of online dispute resolution nego-
tiations, negotiators whose partners expressed anger in their written
messages reported experiencing more anger themselves compared to
those whose partners sent emotionally neutral messages (Friedman,
Anderson, Brett, Olekalns, Goates, & Lisco, 2004). These findings are
consistent with research on affective convergence in other domains
(Anderson, Keltner, & John, 2003; Hatfield, Cacioppo, & Rapson, 1994;
Totterdell, 2000).
Convergent evidence further indicates that affective reactions to emo-
tional expressions in negotiations are not limited to reciprocal emotional
experiences but extend to interpersonal impressions and concomitant
behavioral tendencies. In several studies, participants who were con-
fronted with angry negotiation counterparts developed a more negative
impression of their counterpart than did those who dealt with a happy or
nonemotional counterpart (Van Beest, Van Kleef, & Van Dijk, 2008; Van
Kleef et al., 2004a). Moreover, participants who interacted with an angry
rather than a happy negotiation partner were less satisfied with the
negotiation afterward and were less willing to engage in future interac-
tions with the same partner (Kopelman, Rosette, & Thompson, 2006; Van
Kleef, De Dreu, & Manstead, 2004b).
Such affective reactions to emotional expressions have been repeatedly
demonstrated to shape subsequent negotiation behavior. For instance,
Friedman and colleagues (2004) found that electronically mediated dis-
pute resolution negotiations were more likely to break down when nego-
tiators expressed anger, especially when the other party had a strong
negotiation position due to a favorable reputation. Similarly, Kopelman
and colleagues (2006) showed that negotiators who expressed negative
affect at the bargaining table were less likely to secure a deal than were
those who expressed positive affect.
Later studies revealed additional negative consequences of anger
expressions in negotiation. In a series of experiments on multiparty
coalition formation, Van Beest and colleagues (2008) found that negotia-
tors who expressed anger during coalition negotiations were less likely to
be accepted in a profitable coalition by the other negotiators than were
those who refrained from expressing anger. Another series of experi-
ments showed that bargainers who express anger run a greater risk of
being deceived by their counterparts (Van Dijk, Van Kleef, Steinel, & Van
Beest, 2008). In both sets of studies, the adverse consequences of anger
expressions were mediated by participants’ negative affective reactions
to their counterparts’ expressions of anger (negative impressions and
reciprocal anger, respectively).
Finally, a study by Wang and colleagues demonstrated that the nega-
tive affective reactions that are triggered by expressions of anger in
 Social effects of emotions in conflict and negotiation 127
negotiations may lead negotiators to try and sabotage their angry coun-
terparts in ways that may only become apparent after the negotiation is
over (Wang, Northcraft, & Van Kleef, 2012). The authors hired a profes-
sional actor to play the role of an angry or emotionally neutral negotiation
partner. Participants exhibited greater overt concessionary behaviors
when the actor expressed anger rather than no emotion during the nego-
tiation. However, negative affective reactions (in this case, feelings of
mistreatment) led participants to sabotage their angry counterpart in a
covert manner by secretly assigning more unappealing tasks to the actor
in an ostensibly unrelated study.
Few studies have examined the role of complementary (as opposed to
reciprocal) affective reactions to emotional expressions in negotiation
(e.g., fearful responses to anger expressions). A line of research by
Lelieveld and colleagues has begun to shed some light on this issue. A
series of computer-mediated bargaining experiments showed that angry
messages emitted by high-power negotiators evoked complementary
fear in targets (which in turn led them to make larger concessions),
whereas angry messages by low-power negotiators evoked reciprocal
anger in targets (which led them to make smaller concessions;
Lelieveld, Van Dijk, Van Beest, & Van Kleef, 2012). Presumably, a power-
ful counterpart’s anger elicited fear because it was perceived as a threat.
In contrast, expressions of anger by a weaker counterpart constituted less
of a threat and evoked reciprocal anger, as in the earlier research dis-
cussed above. In short, expressions of anger and happiness generally
trigger reciprocal affective reactions in negotiation partners, with the
complementary feelings of fear elicited by powerful negotiators’ expres-
sions of anger being a notable exception.

Disappointment and sadness elicit complementary guilt and compassion

Relatively little is known about the types of affective reactions that may be
evoked by emotions other than anger and happiness, but a few studies have
begun to consider the affective reactions that are elicited by expressions of
disappointment and sadness. Evidence for the effects of expressions of
disappointment comes from a number of studies by Lelieveld and collea-
gues. Two computer-mediated bargaining studies revealed that counter-
parts’ expressions of disappointment elicited complementary guilt in
participants (Lelieveld et al., 2012). These feelings of guilt in turn led
participants to make more generous offers, consistent with previous
research on the intrapersonal effects of guilt on cooperation in social dilem-
mas (Ketelaar & Au, 2003). In another study, the effects of expressions of
disappointment on feelings of guilt and resultant concessions were espe-
cially apparent when the disappointment was targeted at the participant as
128 Part II Social effects of emotions
a person rather than at the participant’s offer (Lelieveld, Van Dijk, Van
Beest, Steinel, & Van Kleef, 2011). Finally, a recent series of experiments
suggests that the elicitation of complementary feelings of guilt in observers
may be a necessary ingredient for the beneficial effects of expressions of
disappointment to emerge. In four computer-mediated experiments invol-
ving verbal as well as nonverbal manipulations of emotional expression, a
counterpart’s expressions of disappointment only led participants to make
more generous offers under conditions that were conducive to eliciting guilt
(e.g., when the expresser was an ingroup rather than an outgroup member;
Lelieveld, Van Dijk, Van Beest, & Van Kleef, 2013).
Compatible findings were obtained in a recent series of experiments by
Sinaceur, Kopelman, Vasiljevic, and Haag (2015) on the interpersonal
effects of sadness in negotiations. Sinaceur and colleagues argued that
displays of sadness can be effective in negotiations because they may
evoke complementary feelings of empathy and compassion in targets that
may in turn lead them to adopt a more cooperative stance with the
expresser. In three experiments involving face-to-face interaction, the
authors found that displays of sadness were indeed effective, but only
when they elicited empathy and compassion in the target. Such affective
reactions only arose when features of the social situation provided rea-
sons to experience other-concern for the expresser, for instance when
recipients perceived the expresser as having low power, when they
anticipated a future interaction with the expresser, or when they con-
strued their relationship with the expresser as collaborative. In all three
experiments the positive effect of sadness expression was mediated by
the recipients’ complementary feelings of empathy and compassion.

Inferential processes and their behavioral consequences

Besides providing support for the occurrence and downstream conse-
quences of affective reactions, negotiation studies have produced robust
evidence for the important role of inferential processes in shaping beha-
vioral responses to the emotional expressions of negotiation partners. As
was the case with affective reactions, early studies primarily focused on
inferences drawn from expressions of anger versus happiness, whereas
later studies shifted the focus to other emotions such as guilt and dis-
appointment. I review both sets of studies in turn.

Anger versus happiness: inferences of ambition, toughness, threat,

and credibility
Early studies using the computer-mediated negotiation paradigm
described previously uncovered reliable effects of opponents’ expressions
 Social effects of emotions in conflict and negotiation 129
of anger versus happiness on inferences drawn by the receiving negotiator
(Van Dijk et al., 2008; Van Kleef et al., 2004a, 2004b). Participants who
received angry messages generally inferred that the opponent had an
ambitious negotiation limit, and to avoid costly impasse they made rela-
tively large concessions. Conversely, negotiators who received happy
messages inferred that the opponent’s limit was low, felt less need to
concede to avoid impasse, and therefore made smaller concessions.
Behavioral responses to the emotional expressions of the counterpart in
these studies were consistently mediated by inferences regarding the
counterpart’s limits.
Other evidence indicates that people may take advantage of their
knowledge of other people’s incidental feeling states. Andrade and Ho
(2007) found that proposers in an ultimatum bargaining game were more
likely to make unfair offers when they knew that the receiver was in a
good rather than a bad mood, presumably because they suspected that
the good mood would make the receiver more lenient. Klapwijk, Peters,
Vermeiren, and Lelieveld (2013) replicated and extended these findings
using a sample of adolescents, reporting evidence that the tendency to
make unfair offers to happy recipients is stronger among individuals
with a selfish orientation than among those with a prosocial orientation.
This finding suggests that the effects of emotional expressions are
modulated by the observer’s social motives (also see Van Kleef & Van
Lange, 2008).
Another set of studies showed that the inferences that negotiators draw
from their counterpart’s emotions continue to influence behavior in later
encounters with the same person. In a second negotiation with an oppo-
nent who had previously expressed anger, negotiators conceded again
because they believed that the other had high limits, even when that
person expressed no emotion during the second encounter (Van Kleef &
De Dreu, 2010). This finding suggests that, unless overruled by new
information, the situation-specific inferences that people draw from
others’ emotional expressions may be consolidated in memory in the
form of more stable personality judgments (cf. Hess, Blairy, & Kleck,
2000; Knutson, 1996).
Additional evidence for the role of inferential processes was obtained
in two experiments by Sinaceur and Tiedens (2006). In a scenario study
and in a face-to-face negotiation experiment (in which one of the nego-
tiators was instructed to display either anger or no emotion), they found
that participants conceded more to angry as opposed to nonemotional
counterparts. Furthermore, Sinaceur and Tiedens demonstrated that the
effect of anger was mediated by the focal negotiator’s appraisal of the
opponent’s toughness, with angry opponents appearing tougher and
therefore eliciting larger concessions than nonemotional counterparts.
130 Part II Social effects of emotions
These findings are fully compatible with those obtained using the computer-
mediated negotiation paradigm (Van Dijk et al., 2008; Van Kleef et al., 2004a,
2004b).
A later study by Sinaceur and colleagues revealed that the effects of
anger expressions on concession making are also mediated by threat
perceptions (Sinaceur, Van Kleef, Neale, Adam, & Haag, 2011).
Expressions of anger were construed by participants as conveying an
implied threat, which explained why participants conceded more to
angry as opposed to nonemotional opponents. The authors also found
that explicit threats had similar effects on concession making as expres-
sions of anger, providing additional evidence for a mediating role of
threat-related inferences.
Along similar lines, a study on complaints in a customer service setting
showed that expressing anger when complaining may lead to greater
compensation because anger enhances the credibility of the complainant
when there is room for doubt (Hareli et al., 2009). This finding is compa-
tible with the preceding studies and in line with Frank’s (1988) proposi-
tion that displays of anger lend credence to threats and ultimatums.
Together, these studies show that negotiators may use the emotional
expressions of their counterparts to draw inferences about crucial aspects
of the counterpart’s negotiation position and intentions. Moreover, from
a practical point of view, the mediating roles of inferences regarding
negotiation limits, toughness, threat, and credibility appear to be
comparable.
Extending these findings, Adam and Shirako (2013) investigated in a
series of experiments how the cultural background of the expresser
modulates the inferences of toughness and threat that observers draw
from expressions of anger. Based on the stereotype that East Asian
individuals are relatively emotionally inexpressive whereas European
Americans are relatively emotionally expressive, they argued and
showed that expressions of anger emitted by East Asian negotiators
trigger stronger inferences than the same expressions shown by
European American negotiators. As in previous research, these infer-
ences of toughness and threat were in turn positively associated with
concession making. Interestingly, the authors further found that these
effects occurred only among negotiators who endorsed the stereotype of
East Asians being less emotionally expressive. These experiments suggest
that emotional expressions of people who are believed to be relatively
inexpressive are perceived as more diagnostic and informative about
their intentions, resulting in stronger inferences and downstream conse-
quences for behavior.
Most research on the effects of emotional expressions in negotiations
(and on the interpersonal effects of emotions in general) has considered
 Social effects of emotions in conflict and negotiation 131
either one-shot expressions or sequences of expressions of the same
emotion. Recently, researchers have begun to examine the social conse-
quences of changing emotions in negotiations (Filipowicz, Barsade, &
Melwani, 2011; Sinaceur, Adam, Van Kleef, & Galinsky, 2013). This work
is pertinent to the notion of inferential processes, because it demonstrates
that the information negotiators derive from a counterpart’s emotional
expressions depends on the emotional “background” against which a
particular expression is shown.
In a series of computer-mediated and face-to-face negotiation experi-
ments, Filipowicz and colleagues (2011) found that participants made
larger concessions to counterparts who first expressed happiness and
later expressed anger than to counterparts who expressed steady-state
anger. This effect of “becoming angry” could be explained in terms of
inferential processes. The emotional transition from happiness to anger
elicited greater situational attributions (i.e., participants inferred that the
expressed emotion was a response to their own actions), whereas steady-
state anger elicited greater dispositional attributions (i.e., participants
inferred that the expressed emotion was a result of the counterpart’s
personality). These findings speak to the notion that emotions derive
part of their meaning and informational value from the fact that they
change, and that such changes in and of themselves have a signaling
function (Frijda, 1986; Kuppens, Oravecz, & Tuerlinckx, 2010; Scherer,
2009).
Related research was inspired by the “madman strategy” that formed
an important component of former US president Richard Nixon’s inter-
national diplomacy. When dealing with foreign adversaries such as the
Soviet Union or the North Vietnamese government, Nixon allegedly liked
to portray himself as mad, emotionally unstable, and volatile (Kimball,
2004). Apparently, he believed that such an image would help him to get
his opponents to comply, because in the eyes of the enemy a madman
would probably be willing to escalate the conflict (Frank, 1988; Schelling,
1960). Similar strategies were purportedly used by Soviet premier Nikita
Khrushchev (Gaddis, 2005) and, several centuries before, Queen
Elizabeth I of England (Loades, 2006). Moreover, the above quote from
Richard Holbrooke suggests that at least part of the influence of Bosnian
Serb army chief Ratko Mladic (a.k.a. the “Butcher of Bosnia”) in the peace
negotiations about former Yugoslavia stemmed from his sudden and
unpredictable eruptions of anger.
To test the potential effectiveness of such strategies, Sinaceur and
colleagues (2013) explored the effects of emotional inconsistency and
unpredictability in negotiations. In a computer-mediated negotiation
simulation as well as in a face-to-face negotiation study, they found that
participants made larger concessions to counterparts who exhibited
 Free ebooks ==> [Link]
132 Part II Social effects of emotions
emotional inconsistency (i.e., alternating several times between expres-
sing anger and happiness) than to counterparts who consistently showed
anger or happiness. This happened because participants who were con-
fronted with an emotionally inconsistent counterpart came to experience
a sense of unpredictability and lack of control over their outcomes. Thus,
in keeping with Nixon’s intuition, projecting an aura of volatility can
elicit compliance from negotiation partners.
Finally, there is some evidence that the impact of emotional expres-
sions on inferences and behavior is not limited to distributive negotiation
situations in which one person’s gain equals the other person’s loss.
Pietroni and colleagues (Pietroni, Van Kleef, De Dreu, & Pagliaro, 2008)
demonstrated that the inferences negotiators draw from their counter-
part’s emotional expressions can result in better joint outcomes in an
integrative negotiation task (i.e., a negotiation that allows for “win-win”
solutions that satisfy both parties’ wishes beyond the value of a mere
compromise; De Dreu, 2010; Pruitt & Carnevale, 1993; Thompson, 2001).
In a computer-mediated negotiation simulation, negotiators inferred
from a counterpart’s verbal and nonverbal expressions of anger versus
happiness associated with different negotiation issues that the other
attached relatively high versus low value to the respective issues. In
tasks with integrative potential, these inferences led participants to
stand firm on their own high-value issue and to give in on the issue that
appeared to be more important for the counterpart, thereby arriving at
mutually satisfying win-win solutions (Pietroni et al., 2008).

Supplication versus appeasement: inferences of giving too little versus

too much
A few studies have examined the types of inferences negotiators may
draw from emotional expressions of emotions other than anger and
happiness. In the first of these studies, Thompson, Valley, and Kramer
(1995) investigated how an opponent’s signs of disappointment versus
happiness affect a focal negotiator’s judgments regarding negotiation
success. The authors found that, independent of objective negotiation
performance, participants inferred that they had been more successful
when their opponent expressed disappointment rather than happiness.
This finding indicates that negotiators take their counterpart’s disap-
pointment as a signal that the other was hoping for more, suggesting
that they themselves did a good job in extracting concessions from the
other.
Using the aforementioned computer-mediated negotiation paradigm,
Van Kleef, De Dreu, and Manstead (2006) examined the interpersonal
effects of emotions that may arise as a result of the appraisal that one has

[Link]
 Social effects of emotions in conflict and negotiation 133
taken too much or received too little in a negotiation. Specifically, the
experiments focused on the effects of disappointment, worry, guilt, and
regret on inferences, demands, and concessions. In a first experiment,
participants made smaller concessions to opponents who expressed
appeasement emotions (guilt or regret) than to opponents who expressed
supplication emotions (disappointment or worry). Additional experi-
ments revealed that participants interpreted the other’s expressions of
disappointment as a signal that the other had received too little, whereas
they took expressions of guilt as a sign that the other had claimed too
much. These studies indicate that different negative emotional expres-
sions may give rise to different inferences, which in turn motivate differ-
ent behavior.
Research on the effects of emotional expressions in social dilemma
games has yielded compatible evidence. In one set of studies, participants
interpreted another player’s expressions of guilt about previous contri-
butions to a public good as a sign that the other would contribute more to
the public good in a next round (Wubben, De Cremer, & Van Dijk, 2009b).
In public-good dilemmas, which are characterized by strong cooperative
incentives, such inferences led to greater cooperation on the part of
participants who witnessed others’ expressions of guilt. When mutual
cooperation is the most advantageous strategy for the group, emotional
cues suggesting that others will cooperate (such as those provided by
expressions of guilt) provide a clear impetus to cooperate oneself. In more
competitively structured negotiation settings, in contrast, emotional cues
suggesting that one’s counterpart will cooperate may elicit a tendency to
exploit the guilty counterpart so as to maximize one’s own outcomes
without risking an impasse. Accordingly, expressions of guilt by a fellow
player motivated cooperation in social dilemmas (Wubben et al., 2009b)
but elicited competition in negotiations (Van Kleef, De Dreu, & Manstead,
2006).
Compared to the effects of guilt, the effects of disappointment are
remarkably consistent across different types of conflict settings involving
differential incentives for cooperation versus competition. A growing
number of studies speak to the effectiveness of expressing disappoint-
ment in various types of negotiations (Klapwijk et al., 2013; Lelieveld
et al., 2011, 2012, 2013; Van Kleef, De Dreu, & Manstead, 2006; Van Kleef
& Van Lange, 2008) as well as various types of social dilemmas (Van
Doorn, Van Kleef, & Van der Pligt, 2015b; Wubben, De Cremer, & Van
Dijk, 2009a). It is interesting to note that, besides triggering inferential
processes in observers that may spur greater cooperation (Van Kleef, De
Dreu, & Manstead, 2006), expressions of disappointment may also elicit
complementary feelings of guilt that similarly motivate cooperative beha-
vior (Lelieveld et al., 2012, 2013). This makes disentangling the role of
134 Part II Social effects of emotions
affective reactions and inferential processes more complicated in the case
of disappointment, also because the emergence of complementary feel-
ings of guilt may in fact be mediated by the inference that the other had
hoped for more, as per appraisal theories of emotion (e.g., Frijda, Kuipers,
& ter Schure, 1989; Roseman, 1984; Scherer, Schorr, & Johnstone, 2001;
Smith, Haynes, Lazarus, & Pope, 1993).
Incidentally, anecdotal evidence also supports the potential effective-
ness of expressing disappointment in bargaining situations. Anyone who
has ever bought a souvenir from a private shop in a Third World country
will be familiar with the theatrical displays of disappointment that may
result when the salesperson considers one’s initial bid too low (perhaps
even when the offer is actually quite generous). More often than not this
strategy proves effective in securing a higher price, be it because the
disappointment signals that the salesperson had hoped for a better
price, because the disappointment elicits complementary feelings of
guilt, or both.

Affective reactions versus inferential processes

A considerable body of research speaks to the affective reactions and
inferential processes that are triggered by the expression of various dis-
crete emotions in negotiations, including anger, happiness, disappoint-
ment, worry, guilt, and regret. Although affective reactions and
inferential processes were discussed in separate sections here, some of
the aforementioned studies have considered affective reactions and infer-
ential processes in conjunction (e.g., Van Dijk et al., 2008; Van Kleef et al.,
2004a, 2004b). This is helpful, because it allows for a more integrative
analysis of the interpersonal effects of emotional expressions.
For instance, Wubben and colleagues (2009a) argued that expressions
of anger and expressions of disappointment may both be interpreted as
signs that the expresser is unsatisfied and wants a better deal, but that
expressions of anger are more likely than expressions of disappointment
to elicit negative affective reactions (also see Lelieveld et al., 2012; Van
Doorn et al., 2015b). Thus, the cooperative tendencies that may be fueled
by inferences drawn from a counterpart’s expressions of anger may be
offset by the negative affective reactions that are triggered by those same
expressions (e.g., reciprocal anger, negative impressions). In that sense,
expressing disappointment may entail less risk, because it arouses less
negative affective reactions in negotiation partners than anger does. In
fact, expressions of disappointment may elicit complementary feelings of
guilt that in turn promote cooperation (Lelieveld et al., 2013). In other
words, in the case of expressed disappointment, affective reactions and
inferential processes jointly push targets toward greater cooperation.
 Social effects of emotions in conflict and negotiation 135
This is not the case for other emotional expressions. In the case of
expressed anger or happiness, for instance, affective reactions and infer-
ential processes drive opposite behavioral tendencies. Negative affective
reactions fueled by expressions of anger (e.g., reciprocal anger, negative
impressions) may motivate competitive behavior (Friedman et al., 2004;
Kopelman et al., 2006), but inferences regarding the opponent’s high
limits and toughness may inform strategic cooperation to secure an
agreement (Van Dijk et al., 2008; Van Kleef et al., 2004a). Conversely,
positive affective reactions evoked by expressions of happiness (e.g.,
reciprocal happiness, increased liking) may motivate cooperative beha-
vior, but inferences regarding the opponent’s low ambition level and
potential weakness may invite exploitation (Van Kleef et al., 2004a).
Given that inferential processes and affective reactions may motivate
opposite behaviors in conflict and negotiation, it is important to under-
stand when one process takes precedence over the other. As discussed in
detail in Chapter 4, EASI theory postulates that the relative predictive
strength of affective and inferential processes triggered by emotional
expressions depends on the perceiver’s information-processing ability
and motivation and on social-contextual factors that determine the per-
ceived appropriateness of the emotional expression. I now turn to empiri-
cal research on these moderating influences.

The role of information processing

Building on the idea that emotional expressions provide information to
observers about the expresser’s goals, intentions, and interpretation of
the situation (see Chapters 2 and 3), EASI theory posits that the inter-
personal effects of emotional expressions depend on observers’ motiva-
tion and ability to process the information inherent in the emotional
expressions. Specifically, EASI maintains that the relative predictive
power of inferential processes versus affective reactions in shaping
one’s behavioral responses to others’ emotional expressions increases to
the degree that one’s information-processing motivation and ability are
higher.
Several negotiation studies support this idea. An early series of experi-
ments revealed that the interpersonal effects of anger and happiness in
negotiations depend on the target’s information processing (Van Kleef et
al., 2004b). In a first experiment, the authors examined the moderating
role of need for cognitive closure, a personality variable that reflects
chronic individual differences in the tendency to search for and process
new pieces of information (Kruglanski & Webster, 1996; Webster &
Kruglanski, 1994). Participants with a low need for cognitive closure
(which indicates relatively high information-processing motivation)
136 Part II Social effects of emotions
250

Magnitude of concessions
200

150 Anger
Happiness

100

50
Low time pressure High time pressure

Figure 7.1 Magnitude of concessions (in points) made over the course
of a negotiation as a function of the counterpart’s expressions of anger
versus happiness and time pressure. The total amount of points to be
divided was 760 (based on Van Kleef et al., 2004b, Study 2).

made larger concessions to angry counterparts than to happy counter-

parts. However, participants with a high need for closure (which reflects
relatively low information-processing motivation) were unaffected by
their counterpart’s emotional expressions.
In a second experiment the authors manipulated participants’ informa-
tion-processing motivation by varying time pressure (Van Kleef et al.,
2004b). Participants who negotiated under low time pressure reported
higher information-processing motivation and spent more time ponder-
ing the emotional messages of their counterpart than did those who
negotiated under high time pressure. Accordingly, participants under
low time pressure were more strongly influenced by their opponent’s
emotional expressions, making larger concessions to angry than to happy
opponents (see Figure 7.1). Additional analyses revealed that the effects
of emotional expressions under low (but not under high) time pressure
were mediated by participants’ inferences regarding the counterpart’s
limits, as in previous research discussed above.
Other studies indicate that the interpersonal effects of anger and hap-
piness are moderated by power, which is known to influence the degree
to which individuals are motivated to process information about other
people (for reviews, see Fiske & Dépret, 1996; Keltner, Van Kleef, Chen, &
Kraus, 2008). Across several studies involving various operationaliza-
tions of power (e.g., in terms of organizational position, control over
others, or independence from others), lower-power negotiators were
 Social effects of emotions in conflict and negotiation 137
consistently more strongly affected by their counterpart’s emotional
expressions than were higher-power negotiators (Friedman et al., 2004;
Overbeck, Neale, & Govan, 2010; Sinaceur and Tiedens, 2006; Van Dijk et
al., 2008; Van Kleef et al., 2004b; Van Kleef, De Dreu, Pietroni, &
Manstead, 2006).
The critical role of information processing has also been demonstrated in
the context of intergroup conflict, where negotiations tend to be conducted
by group representatives. A series of experiments showed that representa-
tives who occupied a peripheral position within their constituent group
engaged in more thorough information processing compared to more pro-
totypical group representatives, especially when they were held accounta-
ble by their fellow group members (Van Kleef, Steinel, & Homan, 2013).
Peripheral representatives also reported greater motivation to acquire and
process relevant information about the negotiation situation and the oppo-
nent, presumably because they believed that doing well in the negotiation
could help them to improve their position in the group. By contrast, proto-
typical group members were less motivated to engage in thorough informa-
tion processing because their position in the group was already secure.
Accordingly, peripheral group representatives used their opponent’s
expressions of anger versus happiness as information to guide their own
negotiation behavior, whereas prototypical group representatives were
largely uninfluenced by their opponent’s emotional expressions.
Once again, there are few studies that have addressed the role of
information processing in relation to emotions other than anger and
happiness. Moreover, the available evidence is suggestive rather than
conclusive. One study revealed that participants with a more selfish,
calculating, and strategizing personality were more responsive to their
counterpart’s expressions of disappointment (Van Kleef & Van Lange,
2008). These individuals were more motivated to take the other’s emo-
tions into account because they feared that failing to do so might endan-
ger their own outcomes (i.e., the other might reject their offer). As a result,
they conceded more to a disappointed counterpart than to a nonemo-
tional one. In other experiments the differential effects of expressions of
disappointment versus guilt on concessions were moderated by trait as
well as state trust (Van Kleef, De Dreu, & Manstead, 2006). Participants
with higher levels of trust used their counterpart’s emotional expressions
to guide their own negotiation strategy, offering larger concessions to
disappointed counterparts than to guilty ones. Participants with lower
levels of trust, in contrast, explicitly discounted the opponent’s emotional
expressions, and as a result they did not behave differently toward dis-
appointed versus guilty opponents.
Although the evidence pertaining to disappointment and guilt is indir-
ect in the sense that information processing was not directly manipulated
138 Part II Social effects of emotions
in these experiments, the findings converge with the more explicit evi-
dence pertaining to the moderating influence of information processing
on the interpersonal effects of anger and happiness considered above.
Across the board, negotiators who are less motivated to engage in thor-
ough information processing (be it due to dispositional tendencies or due
to characteristics of the situation) are less likely to draw inferences from
their counterpart’s emotional expressions.

The role of appropriateness

Besides information processing, the interpersonal effects of emotional
expressions are modulated by the perceived appropriateness of those
expressions. EASI theory posits that the relative impact of inferential
processes decreases to the degree that emotional expressions are per-
ceived as inappropriate, while the relative impact of (negative) affective
reactions increases. As discussed in detail in Chapter 4, the perceived
appropriateness of emotional expressions is shaped by characteristics of
the situation, the observer, the expression, and the expresser. The current
empirical record speaks to the first three factors, which I discuss in order.
Again, most of the evidence stems from studies on anger.
Regarding characteristics of the situation, several studies indicate that
aspects of the negotiation setting and/or the broader social context shape
the perceived appropriateness of expressions of anger in negotiations. For
instance, Van Kleef and Côté (2007) examined the effects of anger in the
presence or absence of an explicit display rule that prohibited expressions
of anger. In the absence of such a display rule, participants deemed
expressions of anger relatively appropriate. When there was an explicit
norm prohibiting expressions of anger, however, participants perceived
their counterpart’s expressions of anger as inappropriate, which fueled
strong negative affective reactions (i.e., feelings of revenge and a desire to
retaliate). Accordingly, participants in the display rule condition adopted
a more competitive stance when their opponent expressed anger, but
only when they felt sufficiently powerful to strike back at their opponent.
Another relevant situational characteristic is the type of issue that is
being negotiated. Studies have shown that people are relatively willing to
give in on issues that involve interests such as money or time, but that
they are more resistant to compromising on issues that are related to their
personal values about what is right and wrong (Bazerman, Tenbrunsel, &
Wade-Benzoni, 2008; Druckman, Broome, & Korper, 1988; Harinck, De
Dreu, & Van Vianen, 2000; Wade-Benzoni, Hoffman, Thompson, Moore,
Gillespie, & Bazerman, 2002). Accordingly, Harinck and Van Kleef (2012)
found that expressions of anger in the context of a value conflict were
deemed more inappropriate than expressions of anger in the context of a
 Social effects of emotions in conflict and negotiation 139
conflict of interests. For instance, participants who imagined receiving an
angry reaction from their employer upon asking for a few extra days off
deemed the anger more inappropriate when they wanted the extra days
off to take care of a sick relative (a matter of personal values) than when
they wanted the extra days off to go on a brief holiday (a matter of
personal interests). As a result, participants who were confronted with
expressions of anger in a value conflict expressed less willingness to make
concessions and a greater desire to retaliate against their opponent. Along
similar lines, another study found that displays of anger resulted in
reduced concession making among negotiators who attached moral sig-
nificance to the negotiation issue at hand (Dehghani, Carnevale, &
Gratch, 2014).
Other work speaks to the role of characteristics of the situation as well
as the observers in that situation. Kopelman and Rosette (2008) found that
East Asian negotiators, who generally value humility and deference,
were more likely to accept an offer from a counterpart who displayed
positive emotions and less likely to accept an offer from a counterpart
who expressed negative emotions, as compared to Israeli negotiators,
who hold humility and deference in comparatively lower regard. Along
similar lines, Adam, Shirako, and Maddux (2010) examined the effects of
verbal expressions of anger across cultures. In a series of computer-
mediated negotiation experiments, they found that European American
participants conceded more to angry than to neutral opponents, whereas
Asian American participants conceded less to angry than to neutral
opponents, as visualized in Figure 7.2. The authors reasoned that this
pattern arose because Asian American participants deemed expressions
of anger more inappropriate than did European American participants.
Accordingly, a follow-up study revealed that the effect of culture was
mitigated when the appropriateness of anger expressions was manipu-
lated directly through instructions, as in the aforementioned study by
Van Kleef and Côté (2007) on the moderating role of display rules.
There is also some evidence for a moderating influence of character-
istics of the emotional expression itself. We have seen before that, across
the board, expressions of anger are more likely to be viewed as offensive
and inappropriate by perceivers than expressions of disappointment
(Van Doorn et al., 2015b; Wubben et al., 2009a). Other work has shown
that the relative predictive strength of inferential processes and affective
reactions on negotiation behavior is shaped by the way in which emo-
tions are expressed (Lelieveld et al., 2011; Steinel, Van Kleef, & Harinck,
2008). Steinel and colleagues differentiated between emotions that are
directed toward a negotiator’s offer and emotions that are directed
toward the negotiator as a person. When emotional messages were direc-
ted at the participant’s offer, participants conceded more to an angry
140 Part II Social effects of emotions
400

380

Magnitude of final offer

360
Anger
340 No anger

320

300
European american Asian american

Figure 7.2 Magnitude of participants’ final offers in a negotiation as a

function of the opponent’s emotional expression and participants’
cultural background. The total amount of points to be divided was
760 (based on Adam et al., 2010, Study 2).

opponent than to a happy one because they interpreted the anger as a sign
of high limits. However, when the emotions were directed at the nego-
tiator as a person, participants conceded less to an angry opponent than
to a happy one, presumably because they felt affronted by the opponent’s
angry remarks (although such mediation was not examined in this
study).
Finally, there is evidence that the effects of emotional expressions in
negotiations depend on the perceived authenticity of the expressions
(Côté, Hideg, & Van Kleef, 2013). Emotional expressions resulting from
antecedent-focused regulation or “deep acting” match one’s actual emo-
tional experience and are therefore perceived as authentic; in contrast,
emotional expressions resulting from response-focused regulation or
“surface acting” do not match one’s internal emotional state and are
therefore perceived as less authentic (Côté, 2005; Grandey, 2003;
Grandey, Fisk, Mattila, Jansen, & Sideman, 2005; Gross, 1998a;
Hochschild, 1983). Côté and colleagues (2013) conducted a face-to-face
negotiation study and a video-mediated negotiation study, in both of
which trained actors were employed to enact the various emotional
expressions. As can be seen in Figure 7.3, deep-acted expressions of
anger led participants to make considerable concessions on their asking
price for a second-hand car, consistent with findings from previous
research discussed above. However, surface-acted expressions of anger
 Social effects of emotions in conflict and negotiation 141
600

500
Magnitude of concessions
400

300

200

100

0
Surface-acted No emotion Deep-acted
anger anger

Figure 7.3 Concessions (in dollars) in a negotiation about a second-

hand car as a function of the counterpart’s emotional displays. There
was a discrepancy of $1,100 between the seller’s initial asking price
and the buyer’s initial offer (based on Côté et al., 2013, Study 2).

undermined trust and thereby decreased rather than increased partici-

pants’ concessions, presumably because the inauthentic anger expres-
sions were perceived as unethical, manipulative, or otherwise
inappropriate influence attempts.
There is currently no empirical evidence concerning the role of expresser
characteristics in shaping the perceived appropriateness of emotional
expressions in negotiations. It is conceivable that factors such as the
expresser’s sex would play a role in this regard. In light of widespread
stereotypes regarding gender and emotion, displays of anger by men
might be deemed more appropriate in negotiations than displays of
anger by women (Eagly, Karau, & Makhijani, 1995; Kring, 2000; K. Lewis,
2000), whereas displays of sadness by women may be perceived as more
appropriate than displays of sadness by men (Plant, Hyde, Keltner, &
Devine, 2000). Thus, all things being equal, male negotiators might have
better chances of success when they express anger rather than sadness,
whereas female negotiators may be more successful when they express
sadness rather than anger. However, there may also be instances in which
emotional expressions that deviate from prevailing gender stereotypes
actually result in favorable negotiation outcomes for the expresser because
they are perceived as more diagnostic, analogous to Adam and Shirako’s
(2013) finding that expressions of anger by East Asians elicited greater
 Free ebooks ==> [Link]
142 Part II Social effects of emotions
concessions than expressions of anger by European Americans. Future
research is needed to examine these and other issues related to expresser
characteristics.

Emotional intelligence in conflict and negotiation

The preceding review reveals that pretty much every emotion can have
positive as well as negative consequences when expressed in the context
of a conflict or negotiation. In keeping with central tenets of EASI theory,
the consequences of emotional expressions depend on the perceiver’s
information-processing motivation and ability and on the perceived
appropriateness of the expressions. From a practical point of view, this
makes the use of emotions as tactical gambits in negotiation a delicate
endeavor.
From the perspective of the expresser, harvesting the potential benefits
of emotional displays in negotiations requires a deep understanding of
the social effects of emotions and careful calibration of one’s emotional
displays to the situation, the counterpart, and the issue at hand. From the
perspective of the perceiver, the ability to accurately detect the emotions
of one’s negotiation partner may provide an edge because insight in the
counterpart’s negotiation position and goals allows one to optimize one’s
own strategy. In other words, using emotions to one’s advantage in
conflict and negotiation would seem to require a certain degree of emo-
tional intelligence – “the ability to monitor one’s own and others’ feelings,
to discriminate among them, and to use this information to guide one’s
thinking and action” (Salovey & Mayer, 1990, p. 189; see Chapter 4 for a
more elaborate discussion).
Empirical work does indeed point to effects of emotional intelligence in
negotiations, but the evidence is less consistent than one might expect.
Several studies converge in showing that emotional intelligence predicts
relevant psychological negotiation outcomes. Negotiators who interacted
with a more emotionally intelligent counterpart reported more positive
negotiation experiences (Foo, Elfenbein, Tan, & Aik, 2004), higher satis-
faction with the outcome of the negotiation (Mueller & Curhan, 2006),
greater trust and rapport (Kim, Cundiff, & Choi, 2014), better liking of
their negotiation partner (Mueller & Curhan, 2006), and a greater will-
ingness to engage in future transactions with the partner (Kim et al., 2014;
Mueller & Curhan, 2006). Effects of emotional intelligence on objective
negotiation outcomes are less reliable, however. In one study, emotion
recognition ability predicted better objective negotiation outcomes, both
in terms of creating value and in terms of claiming value (Elfenbein, Foo,
White, Tan, & Aik, 2007). In another study, however, individuals who
scored higher on emotional intelligence achieved poorer objective

[Link]
 Social effects of emotions in conflict and negotiation 143
outcomes than their counterparts (Foo et al., 2004). Yet another study
revealed no effects of emotional intelligence on joint gain (Kim et al.,
2014).
These inconsistent findings present a puzzle that has yet to be resolved.
One potential explanation lies in the fact that researchers have used
different measures of emotional intelligence (e.g., emotion detection
skills vs. more general assessments of emotional intelligence, self-report
vs. ability-based measures) and different operationalizations of negotia-
tion outcomes (e.g., individual vs. joint outcomes), which renders direct
comparisons across studies difficult and potentially misleading. A partly
related explanation resides in the mixed-motive nature of negotiations,
which provides incentives for cooperation as well as competition
(Schelling, 1960). Research has shown that emotional intelligence allows
individuals to be more successful in the social domain (Mayer, Salovey, &
Caruso, 2004), but how people use their emotional skills in interpersonal
interactions depends on their chronic or momentary social goals (Côté,
DeCelles, McCarthy, Van Kleef, & Hideg, 2011; Kilduff, Chiaburu, &
Menges, 2010). Thus, negotiators with more selfish, Machiavellian incli-
nations may mobilize their emotional intelligence to obtain the best
possible outcome for themselves and/or to weaken their partner’s posi-
tion, whereas those with a more prosocial disposition may use their
emotional skills to enhance joint outcomes.

Conclusion
The research discussed in this chapter shows that discrete emotional
expressions have pervasive effects on behavior in conflict and negotia-
tion. Consistent with EASI theory, these interpersonal effects are driven
by both affective reactions and inferential processes. The relative predic-
tive strength of these two mechanisms depends on the target’s informa-
tion-processing motivation and ability and on social-contextual factors
that determine the perceived appropriateness of the emotional expres-
sions, such as display rules, cultural norms, and the way in which emo-
tions are expressed. In addition, several studies point to the role of
emotional intelligence in shaping both psychological and monetary nego-
tiation outcomes, although the current empirical record is inconclusive
with regard to the latter.
So far research on the effects of emotional expressions in conflict and
negotiation has almost exclusively focused on negotiations between two
individuals (but see Van Beest et al., 2008, discussed above, for a rare
study on the effects of emotional expressions in multiparty coalition
negotiations). Although a great deal can be learned from studies on
interpersonal negotiations, many high-stakes conflicts and negotiations
144 Part II Social effects of emotions
occur between groups of people rather than between individuals. It is
therefore important to extend future investigations of the effects of emo-
tional expressions to the domain of intergroup conflict. Recent research
indicates that emotional expressions are indeed relevant in this context.
De Vos, Van Zomeren, Gordijn, and Postmes (2013) found that the com-
munication of anger in intergroup conflict can reduce destructive conflict
tendencies compared to the communication of contempt or no emotion,
because anger signals that the expresser is motivated to maintain positive
long-term intergroup relations.
Intergroup negotiations are typically conducted by representatives
who negotiate on behalf of a constituency. This introduces an additional
set of features that do not apply in interpersonal negotiation, including
social dynamics associated with the relationship between the representa-
tive and the constituent group. Van Kleef and colleagues (2013) found
that group representatives who occupied a peripheral position within
their group were more responsive to the emotional expressions of the
outgroup representative because they were more motivated than their
prototypical counterparts to engage in thorough information processing
and to gain a rich understanding of the social situation. These initial
investigations attest to the potential impact of emotional expressions in
intergroup conflict, but more research is needed to develop a fuller
understanding of the nature and contingencies of these effects.
Regardless of the level of analysis we adopt (interpersonal or inter-
group), it will be clear from the present analysis that there is no simple
answer to the question of whether emotions are helpful or harmful in
negotiations. Expressions of anger can help to extract concessions from an
opponent by signaling that one is unwilling to compromise, but they can
also elicit strong negative affective reactions and retaliation. Displays of
happiness may contribute to smooth interactions and interpersonal lik-
ing, but they also suggest that one is willing to settle for less. Signs of guilt
may help to repair a damaged business relationship, but they may also
invite exploitation.
Clearly, then, the functionality of emotional displays in negotiations
depends on a complex interplay of factors, including the particular emo-
tion being displayed, the social context within which it is displayed, and
parties’ negotiation goals. For instance, expressions of anger may be
highly effective when they are perceived as appropriate for the situation,
the target is at least somewhat dependent on the expresser, and the
primary goal of the expresser is to serve his or her own immediate
(monetary) interests. Conversely, displays of anger are likely to be coun-
terproductive when they are perceived as inappropriate, when the target
has a more powerful position, and/or when the expresser’s goal is to
establish a fruitful long-term relationship. Similar trade-offs and
 Social effects of emotions in conflict and negotiation 145
contingencies determine the functionality of displays of other discrete
emotions.
In sum, emotional displays play a critical role in conflict and negotia-
tion, and whether they constitute an asset or a liability depends on how
they are used. Emotionally intelligent and strategically savvy negotiators
use their own and their partners’ emotional displays to their advantage to
craft optimal deals. In line with Oscar Wilde’s metaphor in the opening
quote of this chapter, a key to success lies in the right mix of emotional
expressions. The proper dosage of oil and vinegar results not only in a
tasty salad, but also in optimal negotiation outcomes.
 CHAPTER 8

Social effects of emotions on

consumer behavior and customer
service
Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.
Bill Gates

Anyone who has ever received or provided some kind of customer

service – that is, everyone who reads this – is likely to recall several
service encounters that left an emotional mark. Whether we walked
away happy and satisfied or angry and frustrated, and whether we
were in the role of service provider or receiver, we are likely to remember
the emotional tone of the episodes. Like any social interaction, encounters
between service employees and customers are rife with emotional trig-
gers, and the resulting emotional expressions shape momentary interac-
tions as well as future intentions. A tired grocery shopper may catch a
cashier’s cheerfulness and feel satisfied and re-energized. A customer in a
shopping center who is annoyed by a service employee’s bad temper may
decide not to come back to the store and to share her bad experience with
her friends. A nurse may feel uplifted by a patient’s heartfelt gratitude for
the care received, which may increase her job satisfaction and well-being.
A waiter in a touristy restaurant who is routinely confronted with dis-
respectful diners may develop health problems and decide to quit his job.
Examples such as these are all too familiar, both the positive and the
negative, and they testify to the importance of emotions in the service
industry. It is not surprising, then, that organization scholars have long
been interested in the role of emotions in customer service and consumer
behavior. This is for good reasons. Consistent with the general finding
that people’s satisfaction with various aspects of their lives is influenced
by their momentary affective states (Schwarz & Clore, 1983), research on
consumer behavior has documented that (positive) affective states can
bias product attitudes. For instance, consumers experiencing positive
affect have been found to report more favorable attitudes toward pro-
ducts than those in neutral moods (Batra & Stayman, 1990; Edell & Burke,
1987). Moreover, in keeping with anecdotal observations, satisfaction
with the service delivery process of both service providers and customers
is influenced by the emotional tone of their encounters. Service providers’
emotional displays can influence customers’ emotions and their

146
 Social effects of emotions on consumer behavior 147
satisfaction with the service (Hoffman, 1992). Customers’ emotional
expressions can influence service providers’ well-being and job satisfac-
tion (Grandey, Dickter, & Sin, 2004). Moreover, service representatives
may use the emotional reactions of customers as cues about how they are
doing (Mattila & Enz, 2002).
Research on the role of emotions in customer service has been strongly
influenced by Hochschild’s (1983) seminal book The managed heart, in
which she introduced the concept of emotional labor. Hochschild defined
emotional labor as “the management of feeling to create a publicly obser-
vable facial and bodily display” (p. 7) as a part of one’s job. Such emo-
tional labor may involve surface acting, deep acting, or the expression of
genuinely felt emotions (Ashforth & Humphrey, 1993). As discussed in
Chapter 4, surface acting (or emotion-focused regulation) involves creat-
ing outward expressions of emotions that one does not privately experi-
ence, whereas deep acting (or antecedent-focused regulation) involves
changing one’s internally felt emotions so as to be able to express genu-
inely felt emotions that are required in a particular situation (Côté, 2005;
Grandey, 2003; Gross, 1998b; Hochschild, 1983).
Many jobs in the service industry are characterized by social-emotional
requirements that dictate the expression of certain emotions and/or the
suppression of other emotions as part of the work role, with specific
emotional expectancies depending on particularities of the occupational
culture, the discrete emotion in question, and the target of the emotional
display (e.g., a coworker or a customer; Diefendorff & Greguras, 2009). A
common assumption in the literature is that service workers’ effective-
ness and well-being depend on their ability to meet such emotional
requirements (Ashforth & Humphrey, 1993; Hochschild, 1983).
Displaying organizationally incentivized emotions to clients, customers,
or patients has been conceptualized as a type of labor because it often
requires the deliberate and effortful adjustment and/or portrayal of
emotions that one may not necessarily feel so as to meet the demands of
the professional context (James, 1989).
Over three decades of research since the publication of Hochschild’s
(1983) book have produced a rich body of data on the role of emotions in
customer service (Grandey, Diefendorff, & Rupp, 2013). A considerable
proportion of this work is concerned with the impact of various emotion
regulation strategies (e.g., deep acting vs. surface acting) on outcomes
such as service providers’ job satisfaction, well-being, and burnout (e.g.,
Beal, Trougakos, Weiss, & Dalal, 2013; Grandey, 2003; Zapf & Holz, 2006).
A meta-analysis of this research revealed that surface acting was more
strongly associated with decreases in service workers’ job satisfaction and
well-being than deep acting (Hülsheger & Schewe, 2011). This literature
speaks to intrapersonal rather than interpersonal effects of emotions, and,
148 Part II Social effects of emotions
as such, an elaborate discussion falls outside the scope of this book. The
present discussion focuses on the social consequences of emotional dis-
plays in customer service.
Many social interactions are symmetrical in the sense that interact-
ing parties fulfill similar roles (e.g., the role of spouse, group member,
or negotiation partner). Thus, in most research on the role of emotions
in close relationships, groups, and conflict and negotiation discussed
in the preceding chapters, emotional influences between people can
theoretically be assumed to flow in both directions following similar
patterns, except when there are considerable power differences
between interactants. This is different in the case of customer service
(and in the case of leader–follower relations, which are the topic of the
next chapter), because service providers and customers play markedly
different roles. Due to their different roles, customers and service
employees respond somewhat differently to each other’s emotions,
and accordingly research has addressed different types of processes
and outcomes, depending on whether the primary focus was on the
customer or on the service provider. In light of these differences, I
treat the two streams of research separately. I first consider research
on the effects of service providers’ emotional expressions on custo-
mers, followed by a discussion of studies on the effects of customers’
emotional expressions on service workers. Next I consider the effects
of third parties’ emotional expressions on consumers’ product atti-
tudes. Finally, I discuss research on interpersonal emotion regulation
and emotional intelligence in the context of customer service and
consumer behavior.

Effects of service providers’ emotions on customers

The idea that service providers’ emotional expressions may influence the
judgments and behaviors of their customers has been present in the
literature for quite a while (Hochschild, 1983; Rafaeli & Sutton, 1987,
1989). There is a widespread belief among laypersons, service profes-
sionals, and scholars that the emotional displays of service representa-
tives influence customers’ emotional experiences and satisfaction with
the service provided. Much theorizing and research in this area has been
guided by the straightforward assumption that service representatives’
positive emotional displays contribute to favorable service outcomes,
whereas negative emotional displays contribute to unfavorable out-
comes. There is a slight imbalance in the literature, however, in the
sense that the effects of positive emotional expressions have received
greater research attention than the effects of negative emotional expres-
sions. In particular, researchers have shown interest in the impact of
 Social effects of emotions on consumer behavior 149

Customer’s
Salesperson’s
Customer’s positive
affective
positive affect behavioral
delivery
intentions

Figure 8.1 The effects of positive “affective delivery” of salespeople

on customers’ favorable intentions vis-à-vis the store are mediated by
customers’ positive affect (based on Tsai & Huang, 2002).

displays of positive emotion by service providers on various indices of

customer satisfaction.

Service with a smile

The proverbial “service with a smile” is an explicit or implicit job
requirement in many customer service settings, certainly in the United
States. Accordingly, it occupies a prominent position in the customer
service literature. An early study on the effects of smiling behavior by
waitresses in a cocktail lounge revealed that greater smiling was
associated with larger tips by male customers (Tidd & Lockard,
1978). Another study found that service friendliness (which involved
behaviors such as greeting, smiling, and looking at customers) was a
positive predictor of customer satisfaction (Brown & Sulzer-Azaroff,
1994).
Later studies have provided more direct support for the idea that
positive emotional expressions by service personnel enhance customers’
service experiences and contribute to favorable behavioral intentions
vis-à-vis the store. For instance, Pugh (2001) examined the effects of
bank tellers’ positive emotional displays (e.g., smiling) on customers’
emotions and judgments. He found that customers who observed posi-
tive emotions reported more positive affect and more favorable evalua-
tions of service quality. Tsai and colleagues (Tsai, 2001; Tsai & Huang,
2002) found that when salespeople in the retail shoe business displayed
positive emotions, customers reported a higher likelihood of revisiting
the store and spreading positive word of mouth. Barger and Grandey
(2006) found that smiling behavior of food service providers during
encounters with customers was related to favorable perceptions of ser-
vice quality and greater customer satisfaction. Futhermore, Tsai and
Huang (2002) obtained some evidence for the frequently assumed med-
iating role of customers’ affective reactions, as visualized schematically in
Figure 8.1. They demonstrated that positive “affective delivery” of sales-
people, which includes friendliness and service with a smile, instigated
150 Part II Social effects of emotions
positive in-store moods in customers, which in turn contributed to cus-
tomers’ favorable behavioral intentions vis-à-vis the store (i.e., willing-
ness to return to the store and to pass positive comments to friends).
These findings align with lay conceptions about the benefits of smiling
for customer service outcomes. Within the same realm, other studies have
examined the somewhat less obvious consequences of various strategies
aimed at producing the much-appreciated service with a smile. This
research speaks to the differential effects of more versus less authentic
displays of positive emotion.

Emotional labor and the authenticity of service providers’ emotional displays

Customers and service managers expect employees to provide service
with a smile, but naturally employees do not always experience positive
emotions. Job-related emotional expectations and requirements may
therefore lead service workers to portray positive emotions that they do
not actually feel (Hochschild, 1983). An important determinant of the
effectiveness of such positive emotional displays is the degree to which
customers perceive them as genuine and authentic (Grandey, Fisk,
Mattila, Jansen, & Sideman, 2005). In a study involving videotaped simu-
lated hotel check-in encounters with a trained actress as the service
representative, Grandey and colleagues found that authenticity of the
service provider’s positive emotional displays enhanced perceptions of
friendliness and customer satisfaction, but only when the service provi-
der performed well (see Figure 8.2). In a second study, the perceived
authenticity of an employee’s emotional displays enhanced customer
satisfaction, regardless of task performance. Together, these studies sug-
gest that authentic smiles contribute to perceptions of service quality,
even though they may not compensate for objectively bad service
performance.
In line with theorizing about the effects of emotion regulation strategies
on the perceived authenticity of emotional expressions (see Chapter 4),
several studies indicate that customers’ perceptions of the authenticity of
service workers’ emotional expressions and customers’ responses to
those expressions depend on how the expressions were regulated. For
instance, Grandey (2003) found that deep acting on the part of service
workers was positively associated with ratings of affective delivery (the
extent to which the service was perceived as friendly and warm), whereas
surface acting was negatively related to affective delivery. Affective
delivery, in turn, has been associated with favorable service outcomes
(Pugh, 2001; Tsai, 2001).
Service employees’ emotional labor strategies of deep acting versus
surface acting have been shown to influence other indices of service
 Social effects of emotions on consumer behavior 151

6
Customer satisfaction

5
Authentic positive
4 display
Inauthentic positive
3 display

1
High performance Low performance

Figure 8.2 Customer satisfaction as a function of a service provider’s

authentic versus inauthentic positive emotional displays and the qual-
ity of the service provider’s performance (based on Grandey et al.,
2005, Study 1).

quality as well. When analyzing dyadic survey data from a large number
of service interactions between employees and customers, Groth and
colleagues found that deep acting was positively associated with percep-
tions of customer orientation, ratings of service quality, and customers’
loyalty intentions, whereas surface acting was not (Groth, Hennig-
Thurau, & Walsh, 2009). Their data further revealed that these effects
were stronger among customers who were more accurate at detecting
employees’ emotion regulation strategies. This suggests that customers
with higher levels of emotional intelligence are better at discriminating
between sincere and insincere expressions of positive emotion by service
providers, which makes them more likely than their less emotionally
intelligent counterparts to respond favorably to sincere smiles but also
to respond unfavorably to insincere smiles.
Experimental research provides complementary insights. In a study
involving simulated service encounters in which actors played the
roles of service employees, Hennig-Thurau and colleagues investi-
gated how customers’ emotions and satisfaction with the service are
shaped by employees’ smiling behavior and their use of a deep acting
or a surface acting emotion regulation strategy (Hennig-Thurau,
Groth, Paul, & Gremler, 2006). The authors hypothesized that authen-
tic displays of happiness (as produced by deep acting) trigger more
positive emotions in customers than inauthentic displays of happiness
152 Part II Social effects of emotions
(as produced by surface acting), because customers appreciate honesty
and authenticity. In support of this idea, participants who were con-
fronted with deep-acted happiness displays by a service employee
were more likely to adopt the positive emotion of that employee
than were those who encountered surface-acted happiness displays.
Moreover, deep-acted displays of happiness resulted in greater custo-
mer satisfaction and experienced rapport with the service employee
than surface-acted displays.
The general pattern that emerges from these studies is that deep acting
on the part of customer service representatives has favorable conse-
quences for customers’ emotions, satisfaction, and future intentions vis-
à-vis the store, whereas surface acting has negative consequences. This
conclusion was also borne out by a meta-analysis, which revealed a
negative relationship between surface acting and various indices of ser-
vice quality such as task performance and customer satisfaction, and a
positive relationship between deep acting and service quality (Hülsheger
& Schewe, 2011).
The exact mechanisms through which deep acting and surface act-
ing exert their positive and negative effects in customer service set-
tings have not yet been uncovered. Hennig-Thurau and colleagues
(2006) highlighted the fact that customers (much like people in gen-
eral) desire to be treated honestly. This idea resonates with a key
proposition of Emotions as Social Information (EASI) theory about
the adverse effects of emotional expressions that are perceived as
inappropriate (see Chapter 4). Inauthentic emotional expressions
may be perceived as dishonest or manipulative influence attempts
(Côté, Hideg, & Van Kleef, 2013). The perceived inappropriateness
of such influence tactics may inspire negative affective reactions in
customers that may lead them to turn against the service employee
and/or the company that they represent (Rafaeli & Sutton, 1989; Van
Kleef, Homan, & Cheshin, 2012).
Although few studies have explicitly considered the notion of appro-
priateness of emotional displays in customer service, there is some evi-
dence that service employees’ emotional expressions are more likely to
have beneficial effects to the degree that they are perceived as normative
by customers. Menon and Dubé (2000) reported a study on the effects of
salespersons’ positive (joy and delight) and negative (anxiety and anger)
emotions as a function of the normative emotional expectations of custo-
mers. They found that emotional responses of salespersons that met or
exceeded customers’ expectations led to greater customer satisfaction
than emotional responses that fell short of expectations. This was true
for the positive as well as the negative emotions. More direct evidence for
the role of the perceived appropriateness of service workers’ emotional
 Social effects of emotions on consumer behavior 153
displays comes from a recent line of research on the effects of emotional
intensity in customer service.

The intensity and perceived appropriateness of service providers’ emotional

displays
As elaborated in Chapter 4, the perceived appropriateness of emotional
displays depends on the degree to which they are “correct for the situa-
tion and in correct proportion to the evoking circumstances” (Shields,
2005, p. 7). Besides displaying the “wrong” emotion for the context (e.g.,
cheerfully telling a customer that the reserved product she came to pick
up has not been delivered), service employees may express emotions
whose intensity does not match the implicit script for that particular
situation (e.g., bursting out in tears while explaining that the reserved
product is not in store). EASI posits that emotional expressions whose
intensity violates situational scripts may evoke negative affective reac-
tions and concomitant behavior in observers because such expressions
are perceived as inappropriate (Van Kleef et al., 2012).
Building on these ideas, Cheshin and colleagues examined whether
and how service providers’ displays of emotions of varying intensities
have diverging effects on relevant customer service outcomes (Cheshin,
Amit, & Van Kleef, 2015). To enable a meaningful investigation of the
effects of positive (happiness) as well as negative (sadness) emotions of
varying intensities, the authors created customer service settings that
were somewhat ambiguous in terms of their emotional meaning. That
is, participants who inquired about a specific product (i.e., a particular
book or DVD) were told by the service representative that that particular
item was currently not in store, but that an interesting alternative was
available. Given that this situation involves both bad news and good
news, the service employee could credibly display either sadness about
the lack of availability of the requested item or happiness about the
availability of the alternative. In light of the relatively minor importance
of the situation, however, highly intense emotional expressions of either
emotion would likely violate customers’ implicit normative scripts for
that situation, meaning that intense expressions should be perceived as
relatively inappropriate compared to mild expressions, thereby poten-
tially undermining perceptions of service quality.
In an initial laboratory study conducted to test this possibility, Cheshin
et al. (2015) found that verbal expressions of high-intensity (as opposed to
low-intensity) sadness and happiness led participants to evaluate a ser-
vice provider’s emotion as more inauthentic and inappropriate, and to
deem the service provider as less trustworthy. In a second experiment,
the authors replicated the effect of emotion intensity on trust and
154 Part II Social effects of emotions
obtained evidence that the impact of emotion intensity extends to evalua-
tions of service quality. Satisfaction with the service was somewhat
higher when the employee expressed happiness rather than sadness,
but above and beyond that effect, participants reported significantly
greater satisfaction in both mild emotion conditions than in both intense
emotion conditions. The effect of the intensity of emotional expressions
on satisfaction with the service was mediated by perceptions of the
employee’s trustworthiness.
Finally, Cheshin and colleagues (2015) replicated their experimental
findings in a field study. Shoppers were handed out flyers inviting them
to try a new movie recommendation web service in return for a free DVD.
Upon indicating their favorite movie genre online, respondents received
a message from an employee of the (fictitious) web company, who
explained that movies in that particular genre were currently not in
stock, but that the system had identified an alternative movie for them
that they might also find interesting to watch. The message contained a
verbal expression of either mild or intense happiness or sadness. Again,
respondents indicated trusting the service representative more and being
more satisfied with the service after receiving a message containing a
mild rather than an intense emotional expression. Moreover, participants
in the mild expression conditions were more likely to have watched their
free DVD ten days after receiving it than were those in the intense
expression conditions.

Summary
Several studies indicate that positive emotional displays by service pro-
viders are associated with favorable outcomes such as customer satisfac-
tion, intentions to return to the store, positive word of mouth, and tipping
behavior. Furthermore, there is ample evidence that emotional displays
that are perceived as authentic and/or appropriate are more likely to
have a favorable impact on customers, whereas emotional displays that
are perceived as inauthentic and/or inappropriate are more likely to have
unfavorable consequences. This evidence supports the moderating role of
the perceived appropriateness of emotional expressions as postulated in
EASI theory. To date, no studies have examined the role of information
processing (another key moderator of the social effects of emotions
according to EASI theory), and, as such, no evidence for such moderation
is currently available from this domain of research.
Evidence for behavioral consequences of service representatives’ emo-
tional displays is scarce, which is most likely due to the obvious difficul-
ties associated with measuring behavior in customer service settings.
Most studies that aimed to speak to behavior included measures of
 Social effects of emotions on consumer behavior 155
customers’ behavioral intentions (e.g., intentions to return to the store or
to spread positive word of mouth), which are likely to be relatively
strongly correlated with momentary affective reactions to a service
encounter. Evidence for such affective reactions abounds, with numerous
studies pointing to effects of service providers’ emotional expressions on
customers’ emotional states, impressions of the service representative,
and/or satisfaction with the service. The potential mediating role of more
deliberate inferential processes has not received systematic attention in
research on the impact of service workers’ emotional displays on custo-
mers. However, scholars have begun to consider the role of inferential
processes in studies on the effects of customers’ emotional expressions on
service providers.

Effects of customers’ emotions on service providers

Reflecting the qualitatively different roles and behaviors associated with
consumers and service providers, research on the impact of customers’
emotional expressions on service workers has focused on different types
of processes and outcomes than research on the effects of service workers’
emotional expressions on customers. Some of these studies focused pri-
marily on service providers’ affective and behavioral reactions to custo-
mers’ emotional expressions, whereas other studies focused on the
cognitive consequences of customers’ emotional expressions. I discuss
these two types of research in turn.

Affective and behavioral consequences of customers’ emotional displays

Service providers are confronted with emotional expressions of custo-
mers on a daily basis. Although employees are likely to encounter posi-
tive as well as negative emotional displays of customers, research has
focused mostly on the consequences of negative displays such as anger
(Miron-Spektor & Rafaeli, 2009). Customers may express anger or
become rude, hostile, or aggressive in encounters with service represen-
tatives, for instance when complaining about unsatisfactory service.
Research shows that verbal abuse by customers is more prevalent than
verbal abuse by coworkers or supervisors, and that customer verbal
aggression predicts service representatives’ well-being over and above
verbal aggression by fellow organization members (Grandey, Kern, &
Frone, 2007). In a field study by Grandey and colleagues (2004), call center
employees in the United States reported being confronted with customer
verbal aggression on average ten times a day. The higher the frequency of
customer aggression and the more employees appraised the encounters
as stressful, the more emotionally exhausted they felt. Emotional
156 Part II Social effects of emotions
exhaustion in turn predicted absenteeism. Similarly, a field study among
hotel employees in Cyprus showed that customer verbal aggression pre-
dicted emotional exhaustion, which in turn undermined service recovery
performance and job satisfaction and increased turnover intentions
(Karatepe, Yorganci, & Haktanir, 2009).
These effects of customer anger and verbal aggression align with
research on the effects of customer mistreatment and interactional injus-
tice, even though this work did not explicitly address the role of emo-
tional expressions. In an experimental study, Rupp and Spencer (2006)
investigated the consequences of customer interactional unfairness,
which involves personal attacks on service employees and a general
lack of dignity and respect in the way they approach employees.
Participants played the role of customer service representatives in a
workplace simulation, during which they were confronted with either
interactionally fair or interactionally unfair customers. Results showed
that unfairly treated participants experienced more anger than did those
who were treated fairly, which made it more difficult for them to comply
with display rules. A study involving daily survey data from call center
employees in China further showed that customer mistreatment signifi-
cantly predicted customer-directed sabotage, which involved behaviors
such as hanging up on customers, intentionally putting them on hold for
a long period of time, and purposefully transferring their calls to the
wrong department (Wang, Liao, Zhan, & Shi, 2011).
There is some evidence that service employees’ responses to customers’
incivility depend on their own chronic positive or negative affectivity.
One study found that a higher frequency of customer aggression was
associated with reduced well-being and job satisfaction especially among
employees with higher levels of trait positive affect (Goussinsky, 2011).
Although the exact dynamics responsible for this effect are unclear, it is
conceivable that customer aggression is perceived as particularly rude
and inappropriate by employees who tend to adopt a more positive
emotional approach in social interactions themselves. At the same time,
employees high on trait negative affectivity have been found to be more
likely to lash out to rude customers by purposefully sabotaging them
(Wang et al., 2011). These studies suggest that service employees high on
positive versus negative affectivity respond quite differently to customer
verbal aggression. The former may privately suffer more from the per-
ceived mistreatment, whereas the latter may be more likely to actively
take revenge.
Recent work by Glikson and colleagues provides more direct evidence
for the role of perceived appropriateness in shaping service providers’
responses to customers’ expressions of anger (Glikson, Rafaeli, & Wirtz,
2015). The authors examined the combined effects of the intensity of
 Social effects of emotions on consumer behavior 157
anger displays and culture on customer service representatives’ reactions
to angry customers. In a lab simulation conducted in Israel (individualis-
tic culture) and Singapore (collectivistic culture), they found that percep-
tions of appropriateness of anger displays (based on the intensity of the
anger) differed between the two cultures, and that responses to the anger
differed accordingly. Students acting as service representatives had the
option of replying to an angry customer’s message immediately or put-
ting it off until later. They could also decide whether or not to offer
monetary compensation to the customer. Israeli participants handled
the complaints of customers who showed high-intensity anger more
quickly than those of customers who showed low-intensity anger,
whereas Singaporean participants did not differ in this respect.
Moreover, Israelis offered higher compensation to customers emitting
high-rather than low-intensity anger displays, whereas Singaporeans
gave less compensation to customers showing high-intensity anger.
Although the precise mechanisms underlying these effects remain to be
uncovered, it seems plausible that the negative responses of Singaporean
participants to intense expressions of anger were due in part to negative
affective reactions triggered by the perceived inappropriateness of the
emotional displays (Van Kleef et al., 2012).
Another recent experimental study provides compatible evidence for
the role of perceived appropriateness of emotional expressions. Cheshin
and colleagues examined how customers’ expressions of anger shape
service providers’ tendencies to offer compensation depending on the
intensity of customers’ anger displays (Cheshin, Glikson, Van Kleef, &
Rafaeli, 2015). Participants played the role of service representatives of a
resort company, in which capacity they were confronted with several
customer complaints. Some of the complaints were delivered in an emo-
tionally neutral fashion, whereas others were accompanied by expres-
sions of anger. Using a trained actress, the tone of the angry
complainant’s voice was experimentally varied to express anger at dif-
ferent levels of intensity. In the mild anger expression condition the
complainant’s tone of voice remained polite and composed, but her
annoyance about the situation was clearly articulated. In the moderate
anger condition the complainant’s tone of voice was noticeably aggra-
vated. In the intense anger condition the complainant’s tone of voice was
very angry indeed, and the voice message ended with the sound of the
phone slamming. After listening to the complaints, participants had to
decide how to allocate an assigned amount of compensation money
among all complaints received. Participants offered higher compensation
in response to mildly or moderately angry complaints than in response to
nonemotional complaints. However, they offered less compensation to
the intensely angry complainant. The effects of anger expressions on
158 Part II Social effects of emotions
compensation were mediated by participants’ perceptions of the inap-
propriateness of the complainant’s expressions, which were exacerbated
in the intense anger condition.

Cognitive consequences of customers’ emotional displays

Analogous to the various other domains of social interaction covered in
this book, the emotional expressions of customers may also trigger infer-
ential processes in service employees, for instance regarding the quality
of their service. Quite sensibly, consumers’ appreciation of the service
they receive has been found to correlate with their experienced and
expressed emotions, with positive affect being associated with favorable
service assessments and negative affect with negative assessments
(Gardner, 1985; Mattila & Enz, 2002). Thus, customers’ emotional expres-
sions may provide useful information about how they evaluate the ser-
vice. Accordingly, Mattila and Enz (2002) proposed that “a customer’s
displayed emotions might be one of those discriminating cues that enable
contact employees to enhance their own performance” (p. 274). Or, as Bill
Gates put it in the opening quote of this chapter, unhappy customers may
be a service company’s greatest source of learning.
Although direct tests of the role of inferential processes in the context of
customer service are scarce, there is some evidence that service employ-
ees use customers’ emotional displays as a source of information about
the quality of their service. Hareli and colleagues (2009) examined how
emotional expressions of customers influence service representatives’
inferences regarding the credibility of a complaint. They found that
when a situation was ambiguous and the complaint left room for doubt,
displays of anger (compared to sadness) on the part of the customer
bolstered perceptions of injustice and enhanced the perceived credibility
of the complaint in the eyes of the service provider. Besides speaking to
inferential processes associated with emotional displays in customer
service, this finding corroborates the more general theoretical notion
that emotional expressions take on heightened diagnostic importance
under more ambiguous circumstances, where more direct information
about the expresser’s situation and/or intentions is lacking (Van Kleef,
De Dreu, & Manstead, 2010).
Another study examined how exposure to angry customers may influ-
ence service workers’ task performance and problem-solving capabilities
(Miron-Spektor, Efrat-Treister, Rafaeli, & Schwarz-Cohen, 2011). In a
series of experiments, Miron-Spektor and colleagues obtained evidence
that expressions of anger by customers enhance service providers’ per-
formance on relatively straightforward analytical tasks that can be com-
pleted by following a well-rehearsed routine, but undermine
 Social effects of emotions on consumer behavior 159
performance on more complex problem-solving tasks that require flexible
switching between different alternative representations of the problem
and engaging more unconventional perspectives. The authors concluded
that observing anger motivates people to apply dominant responses to
well-known problems and situations, while interfering with their ability
to perform complex problem-solving tasks. Interestingly, the experi-
ments also produced some evidence that more indirect expressions of
anger through sarcastic remarks can have a positive effect on complex
thinking and problem-solving performance. The authors suggested that
the incongruent information that is inherent in sarcasm stimulates com-
plex thinking and attenuates the negative effects of anger on individuals’
problem-solving capacities.
Along related lines, another series of studies provides evidence that
customer verbal aggression can have debilitating effects on service pro-
viders’ cognitive performance (Rafaeli et al., 2012). Customers’ verbal
aggression was found to impair the recognition memory and working
memory of service workers and, accordingly, to reduce their recall of
customers’ requests. The authors further reported evidence for detrimen-
tal effects of customer verbal aggression on the quality of service employ-
ees’ cognitive task performance. In line with the general pattern that
emotional expressions of more powerful parties have a greater impact
than do those of less powerful parties (Keltner, Van Kleef, Chen, & Kraus,
2008), the negative impact of customer verbal aggression on cognitive
performance was especially pronounced when the aggression was exhib-
ited by high-status customers.

Summary
Several studies point to the cognitive, affective, and behavioral conse-
quences of customers’ emotional expressions for service providers.
Reflecting a strong interest in adverse (health) consequences for service
workers, this literature has focused almost exclusively on the effects of
customer expressions of anger and related displays of hostility or aggres-
sion. This predominantly cross-sectional body of research has documen-
ted robust associations between displays of anger and hostility by
customers and negative affect, emotional exhaustion, and decreased job
satisfaction of service employees, which are sometimes reflected in absen-
teeism, turnover intentions, or customer-directed sabotage. Given that
much of this research has employed cross-sectional research designs,
some caution is warranted when interpreting the findings. For instance,
it is difficult to completely rule out the possibility that employees who are
emotionally exhausted and unsatisfied with their jobs evoke more nega-
tive emotional displays from customers than employees who are happy
160 Part II Social effects of emotions
with their jobs, although such reverse causality is less likely in some
studies due to the inclusion of various control variables and/or the use
of longitudinal designs.
There is also some evidence that customer displays of anger can
enhance service outcomes (e.g., compensation for prior unsatisfactory
service), provided that service providers perceive the expressions as
appropriate for the context. When displays of anger are overly intense
or in violation of culturally determined display rules, anger expressions
are more likely to undermine rather than improve service quality.
Research has further documented cognitive and performance conse-
quences of customers’ emotional expressions, most notably anger.
Expressions of anger have been found to increase the perceived credibil-
ity of customer complaints in the eyes of service workers. Moreover, there
is evidence that customer expressions of anger may motivate service
personnel to perform better, but only on relatively well-learned tasks
and/or when the anger is displayed in an indirect way. Direct expres-
sions of anger have been found to undermine performance on more
complex tasks, and displays of aggression have been shown to impair
memory capacity and cognitive performance.
This body of research provides evidence for the role of affective reac-
tions as well as inferential processes in the context of customer service. In
addition, several studies speak to the role of the perceived appropriate-
ness of customers’ emotional expressions. Relatively few studies have
examined the ways in which affective reactions and inferential processes
shape service providers’ behavior, and so far no research has explicitly
investigated contingency factors that shape the relative impact of both
processes on behavior. EASI would predict that service providers are
more likely to use customers’ emotional displays to draw inferences
regarding the quality of their service to the degree that they are more
motivated and able to engage in thorough information processing, but to
date no evidence for this possibility exists. Moreover, the almost exclu-
sive focus on anger renders the generalizability of the emerging patterns
to other emotions uncertain at this point. Interestingly, some evidence
regarding the effects of emotions other than anger is provided by research
on the influence of third parties’ emotional displays on product attitudes.

How third parties’ emotional expressions shape consumers’ attitudes

We have seen that consumers’ satisfaction with service encounters and
their attitudes toward products and stores are shaped by their own
emotional state as well as by the emotional expressions of service provi-
ders. There is also evidence that such attitudes are influenced by emo-
tional expressions of impartial third parties who have no vested interest
 Social effects of emotions on consumer behavior 161
in making a profit or selling a particular product. Various streams of
research in the areas of social psychology and consumer behavior con-
verge to show that third parties’ emotional expressions can influence
product attitudes by eliciting affective reactions and/or inferential pro-
cesses in perceivers.
Fundamental social-psychological research indicates that the positive
or negative valence of emotional expressions may become directly asso-
ciated with a stimulus via evaluative conditioning (De Houwer, Thomas,
& Baeyens, 2001). In this type of process, an emotional expression can
come to serve as the unconditioned stimulus that changes the subjective
valence of a previously neutral conditioned stimulus. As a case in point,
Murphy and Zajonc (1993) showed that subliminal exposure to happy or
angry facial expressions led participants to judge neutral Chinese ideo-
graphs more and less favorably, respectively. Other studies found com-
patible effects of subliminal affective priming with emotional expressions
(e.g., Winkielman, Zajonc, & Schwarz, 1997) as well as of classical con-
ditioning involving emotional expressions (e.g., Baccus, Baldwin, &
Packer, 2004).
There is also some suggestive evidence that third parties’ emotional
expressions can influence perceivers’ voting behavior. Mullen and col-
leagues (1986) found that the positivity of a newscaster’s facial expres-
sions while referring to one of the 1984 presidential candidates predicted
viewers’ voting behavior. Regular viewing of a newscaster who exhibited
“biased” facial expressions in favor of a particular political candidate was
associated with an increased likelihood of voting for that candidate
(Ronald Reagan). Besides issues of reverse causality and the potential
role of third variables, it is unclear from this study how the effects of the
newscaster’s emotional displays on viewers’ voting behavior came about.
Later studies shed more light on the underlying mechanisms that may be
responsible for the effects of sources’ emotional displays on perceivers’
attitudes, providing direct evidence for the mediating role of affective
reactions as well as inferential processes.
One study focused on the role of affective reactions in shaping attitu-
dinal responses to others’ emotional displays. Specifically, Howard and
Gengler (2001) examined the effects of emotional contagion on product
evaluations in two experiments. They found that participants developed
a more favorable attitude toward a product when another person whom
they liked showed positive as opposed to neutral emotional displays
while evaluating the product. The authors further demonstrated that
these effects were mediated by emotional contagion: Participants caught
the positive emotions of the expresser, which in turn influenced their
product attitudes.
 Free ebooks ==> [Link]
162 Part II Social effects of emotions
Another series of experiments speaks to the role of inferential processes
in the relationship between emotional expressions and attitudes (Van
Kleef, Van den Berg, & Heerdink, 2015). One experiment showed that
attitudes about a Dutch television show were influenced by a source’s
verbal emotional expressions of happiness versus sadness in response to
plans to discontinue the show. Participants reported more favorable
attitudes toward the show after reading a sad reaction to the intended
discontinuation than after reading a happy reaction. Presumably, parti-
cipants inferred from the source’s negative emotional reactions to the
intended discontinuation of the show that the show was valuable and
should be continued. In another experiment, participants viewed a spe-
cially developed news bulletin about Greenpeace that contained inter-
views with people on the street, one of whom expressed either anger or
happiness about Greenpeace by means of facial expressions and vocal
intonation. Participants who watched the happy source later reported a
marginally more positive attitude about Greenpeace than they had
reported at the beginning of the experimental session, whereas those
who had watched the angry source reported a significantly more negative
attitude than before.
Additional experiments provided complementary evidence for the
moderating role of information-processing motivation and ability (Van
Kleef et al., 2015). One study showed that participants’ opinions about the
ideal mix of textbooks and research articles in the psychology curriculum
were more strongly influenced by another participant’s emotions (as
expressed by means of emoticons) to the degree that they had a stronger
dispositional tendency to engage in thorough information processing.
Another experiment revealed that a source’s facial expressions of sadness
versus happiness only influenced participants’ attitudes about a particu-
lar topic when they had ample cognitive resources available. As shown in
Figure 8.3, the source’s emotional display influenced participants’ atti-
tudes when they were placed under low cognitive load, but the effect was
mitigated when participants were put under high cognitive load (i.e.,
when they had to memorize a ten-digit telephone number). These find-
ings suggest that people use others’ emotional expressions as pieces of
information upon which to base their attitudes about various issues,
provided that they are sufficiently motivated and able to engage in
thorough information processing.

Interpersonal emotion regulation

Reflecting the important role of customers’ emotions in shaping their
product attitudes and service experience (Batra & Stayman, 1990; Edell
& Burke, 1987), the last two decades have witnessed a growing interest in

[Link]
 Social effects of emotions on consumer behavior 163

80

75
Attitude favorability
70

65 Sadness
Happiness
60

55

50
Low cognitive load High cognitive load

Figure 8.3 Attitude favorability (on a scale of 0–100) as a function of

the emotional display of the source of a persuasive communication
and the perceiver’s cognitive load (based on Van Kleef et al., 2015,
Study 3).

interpersonal emotion management strategies, that is, the ways in which

individuals may regulate the emotional states of others (Francis, 1997;
Little, Kluemper, Nelson, & Gooty, 2012; Niven, Totterdell, & Holman,
2009; Williams, 2007). This theoretical development is of particular rele-
vance to the service industry, because there are obvious incentives for
service providers to engage in attempts at increasing customers’ positive
affect and/or reducing their negative affect (Little, Kluemper, Nelson, &
Ward, 2013; Lively, 2000; Locke, 1996). Indeed, besides regulating one’s
own emotional experiences and expressions (Gross, 1998b; Parkinson &
Totterdell, 1999), a key part of emotional performance in the service
industry consists of managing the emotional experience of customers
and clients (Gabriel, Cheshin, Moran, & Van Kleef, in press). Examples
of such interpersonal emotion management are medical personnel trying
to alleviate the distress of patients (Francis, Monahan, & Berger, 1999) and
customer service personnel attempting to increase customers’ positive
affect so as to improve their satisfaction with the service and increase the
likelihood of (future) business (Locke, 1996).
Shifting the empirical focus to such interpersonal emotion manage-
ment, recent research has begun to examine how interpersonal emotion
regulation strategies employed by customer service representatives influ-
ence customers’ emotions. Building on previous work on emotion reg-
ulation (e.g., Gross, 1998b; Williams, 2007), Little and colleagues (2013)
distinguished between problem-focused emotion regulation strategies
164 Part II Social effects of emotions
(changing, removing, or altering a problem to remove its emotional
impact or reappraising a situation or problem in a more positive way)
and emotion-focused regulation strategies (directing the target’s atten-
tion to something more pleasant or modulating the target’s emotional
response tendencies). Based on their analysis of customer service calls,
the authors concluded that problem-focused strategies reduced the inten-
sity of customers’ negative emotions and increased the intensity of posi-
tive emotions, whereas emotion-focused strategies had the opposite
effects on customers’ emotions.
Interestingly, the study by Little and colleagues (2013) also revealed
that customers’ initial emotions influenced the regulation strategy
adopted by the service representative. Ironically, negative emotions
expressed by the customer reduced the use of the more effective
problem-focused emotion regulation strategies and increased the use
of the less effective emotion-focused regulation strategies. This sug-
gests that customers who enter a service encounter in a negative
emotional state set in motion a self-perpetuating cycle of negative
emotions and ineffective regulation strategies (above and beyond the
spreading of negative affect via emotional contagion; Hatfield,
Cacioppo, & Rapson, 1994), which may undermine the quality of the
service and reduce the likelihood of future business and positive word
of mouth.
As discussed previously, regulating their own emotions can come at a
cost to employees in the form of emotional exhaustion and health impair-
ments, particularly when emotions are regulated by means of surface
acting (Hülsheger & Schewe, 2011). Interestingly, however, results of a
field study among prisoners and staff members in a therapeutic prison as
well as a laboratory study involving a student sample yielded evidence
that interpersonal emotion-enhancing regulation strategies are positively
associated with the regulator’s own well-being (Niven, Totterdell,
Holman, & Headley, 2012). This finding suggests that employees who
are adept at upregulating others’ positive emotions benefit not only in
terms of their service performance but also in terms of their personal
health.
In short, there is emerging evidence that interpersonal emotion regula-
tion is critical to service performance as well as to the well-being of
service providers and customers. It is also clear, however, that some
interpersonal emotion regulation strategies are more effective than others
and that there is considerable variation in the degree to which individuals
are inclined to use particular strategies. It stands to reason that service
employees who are more aware of the intrapersonal and interpersonal
consequences of various emotion regulation strategies and who are more
capable of using the right strategies in the right circumstances are more
 Social effects of emotions on consumer behavior 165
successful than are those who have lesser insight in and/or ability to
recruit appropriate interpersonal emotion regulation strategies. This sug-
gests that the well-being and service performance of service employees
depend on their emotional intelligence.

Emotional intelligence in the service industry

It is clear from the above that employees in the consumer business are
faced with a difficult challenge. They are expected and encouraged to
express positive emotions during service encounters with customers
(Hochschild, 1983), and failure to comply with such expectations may
undermine customer satisfaction (Pugh, 2001; Tsai, 2001). However,
when service employees show positive emotions that they do not feel
and that therefore come across as inauthentic, customer satisfaction may
also be compromised (Grandey et al., 2005; Groth et al., 2009). Research
suggests that the best way out of this dilemma is for service workers to
engage in emotion regulation strategies such as deep acting (or antece-
dent-focused emotion regulation) that help them to actually experience
the positive emotions that the job requires them to display. Compared to
surface acting, deep acting results in more favorable customer impres-
sions, and it is associated with better health outcomes (Grandey, 2003).
Clearly, however, not all employees are equally capable of mobilizing
effective emotion regulation strategies. It seems plausible that the ability
to do so depends on employees’ emotional intelligence, particularly their
emotion regulation abilities (Côté, 2005).
Indirect evidence for the influence of emotional intelligence on emotion
regulation comes from a study on the relation between age and the
selection of emotion regulation strategies (Dahling & Perez, 2010).
Throughout their lives, individuals’ understanding of their own and
others’ emotions and of ways to manage them gradually increases.
Indeed, there is evidence that older people have, on average, higher
emotional intelligence than younger people (Mayer, Caruso, & Salovey,
1999; Van Rooy, Alonso, & Viswesvaran, 2005). Accordingly, older indi-
viduals may use more effective emotion regulation strategies than their
younger counterparts (Gross & John, 2003). Consistent with this argu-
ment, Dahling and Perez found that older service employees were less
likely to employ surface acting and more likely to engage in deep acting
and the expression of naturally felt emotions. Even though emotional
intelligence was not measured in this study, the findings are suggestive of
the possibility that higher levels of emotional intelligence allow service
personnel to recruit more effective emotion regulation strategies.
Other work provides more direct evidence for the role of emotional
intelligence in customer service. One stream of research examined
166 Part II Social effects of emotions
whether emotional intelligence can act as a buffer of the adverse effects of
emotional labor on service workers’ well-being. These studies have
yielded mixed evidence. A longitudinal study involving a sample of
nurses and police officers revealed that emotion recognition (as measured
with an ability test) moderated the relationship between emotional labor
and work engagement (Bechtoldt, Rohrmann, De Pater, & Beersma,
2011). Specifically, service employees with relatively poor emotion recog-
nition skills who engaged in surface acting or deep acting reported lower
work engagement four weeks later, whereas those with higher emotion
recognition skills did not. A survey among frontline employees of five-
star hotels in Korea similarly suggested that emotional intelligence
(assessed using a self-report measure) buffers the relationship between
emotional labor and employee emotional exhaustion and service recov-
ery performance (Kim, Yoo, Lee, & Kim, 2012). However, another survey
among employees of eight different customer service organizations did
not yield evidence that self-reported emotional intelligence moderates
the relationship between emotional labor strategies and emotional
exhaustion, affective well-being, and job satisfaction (Johnson &
Spector, 2007).
Another stream of research has linked various aspects of emotional
intelligence to the perceived quality of service performance. In one
study, emotion recognition skills (as assessed with an ability-based mea-
sure) predicted performance on a managerial assessment center, which
included activities such as team meetings and individual speeches
(Bommer, Pesta, & Storrud-Barnes, 2011). Importantly, the effects of emo-
tion recognition emerged above and beyond effects of general mental
ability and conscientiousness. Several field studies uncovered similar
effects of emotional intelligence in naturalistic settings. In these studies,
salespersons’ self-reported emotional intelligence was associated with
their perceived customer orientation (Rozell, Pettijohn, & Parker, 2004);
the emotional intelligence of physicians (as rated by nurses) was a positive
predictor of the patient’s trust in the physician (Weng, 2008); the self-
reported emotional competence of financial advisers was related to cus-
tomer evaluations (both directly and via customers’ positive affective
states during the encounters; Giardini & Frese, 2008); casino hosts’ self-
reported emotional intelligence was positively associated with their
adaptability and service performance in encounters with “premium
players” (Prentice & King, 2013); and customer perceptions of employee
emotional competence were positively associated with customer satisfac-
tion and loyalty (Delcourt, Gremler, Van Riel, & Van Birgelen, 2013).
Together, these studies paint a fairly consistent picture of the generally
favorable effects of emotional intelligence on the well-being and perfor-
mance of service employees. A word of caution is in order, however,
 Social effects of emotions on consumer behavior 167
when it comes to drawing firm conclusions from the observed patterns.
Many of the investigations reviewed above employed self-report or peer-
report measures of emotional intelligence, presumably because it is often
unfeasible to administer extensive ability-based emotional intelligence
tests in field research. There is a debate in the literature about the extent to
which such measures tap actual emotional abilities (Côté, 2010). People
are notoriously biased in their evaluations of their own abilities
(Dunning, Heath, & Suls, 2004), and self-evaluations of emotional abil-
ities are no exception – nearly 80 percent of people believe that they are
among the top 50 percent most emotionally intelligent individuals
(Brackett, Rivers, Shiffman, Lerner, & Salovey, 2006). People may thus
portray their own levels of emotional competence as more favorable than
they really are, whether knowingly or unknowingly, for instance due to
self-serving biases or social desirability concerns. Peer ratings of emo-
tional intelligence do not suffer from this problem, but they may be
subject to halo effects (Nisbett & Wilson, 1977). That is, observers may
provide higher emotional intelligence ratings of people whom they like
than of people whom they dislike. In light of these potential limitations,
more studies involving ability-based measures are needed to further
substantiate the positive impact of emotional intelligence on customer
service encounters.

Conclusion
Emotional expressions play a pivotal role in the consumer industry.
Service encounters and consumer behavior are influenced by the emo-
tional expressions of service representatives, customers, and third par-
ties. The general pattern that emerges from this literature is that positive
emotional displays have favorable consequences (provided that they are
perceived as authentic), whereas negative emotional displays have unfa-
vorable consequences (although some studies reported favorable effects
of customer anger on particular aspects of service employees’ perfor-
mance). Another clear theme concerns the generally beneficial interper-
sonal effects of service workers’ deep acting and the generally
detrimental effects of surface acting. Finally, there is growing evidence
that various aspects of the service process benefit from greater levels of
emotional intelligence on the part of service employees, presumably
because employees with higher emotional intelligence are better able to
detect the emotions of their customers, to control their own emotional
responses, and to regulate their customers’ emotions in beneficial ways.
Even though the empirical record is thus fairly consistent, there are a
number of interesting asymmetries in this literature and several intri-
guing issues remain to be addressed.
168 Part II Social effects of emotions
First, research on the effects of customers’ emotional expressions on
service workers has focused almost exclusively on the consequences of
negative emotional expressions by customers (most notably anger and
verbal aggression), which have been found to undermine service employ-
ees’ job satisfaction, increase emotional exhaustion, and predict absentee-
ism, among other things. Surprisingly little is known about how
customers’ positive emotional displays influence service employees’ job
satisfaction, well-being, and performance. Based on EASI theory, it can be
predicted that encounters with cheerful customers have a favorable
impact on service workers’ well-being (an effect that may be mediated
by affective reactions), while customers’ positive emotional expressions
may lead to complacency of service representatives when confronted
with customer complaints (an effect that may be mediated by inferential
processes).
Second, research on the effects of service workers’ emotional expres-
sions on customers has focused almost exclusively on the effects of
positive emotional displays. The general finding is that positive displays
of service representatives have favorable consequences for customers’
satisfaction, intentions to return to the store, and likelihood of spreading
positive word of mouth, with favorable effects being more likely to the
degree that the positive emotional expressions are perceived as authentic.
Interestingly, the influence of negative emotional expressions of service
workers has remained largely unaddressed – a state of affairs that is
understandable in light of the prevailing display rules in the service
industry. Nevertheless, it would be valuable to investigate how custo-
mers respond to service representatives’ negative emotional expressions,
even if those may be relatively rare in cultures that emphasize service
with a smile. It seems reasonable to assume that displays of anger by
employees in such (service) cultures trigger strong negative affective
reactions in customers that in turn undermine their intentions to pur-
chase products or come back to the store. However, such effects may be
less apparent in cultures that put less emphasis on positive emotions in
the service setting. Expectations of service with a smile are higher in the
United States than in many other countries, whereas the French are
comparatively accepting of anger expressions in service encounters
(Grandey, Rafaeli, Ravid, Wirtz, & Steiner, 2010). Given the adverse
consequences of inauthentic emotional expressions, a question that arises
is whether customers in certain cultural contexts might prefer an authen-
tically depressed or grumpy service employee to an inauthentically
cheerful one.
Third, most research in this area has been limited to the consequences
of displays of happiness or positive affect and anger or verbal aggres-
sion – very few studies have examined other emotions. It therefore
 Social effects of emotions on consumer behavior 169
remains unclear whether different positive and negative emotions have
differential effects on service outcomes. It is conceivable, for instance,
that expressions of socially engaging emotions (Kitayama, Mesquita, &
Karasawa, 2006) such as happiness or gratitude on the part of a service
provider have more favorable effects on customers than displays of
socially disengaging emotions such as pride, even though all of these
emotions share a positive valence. It is also conceivable that customers’
expressions of disappointment versus anger about a dissatisfying ser-
vice outcome may result in differential compensation. Expressions of
disappointment may be effective because they are less affronting for
service workers, but expressions of anger may be effective because they
signal greater urgency.
Finally, the literature on emotions in the service industry reflects a
strong interest in the role of affective reactions (e.g., emotional contagion)
as mediating links between emotional expressions and responses. The
role of inferential processes has so far received relatively little attention.
Moreover, whereas there is emerging evidence that the effects of emo-
tional expressions depend on the perceived appropriateness of the
expressions (as determined by the authenticity and intensity of the emo-
tional displays), so far no studies have examined the possible moderating
role of the perceiver’s information-processing motivation or ability on the
effects of customers’ or service workers’ emotional expressions. As such,
there is currently no support for EASI’s predictions about information
processing in this context. Such evidence is provided by research on the
role of emotions in leader–follower relations, to which I turn in the next
chapter.
 CHAPTER 9

Social effects of emotions

in leadership

The key to your impact as a leader is your own sincerity. Before you
can inspire with emotion, you must be swamped with it yourself.
Before you can move their tears, your own must flow. To convince
them, you must yourself believe.
Winston Churchill

Winston Churchill was far ahead of his time when he emphasized the
importance of emotions for successful leadership. In the first half of the
twentieth century, few people appreciated affective phenomena, and
emotions were especially viewed with suspicion in the context of political
discourse. Although the appreciation of emotions in science and society
alike has increased dramatically since Churchill’s time, the role of emo-
tions in leadership is still a matter of considerable controversy. Just as
professional negotiators and mediators are strongly divided when it
comes to the utility of emotions in deal making and dispute resolution,
both managers and management scholars differ widely in terms of the
value they accord to emotions in leadership.
One group sees emotions as a sign of weakness, reasoning that people
who get emotional lack control over the situation and are therefore unfit
for a leadership position. Emotions are thought to taint judgments and
interfere with effective leadership by inspiring impulsive behavior and
irrational decisions. For instance, Jackall (1988) argued that managers
“need to exercise iron self-control and have the ability to mask all emotion
and intention behind bland, smiling, and agreeable public faces” (p. 47),
because letting emotions enter the equation is “seen as irrational, unbe-
nefitting men or women whose principle claim to social legitimacy is
dispassionate rational calculation” (p. 49). Others, in contrast, share
Churchill’s belief that emotions are an essential part of leadership,
arguing that a leader can use his or her emotions to motivate and inspire
followers to perform to the best of their abilities (Humphrey, Pollack, &
Hawver, 2008). As is so often the case in the social sciences, there is no
simple answer to this dilemma. Rather, emotional expressions can con-
tribute to or undermine successful leadership depending on a variety of
factors, as we shall see in this chapter.

170
 Social effects of emotions in leadership 171
Leadership refers to the process of influencing others to accomplish a
goal (Yukl, 2010). As influential agents in organizations, leaders play a
crucial role in promoting, managing, supporting, and developing indivi-
dual and team effectiveness. Given that emotional expressions are a
prominent source of social influence (Côté & Hideg, 2011; Van Kleef,
Van Doorn, Heerdink, & Koning, 2011), it stands to reason that leaders’
emotional expressions have an impact on subordinates. In fact, there is
evidence that leaders’ emotional displays have a greater impact on fol-
lowers than does the content of their messages (Newcombe & Ashkanasy,
2002). Accordingly, the idea that emotions play a prominent role in the
leadership process has been around for several decades, perhaps most
notably in the literature on charismatic and transformational leadership
(Bass, 1985). Systematic empirical research on the role of emotional
expressions in leadership emerged only relatively recently.
Nevertheless, there is now a considerable body of evidence that speaks
to the effects of emotional expressions in leadership. In this chapter I
review and integrate research on the effects of leaders’ emotional expres-
sions on followers’ emotions, cognitions, and behavior.
In analyzing the effects of leaders’ emotional expressions on followers,
it is useful to distinguish between subjective and objective indices of
leader effectiveness. Subjective perceptions of leader effectiveness are
likely to be influenced by several factors besides the leader’s actual
(objectively measured) success in attaining organizational goals, such as
followers’ own emotional states, their liking of the leader, and the degree
to which they experience a sense of similarity or identification with the
leader (Bono & Ilies, 2006; Hogg, 2001; Howell & Shamir, 2005; Van
Knippenberg & Hogg, 2003). As a result, discrepancies may arise between
objective and subjective measures of leadership effectiveness.
Subjective ratings of (leadership) performance tend to be heavily influ-
enced by affective states such as positive or negative moods and inter-
personal liking (Brown & Keeping, 2005; Duarte, Goodson, & Klich, 1994;
Tsui & Barry, 1986). In terms of Emotions as Social Information (EASI)
theory, subjective ratings of a leader’s performance can therefore be
expected to be relatively strongly influenced by followers’ affective reac-
tions to the leader’s emotional displays (as opposed to inferential pro-
cesses triggered by those displays). For instance, an employee may
perceive his leader as effective because he likes her, even though the
leader’s actual success in motivating and guiding followers to attain
organizational goals is low. Conversely, an employee may rate her leader
as ineffective due to a lack of interpersonal rapport, even if the leader is
actually quite successful in promoting organizational goals. Below I first
discuss research on the effects of leaders’ emotional displays on fol-
lowers’ subjective perceptions of leadership quality. Subsequently,
172 Part II Social effects of emotions
I review research on the effects of leaders’ emotional expressions on
objective measures of leader effectiveness, such as follower performance.

Leaders’ emotional displays and perceptions of leadership quality

As noted above, professionals are divided with respect to the question of
whether a leader should show emotions to inspire followers or rather
suppress emotions to avoid signaling weakness or lack of professional-
ism. Despite this disagreement, there are reasons to believe that followers
generally prefer more emotionally expressive leaders over less expressive
leaders. This makes sense from the perspective that emotions provide
social information (Van Kleef, 2010). Emotions arise in response to events
that are perceived as relevant to a person’s concerns (Frijda, 1986). By
reverse logic, observers may infer from others’ emotional reactions to
particular events that those events are appraised by the expresser as
relevant to his or her goals. Such signals may be effective in mobilizing
followers, especially when the leader and followers have the same goals.
Conversely, a company leader who remains unmoved regardless of
whether the company is doing well or poorly may be perceived by
followers as showing little commitment to the cause. Such inadvertent
signals may have detrimental consequences for a leader’s credibility and
support. This suggests, then, that followers may have a preference for
leaders who show at least some emotion when important events take
place.
Historical developments in the political domain are consistent with the
idea that emotional expressivity contributes to a leader’s popularity. For
instance, many historians attribute the rise of Adolf Hitler to his highly
persuasive public speeches, which were characterized by intense expres-
sions of negative emotions such as anger and hatred. Conversely, attest-
ing to the social power of positive emotions, Martin Luther King Jr.
managed to mobilize large crowds for his fight against racial inequality
in the United States by passionately declaring his hope and vision for
peaceful and equal relationships between European Americans and
African Americans (“I have a dream”). Nelson Mandela used a very
similar positive emotional style during his inaugural speech as president
of South Africa in 1994, during which he vehemently expressed the hope
for “a glorious life for all.” And Barack Obama is widely believed to have
owed his first presidential election in 2008 in large part to the positive
emotions he showed in the course of his campaign in conjunction with his
hopeful vision of a better country (“Yes we can!”).
Such affective displays reflect strong commitment and motivation on
the part of a leader to attain a particular goal or vision, which may
contribute to perceptions of charisma and effectiveness (Humphrey
 Social effects of emotions in leadership 173

4
Positive emotional
expression
Neutral emotional
3
expression

2
Follower mood Perceived leader
effectiveness

Figure 9.1 Positivity of followers’ moods (on a scale of 1–7) and percep-
tions of leader effectiveness (on a scale of 1–5) as a function of the leader’s
emotional expressions (based on Bono & Ilies, 2006, Study 4).

et al., 2008). This reasoning would imply that positive and negative
emotional expressions are equally effective in inspiring perceptions of
leadership quality. Nevertheless, the available evidence points to a
valence asymmetry, in that positive emotional expressions generally
inspire more favorable perceptions of leaders than negative emotional
expressions. An early study by Newcombe and Ashkanasy (2002)
revealed that leaders who expressed positive affect in the context of
performance feedback were rated more positively by their followers
than were leaders who expressed negative affect. Similarly, a study by
Rubin, Munz, and Bommer (2005) showed that leaders who scored higher
on trait positive affectivity were perceived as more “transformational” by
their followers.
These effects of leaders’ positive emotional expressions on followers’
perceptions were replicated and extended in a multimethod investigation
conducted by Bono and Ilies (2006). Two correlational studies in a natural
work setting revealed that leaders’ positive emotional expressions were
associated with ratings of leaders’ charisma. Moreover, two experimental
studies involving videotapes of leaders who varied their displays of
positive emotion showed that leaders’ positive emotional expressions
were linked to the mood states of followers as well as to the perceived
effectiveness of the leader (see Figure 9.1). Compatible effects were
reported in several later studies (Chi, Chung, & Tsai, 2011; Damen, Van
Knippenberg, & Van Knippenberg, 2008b; Eberly & Fong, 2013; Erez,
Misangyi, Johnson, LePine, & Halverson, 2008; Johnson, 2008), attesting
174 Part II Social effects of emotions
to the robustness of the relationship between leader positive emotional
displays and follower perceptions of leadership quality.
Interestingly, a study by Johnson (2008) indicated that the effects of
leaders’ emotional expressions on the favorability of followers’ responses
to the leader were stronger among followers who were more susceptible
to emotional contagion. This indicates that the effects of leaders’ emo-
tional expressions on subjective perceptions of leadership quality can be
explained at least in part by followers’ affective reactions to the leaders’
emotions, as was also suggested by Bono and Ilies (2006). Furthermore,
Damen and colleagues (2008b) found that the impact of leaders’ positive
emotional expressions on followers’ attributions of charisma depended
on the arousal level of the emotion, with higher-arousal emotions such as
anger and enthusiasm engendering greater emotional contagion and
concomitant ratings of charisma than lower-arousal emotions like relax-
edness and sadness. Similarly, Connelly and Ruark (2010) found that
positive emotional expressions with high “activating potential” (e.g.,
pride) elicited more favorable reactions from followers than positive
emotional expressions with low activating potential (e.g., contentment).
In light of Damen et al.’s findings, it is conceivable that this difference
arose because more activating positive emotional expressions triggered
stronger affective reactions in followers.
Representing the other side of the coin, a study by Glomb and Hulin
(1997) revealed that leaders who expressed anger were rated less favor-
ably than leaders who did not express anger. Other studies showed that
negative leader affect displayed during the delivery of performance
feedback generally produced lower perceptions of leader effectiveness
than did positive leader affect (Gaddis, Connelly, & Mumford, 2004;
Newcombe & Ashkanasy, 2002), although negative affect was appre-
ciated more when it was congruent with the type of feedback (i.e.,
negative rather than positive) the leader delivered (Newcombe &
Ashkanasy, 2002). Related work on performance feedback delivered
by coworkers rather than leaders similarly revealed a negative influence
of displays of contempt on interpersonal relations, as manifested in
greater expressed verbal aggression by the target of the contempt
(Melwani & Barsade, 2011).
Across the board, then, people exhibit a preference for leaders with a
positive emotional style (Dasborough & Ashkanasy, 2002). It seems plau-
sible that this valence asymmetry is due at least in part to the fact that
subjective perceptions of leadership effectiveness are rather susceptible
to the influence of followers’ affective reactions to their leader’s emo-
tional displays, which tend to be more favorable in the case of positive
rather than negative emotional displays. Nevertheless, there is some
evidence that negative emotional displays may be appreciated under
 Social effects of emotions in leadership 175
particular circumstances. For instance, Connelly and Ruark (2010) found
that even though followers responded unfavorably to negative emotional
expressions of “transactional” leaders, they responded relatively favor-
ably to negative emotional displays of “transformational” leaders.
Whereas transactional leadership is based on a give-and-take exchange
relationship, transformational leadership hinges on followers’ identifica-
tion with the leader’s personality, inspirational vision, and challenging
goals (Bass, 1985; Bass & Riggio, 2005). Connelly and Ruark’s data sug-
gest that transformational leaders have more leeway to express negative
emotions without running the risk of undermining followers’ perceptions
of their effectiveness.
There is also some evidence that discrete negative emotional expressions
of leaders may have differential effects on followers’ evaluations of the
leader. In this regard, Madera and Smith (2009) examined followers’ per-
ceptions of leaders as a function of the specific negative emotion the leader
expressed in the context of an organizational failure. Participants in their
study reported more positive evaluations after the leader had expressed
sadness rather than anger. Additional analyses indicated that this differ-
ence was mediated by participants’ own negative affective reactions to the
leader, which were stronger when the leader expressed anger than sadness.
A study on perceptions of public leaders further revealed that leaders’
negative facial displays were perceived by observers as more honest,
credible, and trustworthy than were leaders’ positive emotional displays
(Bucy, 2000; but see Eberly & Fong, 2013, for evidence that positive
emotions inspire greater perceptions of sincerity). Moreover, active nega-
tive emotions such as anger have been shown to signal decisiveness,
competence, dominance, and power (Tiedens, 2001). Such perceptions
may in turn fuel attributions of leadership ability (Anderson & Kilduff,
2009; Lord, De Vader, & Alliger, 1986). For instance, Tiedens (2001) found
that participants exhibited greater endorsement of politicians who
expressed anger rather than sadness, because expressions of anger were
perceived as a sign of competence.
These various studies indicate that leaders’ negative emotional dis-
plays can have favorable effects on followers’ evaluations of leadership
quality, but these positive effects are subject to numerous boundary
conditions. Moreover, the empirical record is somewhat inconsistent in
that some evidence suggests that expressions of sadness contribute to
more favorable perceptions of leadership quality than expressions of
anger (Madera & Smith, 2009), whereas other work indicates that dis-
plays of anger signal greater competence and leadership effectiveness
than displays of sadness (Tiedens, 2001).
It seems plausible that the effects of a leader’s emotional displays on
followers’ perceptions of leadership quality depend in part on the target
176 Part II Social effects of emotions
of the leader’s emotions. The perceived appropriateness of expressions of
anger in the eyes of followers may be higher when the emotion is directed
at a situation or a third party (e.g., a common enemy) rather than at the
followers themselves. Consequently, the potential for detrimental effects
is higher when leaders direct their anger toward followers. Followers
may prefer a leader who expresses sadness or disappointment (rather
than anger) at them for failing to reach an organizational target, because
these emotions are less confrontational and affronting. However, fol-
lowers may prefer a leader who expresses anger (rather than sadness or
disappointment) at an outside party who fails to deliver on promises,
because a leader who expresses anger signals a stronger intention to
confront the outside party than a leader who expresses low-activation
emotions such as sadness or disappointment. As Malcolm X once put it,
“usually when people are sad, they don’t do anything. They just cry over
their condition. But when they get angry, they bring about a change.”
Positive motivational effects would therefore seem more likely when the
leader’s anger is directed outside of the leader’s immediate group or
organization. In line with this logic, Waples and Connelly (2008) reported
evidence that leader expressions of anger that were directed toward
competitors had positive effects on follower performance.
In a related vein, research has explored how attributions of leadership
quality are shaped by the perceived appropriateness of leaders’ emo-
tional displays. Leaders’ emotional displays may be perceived as inap-
propriate when they are incongruent with prevailing norms,
expectations, and/or situational scripts (see Shields, 2005). According to
EASI theory, such perceptions of inappropriateness drive negative affec-
tive reactions that undermine leader endorsement (Van Kleef, Homan, &
Cheshin, 2012). In keeping with this idea, K. Lewis (2000) obtained some
evidence that leaders are rated more positively when their emotional
displays are congruent with gender stereotypes. More specifically, female
leaders who expressed anger were evaluated more negatively than male
leaders who expressed anger, presumably because expressions of anger
are more fitting with the male rather than the female gender stereotype.
At the same time, however, the study also showed that expressions of
sadness undermined perceptions of leadership quality of both male and
female leaders, perhaps because displays of sadness signal a lack of
control over the situation that is incongruent with the general leadership
stereotype, regardless of gender.
Perceptions of inappropriateness may also arise from inauthentic
emotional expressions (Van Kleef et al., 2012), and there is some
evidence that such perceptions undermine leader endorsement. For
instance, Newcombe and Ashkanasy (2002) found that leaders were
evaluated less favorably when followers perceived a mismatch
 Social effects of emotions in leadership 177
between leaders’ actions (in this case the provision of positive vs.
negative performance feedback) and their displayed emotions, which
may have been interpreted as a sign of inauthenticity. Other studies
revealed that followers whose leaders more frequently displayed sin-
cere emotions reported higher job satisfaction (Fisk & Friesen, 2012),
and that leaders and followers who engaged in more sincere emo-
tional exchanges reported having a higher-quality relationship (Glasø
& Einarsen, 2008). Although this evidence is suggestive rather than
conclusive, it is consistent with the possibility that leader emotional
displays that appear inauthentic or insincere are perceived as inap-
propriate and thereby undermine leader support.
In short, several studies indicate that leaders’ emotional expressions
influence various subjective indices of leader effectiveness. In addition,
there is some evidence that the effects of leaders’ emotional displays on
perceptions of leadership quality depend on the perceived authenticity
and appropriateness of the emotional displays. These effects appear to be
driven at least in part by followers’ affective reactions to their leaders’
emotional expressions, with positive and appropriate displays generally
eliciting positive affective reactions, and negative and inappropriate dis-
plays eliciting negative affective reactions. However, as indicated above,
subjective perceptions of leadership quality may not correspond with
actual leadership effectiveness. Followers may prefer leaders who show
positive emotions, but negative emotions may actually be more effective
under certain circumstances. In the next section I consider research on the
effects of leaders’ emotional expressions on actual follower performance,
which is typically seen as the ultimate index of leadership effectiveness
(Kaiser, Hogan, & Craig, 2008).

Leaders’ emotional displays and followers’ performance

Leaders differ widely in the emotional strategies they employ to boost
their followers’ performance. As noted before, some leaders view emo-
tions as a hindrance, whereas others see them as useful. Moreover,
anecdotal evidence indicates that there is great variation in the emotions
leaders show in their attempts to motivate followers. The examples of
Nelson Mandela and Barack Obama discussed above illustrate the poten-
tial effectiveness of a generally positive emotional style. In contrast,
people such as former Apple chairman Steve Jobs (who oversaw the
development of several groundbreaking personal computer products
and turned Apple into a world-leading company) and celebrity chef
and restaurateur Gordon Ramsay (whose various restaurants obtained
a total of fifteen Michelin stars) embody a predominantly negative – yet
equally successful – emotional style.
178 Part II Social effects of emotions
Empirical evidence regarding the effectiveness of positive versus nega-
tive emotional expressions in leadership is also somewhat mixed,
although there is more evidence for favorable rather than unfavorable
effects of positive emotional displays. In a pioneering study of the role of
affective processes in leadership, George and Bettenhausen (1990) exam-
ined how leaders’ affective states shaped customer service performance.
They found that service workers were more likely to engage in customer
helping, sold more products, and were less likely to leave the organiza-
tion when their leader scored higher on state positive affectivity. The
authors proposed that these effects might be due to emotional contagion
between the leader and followers, such that subordinates take over the
positive mood of the leader and therefore perform better.
Other studies directly compared the effects of leaders’ positive and
negative affective displays on follower affect, perceptions, and behavior.
For instance, Gaddis and colleagues (2004) found that leaders who deliv-
ered failure feedback in a positive emotional tone instigated better team
performance than leaders who displayed negative affect while delivering
the feedback. Compatible findings were reported by Johnson (2009), who
examined the effects of leaders’ positive versus negative affect on fol-
lowers’ performance on a hiring task. In the first part of her study Johnson
manipulated participants’ moods and asked them to record a leadership
speech in which they explained how to perform the task. In the second
part of the study a new sample of participants watched one of the
speeches recorded in the first part of the study, completed ratings of the
leader, and performed the hiring task. Participants in the positive mood
condition reported experiencing more positive and less negative affect
themselves, compared to those in the negative mood condition.
Moreover, participants in the positive mood condition rated their leaders
as more charismatic and performed better on the hiring task than did
participants in the negative mood condition. These effects could be
explained in part in terms of followers’ affective reactions to the leader.
More specifically, as shown in Figure 9.2, the favorable effects of leader
positive mood on ratings of charisma were partially mediated by follower
positive affect, whereas the effects on task performance were partially
mediated by follower negative affect. Although the differential mediating
roles of positive versus negative affective reactions in this particular
study present somewhat of a puzzle, it is clear from these various inves-
tigations that leaders’ displays of positive emotions can have favorable
consequences for follower performance.
There is also evidence, however, that negative emotional expressions
can enhance performance, albeit from slightly different contexts.
Melwani and Barsade’s (2011) study on feedback delivery by coworkers
revealed favorable effects of expressions of contempt on performance,
 Social effects of emotions in leadership 179

Follower’s rating
Follower’s
of leader’s
positive affect
charisma

Leader’s positive
vs. negative
affect

Follower’s Follower’s task

negative affect performance

Figure 9.2 Effects of a leader’s positive versus negative mood on

followers’ ratings of the leader’s charisma and followers’ task perfor-
mance are mediated by followers’ affective state (based on Johnson,
2009).

even though contempt had obvious negative repercussions for the inter-
personal relationship between the feedback deliverer and the feedback
recipient. Displays of contempt send toxic signals of low regard that can
be fatal for social relationships (Fischer & Roseman, 2007; Gottman, 1993),
but these very same signals may also serve as incentives for performance
because they motivate recipients of contempt to demonstrate their worth
so as to recover their self-esteem.
Further evidence for the potential beneficial performance effects of
negative emotional expressions comes from a study on the effects of
teachers’ emotional expressions on students’ learning performance (Van
Doorn, Van Kleef, & Van der Pligt, 2014). In a first experiment, partici-
pants were given a list of 100 word pairs. After they had spent fifteen
minutes studying the combinations, baseline recognition was measured.
Recognition scores were ostensibly sent to the participant’s “instructor,”
who then conveyed learning tips in an angry or happy tone via a video
connection. In the happy condition, the instructor (a trained actor) looked
cheerful, spoke with an enthusiastic tone of voice, and smiled often; in the
angry condition, he frowned a lot, spoke with an angry tone of voice,
clenched his fists, and made irritable gestures. Participants then took their
word list home and were instructed to spend a minimum of five minutes
a day memorizing the combinations. Upon return to the lab one week
later, participants in the anger condition exhibited better recognition than
participants in the happy condition, even though they had perceived the
angry instructor as less warm and competent, and this effect was inde-
pendent of participants’ self-reported affect. This suggests that the effect
was not carried by interpersonal impressions or felt affect, but rather by
180 Part II Social effects of emotions
the informational value of the emotional expressions. In a second experi-
ment the effect was replicated using a recall task, although in this case
expressions of anger only enhanced the performance of students who
were in a promotion (rather than a prevention) focus.
In a rare study comparing the effects of different negative emotional
expressions in a leadership context, Johnson and Connelly (2014) exam-
ined followers’ affective reactions to their leaders’ expressions of anger
versus disappointment as well as the downstream behavioral conse-
quences of these affective reactions. They found that expressions of dis-
appointment by a leader providing informal feedback primarily elicited
complementary feelings of guilt, whereas expressions of anger primarily
triggered reciprocal feelings of anger. These affective reactions mediated
the effects of the leader’s emotional displays on participants’ behavioral
responses, including positive and negative organizational behaviors and
various indices of task performance. Thus, expressions of disappoint-
ment had beneficial consequences, but expressions of anger were detri-
mental. Interestingly, these results closely parallel findings regarding the
effects of expressions of anger versus disappointment in negotiations
(e.g., Lelieveld, Van Dijk, Van Beest, & Van Kleef, 2012; see Chapter 7).
Other research points to the possibility that the effects of leaders’
positive versus negative emotional displays on followers’ performance
depend on the performance criterion. Sy, Côté, and Saavedra (2005)
invited groups of participants to the lab, and randomly selected one of
them to play the role of leader. This person watched a film clip that
induced either a positive or a negative mood. The leader then joined the
rest of the team and coached them as they built up a tent together while
blindfolded. The study revealed that one aspect of team performance
benefited from a leader’s positive mood, while another aspect benefited
from a leader’s negative mood (see Figure 9.3). Specifically, teams that
were exposed to a leader in a positive mood developed a positive group
affective tone, and as a result they exhibited better coordination than
teams with a leader in a negative mood. However, teams with a leader in
a negative mood expended more effort, presumably because they
inferred from the leader’s negative mood that their performance was
unsatisfactory (although such mediation was not examined in this
study). In line with this intuition, a qualitative study by Lindebaum
and Fielden (2011) revealed that leaders in the construction business
deliberately use expressions of anger to ensure that projects are finished
on time.
Another recent study indicates that the effectiveness of positive versus
negative emotional displays of leaders depends on the type of assignment
followers are charged with. Building on theorizing and research on the
intrapersonal consequences of emotional states for various types of
 Social effects of emotions in leadership 181

3 Leader’s positive mood

Leader’s negative mood

1
Group coordination Group effort

Figure 9.3 Effects of a leader’s positive versus negative mood on

observer-rated group coordination and effort on a scale of 1–5 (based
on Sy et al., 2005).

performance (e.g., Forgas, 1995; Weiss & Cropanzano, 1996), Visser, Van
Knippenberg, Van Kleef, and Wisse (2013) argued that both expressions
of happiness and expressions of sadness on the part of a leader can be
effective, depending on whether the task that followers are assigned to
execute requires creative or analytical performance. People in a positive
affective state broaden their thought-action repertoires (Fredrickson,
1998, 2001). Accordingly, the experience of positive affect is associated
with greater creativity (Amabile, Barsade, Mueller, & Staw, 2005; Ashby,
Isen, & Turken, 1999; Isen, 2004), especially when it concerns high-activa-
tion positive affect (De Dreu, Baas, & Nijstad, 2008). Conversely, the
experience of negative affect is associated with an analytical mode of
information processing that is characterized by considerable attention
to detail and careful and logical analysis of the available information
(Forgas, 2000; Schwarz & Bless, 1991). Consistent with these associations,
Visser and colleagues demonstrated in a first study that a leader’s dis-
plays of happiness enhanced followers’ creative performance, whereas a
leader’s displays of sadness enhanced followers’ analytical performance.
A second study showed that these effects were mediated by follower
positive affect. Interestingly, this study further demonstrated that sub-
jective ratings and objective measures of leadership effectiveness do not
always correspond. Participants uniformly rated the happy leader as
more effective than the sad leader, even though the sad leader actually
instigated better performance on the analytical task.
 Free ebooks ==> [Link]
182 Part II Social effects of emotions
These studies allow for a number of conclusions. First of all, experi-
mental research and field studies converge to show that leaders’ emo-
tional displays influence followers’ emotions, perceptions of the leader,
and task performance in theoretically meaningful ways. Second, several
studies point to the role of affective reactions in bringing about these
effects: Followers who are confronted with a leader’s positive emotional
expressions tend to experience more positive emotions than those who
are confronted with a leader’s negative emotional displays, and these
reciprocal affective reactions in turn shape subjective ratings of the lea-
der’s effectiveness as well as actual task performance (but matters
become somewhat more complicated when we consider the case of dis-
appointment, which may elicit complementary feelings of guilt that can
have favorable consequences; Johnson & Connelly, 2014; Lelieveld et al.,
2012). Third, it is clear from the more recent studies discussed above that
the effects of leaders’ emotional displays on followers’ performance
depend on the performance criterion and on the type of task that is
performed. Given the apparent variability in followers’ responses to
leaders’ emotional displays, it is conceivable that such responses are
also modulated by followers’ information processing and by the per-
ceived appropriateness of the leader’s emotional expressions, as sug-
gested by EASI theory.

The role of followers’ information processing

First evidence for a moderating role of information processing was
obtained in a study by Van Kleef and colleagues (2009). Four-person
teams collaborated on a task, during which they received standardized
feedback from their leader via a video-conferencing setup. The feedback
was delivered either in an angry tone or in a happy tone, by means of
facial expressions, vocal intonation, and bodily postures. In reality the
leader was a trained actor, and the emotional speeches had been prere-
corded. Teams consisting of members with low levels of dispositional
information-processing motivation (operationalized in terms of personal
need for structure; Neuberg & Newsom, 1993) performed better when the
leader expressed happiness, whereas teams consisting of members with
high information-processing motivation performed better when the lea-
der expressed anger (see Figure 9.4). In line with EASI theory, inferential
processes (i.e., inferences about performance quality) mediated beha-
vioral responses to the leader’s emotional expressions among followers
with high information-processing motivation. Furthermore, affective
reactions (i.e., positive vs. negative emotions and liking of the leader)
mediated responses to the leader’s emotions among followers with low
information-processing motivation.

[Link]
 Social effects of emotions in leadership 183

32000

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Team performance

28000

26000 Angry leader

Happy leader
24000

22000

20000
Low processing High processing
motivation motivation

Figure 9.4 Team performance as a function of a leader’s displays of

anger versus happiness and team members’ information-processing
motivation. Team performance scores were automatically calculated
by the computer software through which the task was administered,
and they ranged from 11,796 to 40,586 points (based on Van Kleef
et al., 2009).

Compatible findings were reported in a study concerning the effects of

emotional expressions on individual creative performance (Van Kleef,
Anastasopoulou, & Nijstad, 2010). Participants played the role of “gen-
erator of ideas” working with another participant in the role of “evalua-
tor.” After the participant had generated ideas, a prerecorded video
message appeared on the participant’s computer screen, in which the
evaluator (a trained actor) provided feedback and tips in either an angry
or neutral way. Participants with low information-processing motivation
(again operationalized in terms of personal need for structure; Neuberg &
Newsom, 1993) reported less motivation and task engagement after their
evaluator had expressed anger rather than no emotion, and they gener-
ated fewer ideas as a result. Participants with high information-proces-
sing motivation, in contrast, became more engaged and motivated to
perform well after the evaluator had expressed anger, and as a conse-
quence they generated more ideas.
Similar effects were observed in a field study on the effects of music
teachers’ emotional expressions on students’ musical performance (Van
Kleef, Stamkou, & Larsen, 2014). At the start of the study, the researchers
measured students’ information-processing motivation using the perso-
nal need for structure scale (Neuberg & Newsom, 1993). Later on in the
study students rated the perceived positive and negative emotional
184 Part II Social effects of emotions
expressions of their teacher (as shown during the last music lesson), while
the teacher rated the student’s musical performance on a standardized
assignment at the end of that lesson. The results revealed that students
with lower levels of information-processing motivation performed better
to the degree that their teacher had expressed more positive and less
negative emotion during the lesson. Conversely, students with higher
information-processing motivation performed better to the extent that
their teacher had expressed more negative and less positive emotion.
Thus, even though scholars and practitioners alike tend to emphasize
the importance of positive, “nurturing” emotions for successful learning
and performance, this study indicates that negative emotional expres-
sions may, under particular circumstances, have more favorable conse-
quences for performance (also see Van Doorn et al., 2014, for a similar
conclusion).
Finally, a field study among leaders and followers employed in
firms across a variety of industries (Chi & Ho, 2014) provided a
conceptual replication of the moderating role of information proces-
sing by employing a different operationalization. Instead of looking
at information-processing motivation per se, these authors examined
the moderating influence of followers’ levels of conscientiousness
(Costa & McCrae, 1988; McCrae & Costa, 1987). Building on EASI
theory and extending previous research discussed above (e.g., Sy
et al., 2005; Van Kleef et al., 2009), Chi and Ho suggested that con-
scientious followers are more likely than their less conscientious
counterparts to perceive their leaders’ negative emotional expres-
sions as signals of insufficient task progress. In support of this idea,
the researchers found that greater levels of negative emotional
expression on the part of leaders increased the performance of fol-
lowers high on conscientiousness but decreased the performance of
followers low on conscientiousness.

The role of the perceived appropriateness of leaders’ emotional displays

The research discussed above demonstrates that leaders’ expressions of
anger and related negative emotions can be effective in increasing fol-
lowers’ performance to the degree that the expressions are processed by
followers and thus trigger inferences regarding the adequacy of their
performance. However, expressions of anger may undermine perfor-
mance when they fail to trigger inferential processes and instead elicit
negative affective reactions. EASI theory posits that the relative influence
of inferential processes and affective reactions depends not only on
observers’ information-processing tendencies but also on the perceived
appropriateness of the emotional expressions. This notion has
 Social effects of emotions in leadership 185
implications for understanding the impact of leaders’ emotions on orga-
nizational success.
Numerous factors may influence the degree to which a leader’s emo-
tional displays are perceived as appropriate by followers. As discussed in
detail in Chapter 4, the perceived appropriateness of emotional expressions
is shaped by characteristics of the situation, the expression, the expresser,
and the observer. The exact same emotional reaction may be relatively
appropriate in one situation, but rather inappropriate in the next. For
instance, a leader’s expressions of anger may be perceived as relatively
appropriate in the context of a follower’s low effort or substandard perfor-
mance, but as rather inappropriate in the context of high effort or adequate
performance. In addition, perceptions of appropriateness are influenced by
factors such as the intensity or authenticity of the emotional expression, the
gender and status of the expresser, and the personality and cultural back-
ground of the observer, among other things (Van Kleef et al., 2012).
Several studies support the idea that the effects of leaders’ emotional
displays depend on the perceived appropriateness of those displays.
First, there is some evidence that the effects of leaders’ emotional expres-
sions on followers’ performance are shaped by characteristics of the
situation that may lead followers to perceive the leader’s emotions as
more or less appropriate. Initial suggestive evidence came from research
by Gaddis and colleagues (2004). They found that followers typically
performed worse when their leaders expressed negative emotions; how-
ever, this effect was attenuated when the leader expressed the negative
emotions in a challenging context, in which negative emotions were
presumably merited.
A more direct test of the role of situation-dependent appropriateness of
emotional expressions was provided in a recent study by Koning and Van
Kleef (2015), who examined the effects of happy versus angry expressions
of leaders on followers’ organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). OCB
involves behaviors that benefit an organization but fall outside of formal
job requirements and reward structures and as such have a rather volun-
tary nature (Bateman & Organ, 1983; Smith, Organ, & Near, 1983). The
voluntary nature of OCB has implications for the degree to which parti-
cular emotional expressions of a leader are likely to be perceived as (in)
appropriate by followers. Whereas expressions of anger might be rela-
tively appropriate when emphasizing legitimate demands for adequate
job-prescribed task performance, anger would seem less fitting in the
context of voluntary behaviors such as OCB. When expressed in such a
context, a leader’s anger may therefore trigger strong negative affective
reactions in followers due to the perceived inappropriateness of the anger
display, and these negative affective reactions may in turn lower fol-
lowers’ willingness to perform OCB.
186 Part II Social effects of emotions
Two studies reported by Koning and Van Kleef (2015) supported this
reasoning. A scenario study among employees of various organizations
revealed a decrease in respondents’ self-reported willingness to perform
OCB after a leader expressed anger rather than happiness. A subsequent
lab experiment showed that participants expended less effort working
overtime on a task after having been confronted with an angry rather than
a happy reaction from a leader on their prior performance. In both
studies, the detrimental effects of anger on voluntary behavior were
stronger when the anger was perceived as inappropriate (i.e., when
participants had expended a lot of effort on the previous task) than
when it was perceived as relatively appropriate (when participants had
not put in much effort). Furthermore, in line with EASI theory, the effects
were mediated by participants’ negative affective reactions (i.e., reduced
liking of the leader). These studies support the idea that a leader’s emo-
tional expressions may be perceived as more or less appropriate depend-
ing on the situation, and that such appropriateness perceptions shape
followers’ behavioral responses to leaders’ emotional expressions.
Other studies provide evidence that the impact of a leader’s emotional
displays on follower performance depends on characteristics of the fol-
lowers. For instance, Damen and colleagues examined the effects of (in)
congruence between the leader’s emotional expressions and followers’
trait affectivity (Damen, Van Knippenberg, & Van Knippenberg, 2008a).
They found that low positive affectivity followers functioned better
under an angry leader, whereas high positive affectivity followers func-
tioned better under an enthusiastic leader. This was reflected in the
amount of work followers performed on behalf of the leader and in
their compliance with the leader’s requests (see Figure 9.5). Although
not examined in this study, it is conceivable that these effects are driven
by differences in the perceived appropriateness of the leader’s emotional
expressions, as shaped by the follower’s own affective tendencies.
Specifically, individuals who are prone to experience and express posi-
tive emotions themselves may be more sensitive to others’ expressions of
anger and may be more likely to deem such expressions inappropriate
because they clash with their own emotional styles.
Along related lines, another study examined how followers’ reactions
to a leader’s emotional displays are shaped by their desire for social
harmony, as operationalized in terms of individual differences in agree-
ableness (Van Kleef, Homan, Beersma, & Van Knippenberg, 2010). The
rationale behind this study was that agreeable individuals are more likely
to perceive expressions of anger as inappropriate, because anger threa-
tens the social harmony that they value (Costa & McCrae, 1992; McCrae &
Costa, 1987). In a first experiment, participants read a scenario about a
leader who expressed anger or no emotion about their performance, with
 Social effects of emotions in leadership 187

60

50
Compliance with leader

40

30 Angry leader
Enthusiastic leader
20

10

0
Low follower pa High follower pa

Figure 9.5 Likelihood of followers’ compliance with a leader (in

percentages) as a function of the leader’s emotional displays and
followers’ trait positive affectivity (PA; based on Damen et al., 2008a,
Study 2).

emotion being manipulated via pictures of facial expressions.

Participants high on agreeableness reported lower work motivation in
the anger condition than in the neutral condition, while those low on
agreeableness reported higher motivation in the anger condition than in
the neutral condition. In a second experiment, four-person teams
received angry or happy feedback from their leader via a video setup.
Teams consisting of high-agreeable followers performed better when the
leader expressed happiness, whereas teams of low-agreeable followers
performed better when the leader expressed anger.
The field study on emotional expression and musical performance
described previously (Van Kleef et al., 2014) provides converging results.
This study also yielded evidence that the effects of leaders’ (in this case
teachers’) emotional expressions are moderated by followers’ (in this case
students’) agreeableness. Specifically, more agreeable students per-
formed better to the degree that their teacher expressed more positive
rather than negative emotion during their music classes, whereas less
agreeable students performed better to the degree that the teacher
expressed more negative rather than positive emotion.
Together, these various studies indicate that the effects of leaders’
emotional expressions on followers’ performance depend on character-
istics of the followers that may render them more or less likely to perceive
negative emotional expressions (especially expressions of anger) as inap-
propriate, although it is important to note that perceptions of
188 Part II Social effects of emotions
appropriateness were only explicitly assessed in some of these studies.
Moreover, a recent field study among employees of various firms in
Taiwan produced contradictory results, showing that leader expressions
of anger had more beneficial performance consequences for high- rather
than low-agreeable followers (Chi & Ho, 2014). These inconsistent find-
ings may stem from the different cultural contexts within which the
studies were conducted. The study by Chi and Ho was performed in a
collectivistic culture (Taiwan), whereas the study by Van Kleef, Homan,
and colleagues (2010) was situated in an individualistic culture (the
Netherlands). Research on the effects of emotional expressions in nego-
tiations (see Chapter 7) has shown that people from East-Asian versus
European American cultural backgrounds respond quite differently to
expressions of anger (Adam, Shirako, & Maddux, 2010). Follower agree-
ableness and cultural background appear to interact in ways that remain
to be explored in greater depth. More generally, incorporating the role of
culture in studies on emotion in leadership represents a key challenge for
future research.
To the degree that individuals with particular personality characteris-
tics (such as a strong desire for social harmony) are more likely to work in
certain types of organizations or industries than in others (due to attrac-
tion, selection, and attrition processes; Schneider, 1987), the moderating
role of follower characteristics can also be analyzed at the organizational
or industry level. For instance, workers may self-select into particular
occupations based on their own values and norms. In some occupations, a
positive and constructive interpersonal approach is rewarded (e.g., in
customer service professions), whereas other occupations may be seen
as relatively “rough” in terms of behavioral norms and expectations
regarding emotional expression (e.g., the army and the construction
industry; see Lindebaum & Fielden, 2011). Such social-occupational con-
texts shape behavioral norms and display rules, which determine to what
extent a given emotional expression is likely to be perceived as appro-
priate or inappropriate by employees working within that particular
context. As a result, emotional cultures emerge that may shape both the
prevalence and the consequences of particular emotional expressions.
There is also some evidence that followers’ responses to their leaders’
emotional expressions depend on characteristics of the leader. Connelly
and Ruark (2010) demonstrated that negative emotional expressions of
transformational leaders produced higher-quality performance than did
negative emotional expressions of transactional leaders. The authors
suggested that followers of transformational leaders performed well
because they accepted negative emotional expressions as an integral
part of the strategies by which transformational leaders motivate and
inspire their followers. In other words, they may have perceived
 Social effects of emotions in leadership 189
expressions of anger emitted by transformational leaders as more appro-
priate than expressions of anger emitted by transactional leaders.
The research reviewed above is consistent with the idea that properties
of the situation, the expresser, and the observer of an emotional expres-
sion determine the perceived appropriateness of the display, which in
turn has downstream consequences for observers’ behavioral responses.
What appears to be missing so far in research on the role of emotion in
leadership is evidence pertaining to the influence of characteristics of the
expression itself. As discussed in Chapter 4, there are good reasons to
assume that behavioral responses to emotional expressions depend on
the (perceived) authenticity of those expressions. This notion is particu-
larly relevant to leadership, because leaders may face numerous incen-
tives to regulate their emotional expressions. For instance, normative
expectations (e.g., display rules) as well as strategic considerations (e.g.,
attempts to motivate followers) may bring leaders to express emotions
that they do not actually feel, to exaggerate the intensity of the emotions
they feel, or to suppress the emotions they feel (Fitness, 2000; Humphrey
et al., 2008; Lindebaum & Fielden, 2011). Such attempts at emotion reg-
ulation may result in more or less authentic displays, depending on
(among other things) how the emotional expression is regulated.
Emotional expressions that result from antecedent-focused regulation
or “deep acting” tend to be perceived as authentic, because in this case the
expresser’s external displays of emotion match his or her internal feelings
(Grandey, 2003; Gross, 1998a; Hennig-Thurau, Groth, Paul, & Hemler,
2006). In contrast, emotional expressions that result from response-
focused regulation or “surface acting” tend to appear rather inauthentic,
because the expresser’s external displays of emotion do not match his or
her internal state (Côté, 2005; Grandey, 2003; Gross, 1998a; Hochschild,
1983; see Chapter 4 for a more in-depth discussion). Inauthentic-looking
emotional expressions may be deemed inappropriate (Rafaeli & Sutton,
1989; Van Kleef et al., 2012), especially when they are interpreted as
opportunistic and manipulative attempts to influence others (Gardner
& Martinko, 1988). Inauthentic emotional expressions may therefore
contribute to negative follower impressions of the leader (Gardner,
Fischer, & Hunt, 2009), which may in turn undermine followers’ motiva-
tion and performance.
Although research so far has not examined effects of the perceived
authenticity of leaders’ emotional displays on followers’ performance,
there is some evidence that inauthentic emotional expressions on the part
of leaders undermine the quality of the leader–follower relationship
(Glasø & Einarsen, 2008). This observation is consistent with research in
other domains of organizational behavior, for instance in the realm of
consumer behavior and customer service (see Chapter 8). Grandey and
190 Part II Social effects of emotions
colleagues found that the perceived authenticity of service providers’
emotional displays was positively associated with customers’ satisfaction
and liking of the service provider (Grandey, Fisk, Mattila, Jansen, &
Sideman, 2005). In another study, customers perceived service employees
who displayed authentic positive emotions as having a stronger customer
orientation, rated the quality of service more positively, and showed
higher loyalty intentions (Groth, Hennig-Thurau, & Walsh, 2009). It
seems plausible that similar processes are at play in the context of lea-
der–follower interactions, and that such processes shape followers’ beha-
vioral responses to their leaders’ emotional displays. However, research
is needed to confirm this possibility.

Leadership and emotional intelligence

We have seen that leaders’ emotional displays can have favorable or
unfavorable consequences for perceptions of leadership quality and for
actual follower performance, depending on the specific emotion in ques-
tion, the task at hand, the information-processing style of the followers,
and the perceived appropriateness of the leaders’ emotional displays.
Given these contingencies, it seems plausible that individuals who are
better able to adjust their emotions to the demands of the situation and
the people involved in it are more likely to rise to leadership positions.
Effective leadership requires flexible and knowledgeable use of emo-
tional strategies to ensure that any emotional displays on the part of a
leader have maximal positive and minimal negative impact on followers.
This implies that leaders who exhibit better understanding of emotion
and better emotion regulation abilities should be better able to lead others
effectively. In addition, leaders who have the ability to accurately per-
ceive and understand others’ emotions may gain considerable knowl-
edge about others’ feelings, goals, and desires, which should allow them
to influence and manage others more effectively. In other words, ade-
quate leadership requires a certain level of emotional intelligence
(Ashkanasy & Tse, 2000; George, 2000; Pescosolido, 2002).
In keeping with this logic, several studies have shown that various
components of emotional intelligence are positively associated with attri-
butions of leadership and with follower satisfaction (Byron, 2007; Côté,
Lopes, Salovey, & Miners, 2010; Kellett, Humphrey, & Sleeth, 2002, 2006;
Rubin et al., 2005; Walter, Cole, Van der Vegt, Rubin, & Bommer, 2012;
Wolff, Pescosolido, & Druskat, 2002). For instance, Côté and colleagues
(2010) found that people who are capable of accurately perceiving, using,
understanding, and managing their own and others’ emotions (as mea-
sured with an ability-based measure) are more likely to emerge as leaders
in small groups. The researchers followed project teams over the course of
 Social effects of emotions in leadership 191
a ten-week collaboration. At the end of the project, team members
reported to what extent the various members of the team had manifested
themselves as leaders. The results showed that team members with
higher overall emotional intelligence were more likely to be perceived
as leaders than those who scored lower on emotional intelligence, even
after controlling for differences in personality and cognitive intelligence.
Of the various components of emotional intelligence, the ability to under-
stand emotions was most consistently associated with leadership emer-
gence in this study. Other studies found that leadership emergence was
similarly predicted by the ability to perceive emotions (Kellett et al., 2002;
Walter et al., 2012; Wolff et al., 2002) and the ability to express emotions
(Kellett et al., 2006). These studies indicate that people prefer to afford
leadership roles to emotionally intelligent individuals.
Other research has examined whether emotional intelligence is also
related to leadership effectiveness, as one would expect based on the
above findings. Several studies indeed provide evidence for positive
associations between emotional intelligence and various operationali-
zations of leadership effectiveness. In one study, higher emotional
intelligence of leaders (assessed using an ability-based measure) pre-
dicted higher effectiveness, as measured objectively as well as through
manager and subordinate ratings of leadership effectiveness (Rosete &
Ciarrochi, 2005). This association held when controlling for personal-
ity and cognitive intelligence, indicating that emotional intelligence
explains unique variance. Compatible associations between leaders’
emotional intelligence and subordinates’ ratings of leadership effec-
tiveness were obtained in other research (e.g., Kerr, Garvin, Heaton, &
Boyle, 2006).
Another way of looking at the influence of emotional intelligence on
leadership effectiveness is by examining the impact of leaders’ emotional
intelligence on team functioning. Managing team members’ emotions is a
crucial aspect of successful leadership (George, 2000; Pescosolido, 2002).
By managing the emotions of team members, leaders can shape relational
processes within teams (Jordan & Troth, 2002). For instance, higher levels
of leader emotional intelligence have been linked with higher levels of
trust in teams (Chang, Sy, & Choi, 2012). It stands to reason, then, that
leaders’ (lack of) emotional intelligence takes on heightened importance
in difficult situations, for instance when team members have divergent
perspectives on the task, or when teams are characterized by low cohe-
sion or high levels of conflict. Such difficulties are more likely to arise in
diverse teams, which are made up of members with different demo-
graphic or educational backgrounds and/or different personalities (Van
Knippenberg, De Dreu, & Homan, 2004). Adequate emotion manage-
ment should thus be especially critical in the context of diverse teams,
 Free ebooks ==> [Link]
192 Part II Social effects of emotions
where (negative) emotions are more likely to arise due to a greater
prevalence of personality clashes and conflicts (Homan & Jehn, 2010).
To test this argument, Homan, Van Kleef, Côté, and Bogo (2014) exam-
ined the effects of leaders’ emotional intelligence on the functioning of
diverse teams. In a longitudinal quasi-experiment, they followed groups of
students over a period of nine weeks. In the first week, the researchers
assessed the emotion management skills of all students using an ability-
based measure. The highest and the lowest scorers on the test were desig-
nated as team leaders, and the rest of the students were randomly assigned
to teams. In the second week, the researchers measured the individual
team members’ conscientiousness (McCrae & Costa, 1987), which they
used to operationalize the personality diversity in the teams. In the
weeks that followed, the team members reported on the degree of cohesion
and conflict within their team. At the end of the period, team performance
on a final assignment was graded. Results revealed an interaction between
team personality diversity and leader’s emotion management ability on
team conflict and cohesion. Teams with high levels of personality diversity
experienced fewer conflicts and greater cohesion when their leader had
high rather than low emotion management ability, which in turn resulted
in better performance. Teams low on personality diversity exhibited no
differential team processes or performance as a function of the leader’s
emotion management skills. This suggests that the importance of leaders’
emotional intelligence for team performance depends on the type of teams
they manage (see also Walter, Cole, & Humphrey, 2011). Emotional intelli-
gence may be especially critical under circumstances that impede smooth
interaction.

Conclusion
A growing body of research attests to the importance of emotions in
leadership. The emotions that leaders show, and the ways in which
they regulate those emotions, influence followers’ emotions, cognitions,
perceptions, and behavior in theoretically meaningful ways. It is also
clear from the extant literature that there is no simple answer to the
question of whether or not leaders should express their emotions, or
whether they should express positive or negative emotions to maximize
subordinates’ performance. In accordance with EASI theory, the effects of
leaders’ emotional expressions depend on followers’ information proces-
sing and on the perceived appropriateness of the leader’s emotional
expressions.
The moderating role of followers’ information processing is evident
primarily in studies that focused on followers’ performance as an index of
leadership effectiveness. Some of these studies also point to discrepancies

[Link]
 Social effects of emotions in leadership 193
between followers’ subjective ratings of their leader’s effectiveness
(which are heavily influenced by followers’ affective reactions to the
leader’s emotional displays) and followers’ actual performance in
response to the leader’s emotional expressions (which is shaped not
only by followers’ affective reactions, but also by inferential processes
that may be triggered by the leader’s emotional displays). These findings
point to the importance of separating subjective and objective perfor-
mance indices in research on leadership as well as to the importance of
measuring both inferential and affective processes to inform a better
understanding of the intricacies of the social effects of emotions.
The critical role of the perceived appropriateness of leaders’ emotional
expressions is evident in research that focused on followers’ subjective
ratings of leadership effectiveness as well as in studies that incorporated
more objective indices of effectiveness (e.g., actual follower perfor-
mance). There is evidence that the perceived appropriateness of leaders’
emotional expressions depends on characteristics of the situation (e.g.,
whether or not followers had expended much effort), characteristics of
the leader (e.g., whether she or he uses a transactional or a transforma-
tional leadership style), and characteristics of the followers (e.g., whether
they score high or low on agreeableness). It seems plausible that char-
acteristics of the emotional expression (e.g., intensity, authenticity) also
matter, but research is needed to examine this.
Finally, it is clear from the research discussed in this chapter that
leadership effectiveness hinges critically on leaders’ emotional skills.
Leaders with higher levels of emotional intelligence are more likely to
become aware of the unspoken thoughts and feelings of their followers by
“eavesdropping” on their emotional displays, which should put them in a
better position to lead their followers effectively. Emotionally intelligent
leaders are also better able to manage the emotions of their subordinates
so as to make team processes run smoothly and facilitate performance.
Furthermore, emotionally intelligent leaders are better able to manage
their own emotions and to adjust their emotional style to the situation and
to the demands of their subordinates. Such qualities should increase the
likelihood that followers perceive the leader’s emotional expressions as
appropriate, which in turn has consequences for follower performance
and team functioning. In sum, careful tailoring of emotional displays is a
key to leadership effectiveness and organizational success.
So far, research on the role of emotions in leadership has focused on the
effects of leaders’ emotions on followers. Even though this focus makes
sense in light of the fact that leaders are key agents of social influence, it
seems plausible that the emotional expressions of followers can also
shape leadership effectiveness and performance (Tee, Ashkanasy, &
Paulsen, 2013) by evoking emotions in the leader and/or signaling
194 Part II Social effects of emotions
important information to the leader regarding followers’ appraisals of the
situation. When shifting the focus from leader to follower, several inter-
esting new research questions emerge. For instance, do followers delib-
erately use their emotions to influence their leaders and to get things
done? How does the effectiveness of such strategies depend on the
specific emotion that is expressed, on the leader’s information-processing
motivation and ability, and on the perceived appropriateness of the
emotional display in the eyes of the leader? How do the emotional
expressions of followers shape leaders’ affective states and well-being
(e.g., enthusiasm, burnout, depression, annoyance)? When and how do
leaders use the emotional displays of their followers to inform their
decisions and actions? And how are such processes modulated by the
emotional intelligence of leader and follower? Examining these and other
questions will contribute to a deeper understanding of the role of emo-
tions in leader–follower relations and of the social effects of emotions in
general.
PART III

Conclusions, implications,
and new directions
 CHAPTER 10

Critical evaluation, theoretical

integration, and implications

Experience without theory is blind, but theory without experience is

mere intellectual play.
Immanuel Kant

Emotional expressions have a pervasive influence on our lives. The

chapters in Part II of this book document how emotional displays shape
critical processes and outcomes in a wide variety of social and organiza-
tional contexts, including close relationships, group decision making,
conflict and negotiation, consumer behavior and customer service, and
leadership. Besides a shared interest in the mechanisms and contingen-
cies that govern the social effects of emotions, these different fields of
inquiry are each characterized by their own unique research questions
and foci, which are rooted in the diverse traditions from which these
fields have emerged. Different emphases across domains of research also
reflect logical differences in the types of variables that are relevant in a
particular context. Quite sensibly, the literature on the effects of emo-
tional expressions in personal relationships reflects a strong interest in
relationship outcomes. Research on emotions in groups tends to focus on
group-level variables such as group affective tone and decision quality.
Studies on emotions in conflict and negotiation often include objective
indices of individual or joint negotiation performance. Researchers inter-
ested in the role of emotions in consumer behavior and customer service
commonly address outcomes such as service providers’ job attitudes and
well-being or customers’ satisfaction. Finally, leadership scholars tend to
concentrate on the effects of leaders’ emotional expressions on subjective
and/or objective measures of leadership effectiveness.
Besides inherent differences in the types of variables that are of interest
to scholars in different areas of investigation, research traditions differ in
terms of the prevailing approaches to studying the social effects of emo-
tions. For instance, research on the effects of emotional expressions on
relationship outcomes or negotiation behavior has traditionally shown a
strong interest in discrete emotional expressions. In contrast, research on
the social effects of emotions on group processes, customer service, and
leadership started out with a predominant focus on more diffuse affective

197
198 Part III Conclusions, implications, and new directions
states, which has only recently begun to be complemented with an inter-
est in the differential effects of discrete emotional expressions. As a result
of such inherent differences, the conclusions that can be drawn regarding
the nature, mechanisms, and contingencies of the social effects of emo-
tions differ somewhat across domains of research.
In this chapter I aim to transcend the boundaries between the different
research domains by highlighting key principles that should hold across
domains and by examining the support for and implications of these
principles. First I provide a brief summary of Emotions as Social
Information (EASI) theory, which is followed by a critical evaluation of
its current empirical support. Next I discuss the key differences and
commonalities between EASI theory and a number of other relevant
theoretical perspectives. I conclude by outlining implications of the
EASI framework for theory and research.

Summary of EASI theory

EASI theory seeks to illuminate the social effects of emotions. The theory
is rooted in a social-functional approach to emotion, which assumes that
emotions play a vital role in regulating social interaction (Fischer &
Manstead, in press; Frijda & Mesquita, 1994; Keltner & Haidt, 1999;
Parkinson, 1996; Van Kleef, 2009). Moving beyond the traditional ques-
tions of how our emotions arise and how they influence our own thinking
and behavior, EASI theory provides an account of how one person’s
emotional expressions influence the feelings, thoughts, and actions of
others. A fundamental assumption underlying the theory is that social
life is ambiguous and that people therefore turn to others’ emotions to
inform their understanding of the situation and the people involved in it
so as to determine a fitting course of action. Such disambiguation should
be facilitated to the degree that individuals express the emotions that they
experience (encoding) and accurately perceive the emotional expressions
of others (decoding).
EASI theory specifies two distinct processes through which emotional
expressions regulate social life, as discussed in detail in Chapter 3. First,
emotional expressions may elicit affective reactions in observers (i.e.,
reciprocal and complementary emotions and sentiments about the
expresser). Second, emotional expressions may trigger inferential pro-
cesses in observers (i.e., inferences about the source, meaning, and impli-
cations of the expresser’s emotion). In some cases affective reactions and
inferential processes motivate similar behavioral tendencies. For
instance, the distress of a relationship partner may be interpreted as a
sign that help is required (inference) but it may also trigger reciprocal
feelings of distress and/or complementary feelings of compassion in the
 Critical evaluation, theoretical integration, and implications 199
observer (affective reactions), both of which foster supportive behavior.
In other cases inferences and affective reactions motivate opposite beha-
viors. For instance, when faced with an angry opponent in conflict, one’s
own reciprocal anger may fuel competition and retaliation, but one’s
inference that the other is upset because his or her limits have been
reached may encourage strategic cooperation. When affective reactions
and inferential processes motivate different (behavioral) responses to
emotional expressions, responses depend on the relative strength of
inferential processes and affective reactions.
The relative strength of affective and inferential processes is shaped by
two broad classes of moderators, which were discussed in depth in
Chapter 4. First, building on the basic assumption that emotional expres-
sions constitute a source of information, EASI theory posits that the social
effects of emotional expressions are modulated by the observer’s infor-
mation-processing motivation and ability, which in turn depends on
dispositional characteristics (e.g., need for cognitive closure, personal
need for structure) and on situational characteristics (e.g., time pressure,
cognitive load). The deeper the observer’s information processing, the
stronger the relative predictive power of inferential processes.
Conversely, the shallower the information processing, the stronger the
relative predictive power of affective reactions.
Second, the social effects of emotional displays are proposed to depend
on social-contextual factors that shape the perceived appropriateness of
the displays in light of the social context. Such perceptions of (in)appro-
priateness depend on characteristics of the situation, the emotional
expression itself, the expresser, and the observer. EASI theory posits
that emotional expressions are more likely to trigger inferential processes
to the degree that they are perceived as appropriate. Conversely, emo-
tional expressions are more likely to elicit (negative) affective reactions to
the degree that they are perceived as inappropriate.
EASI theory is schematically summarized in Figure 10.1. The non-
shaded boxes to the left of the figure represent variables that are situated
in the expresser, whereas the shaded boxes represent variables that are
located in the observer. The solid arrows from left to right represent the
two mechanisms underlying the social effects of emotions, namely obser-
vers’ affective reactions and inferential processes. The boxes in the heart
of the model capture proximal moderators of the social effects of emo-
tions. Of these, the expresser’s emotional expressivity and the observer’s
emotion perception ability are necessary prerequisites for any social
effects of emotions to occur, because emotions that are not expressed in
perceptible ways and emotional expressions that are not registered can-
not bring about social effects through either of the mechanisms stipulated
here. The observer’s information processing and the perceived
 Characteristics of situation
(e.g., culture, display rules)
Characteristics of expression
Emotional
(e.g., target, intensity, authenticity)
intelligence
Characteristics of expresser
(e.g., status, group membership)
Characteristics of observer
(e.g., agreeableness, desire for harmony)
Observer’s affective reactions

Observer’s Perceived
Expresser’s Expresser’s Observer’s
emotion appropriateness Observer’s
emotional emotional information
perception of emotional response
display expressivity processing
ability display

Observer’s inferential
processes

Clinical conditions Personality characteristics

(e.g., brain trauma, physical (e.g., need for cognitive closure,
constraints, psychopathology) personal need for structure)
Nonclinical conditions Situational characteristics
(e.g., expressive suppression) (e.g., time pressure, cognitive load)

Figure 10.1 A schematic representation of the main variables and relationships specified in EASI theory.
 Critical evaluation, theoretical integration, and implications 201
appropriateness of the emotional display shape the relative predictive
power of affective reactions and inferential processes, as denoted by the
dashed arrows. The boxes outside the core of the model contain more
distal moderating influences that exert their impact via the proximal
moderators that are at the heart of the model.

A critical evaluation of the empirical support for EASI theory

The number of variables (especially distal ones) and relationships
specified in EASI theory is too numerous to be tested within a single
study, but dozens of studies speak to various parts of the theoretical
framework. Because the empirical record on the social effects of emo-
tions in various domains of research has already been discussed in
detail in the foregoing chapters, the following discussion focuses on
the general patterns that emerge from the various literatures reviewed
in Part II.
EASI theory is rooted in a rich tradition of theorizing and research on
emotion, and as such some of the assumptions and propositions that
underlie the theory are not unique to the EASI framework. For instance,
the idea that emotional expressions fulfill important social-communica-
tive functions has been discussed in great depth in previous writings that
have inspired the EASI framework (e.g., Buck, 1994; Keltner & Haidt,
1999; Parkinson, Fischer, & Manstead, 2005). Evidence for the possibility
that emotions have evolved because of their social-communicative func-
tions has also been discussed at length in earlier work (see Fridlund,
1994). I therefore limit the current discussion to the more unique aspects
of EASI theory.

The functional equivalence hypothesis

Building on the argument that emotions facilitate social interaction by
providing relevant information to interaction partners, EASI theory
posits that expressions of the same emotion that are emitted via different
expressive modalities (i.e., in the face, through the voice, by means of
bodily postures, with words, or via symbols such as emoticons) should
have comparable effects, provided that the emotional expressions can be
perceived by others. Clearly, as discussed in Chapter 2, the suitability of
the various expressive channels within a given interaction context
depends on situational affordances that influence the effectiveness of
verbal, nonverbal, or vocal communication (e.g., facial expressions are
likely to be especially effective in face-to-face interaction, vocal expres-
sions in phone conversations, and verbal expressions in e-mail
exchanges). Such obvious boundary conditions aside, EASI theory
 Free ebooks ==> [Link]
202 Part III Conclusions, implications, and new directions
postulates that the social-signaling value of emotions is functionally
equivalent across expressive modalities in that the direction (but not
necessarily the magnitude) of the interpersonal effects of emotional
expressions is the same irrespective of the expressive channel through
which they are emitted, as long as the emotional expression is accurately
perceived. This is referred to as the functional equivalence hypothesis in
the EASI framework.
To date, little research has directly (i.e., within a single study) com-
pared the social effects of emotional expressions across expressive mod-
alities beyond basic questions of decoding accuracy, with some notable
exceptions in the literature on emotional contagion.1 Separately, how-
ever, the various expressive modalities have been thoroughly investi-
gated. It is therefore possible to cautiously compare the social effects of
emotions expressed through different channels across studies. When
doing so, it is useful to draw a distinction between similarity in the
direction of effects (i.e., qualitative equivalence), which is predicted by
EASI theory, and similarity in the magnitude of effects (i.e., quantitative
equivalence), which is not implied.
It is important to note that comparisons of the magnitude of effects
across studies (e.g., as reflected in effect sizes) are likely to be invalid, or at
least not very informative, because researchers’ choices of particular
expressive modalities are often informed by (and therefore confounded
with) characteristics of the study’s setting that render one or the other
expressive modality more feasible or suitable to study. For instance, a
field study into the effects of emotional expressions on online dispute
resolution would almost necessarily rely on coding of written emotional
expressions, whereas a laboratory experiment on the effects of emotional
expressions in conversations between marital couples could more easily
incorporate nonverbal emotional displays in the study’s design. There is
little point in comparing the magnitude of the effects of verbal and
nonverbal emotional expressions between such studies, because obvious
differences between the research settings and procedures obfuscate the
interpretation of any differences or similarities.

1
It is worth mentioning that several studies have investigated the effects of inconsisten-
cies between two simultaneously active expressive channels, such as when a sad
message is delivered with a smiling face (e.g., Argyle, Alkema, & Gilmour, 1972;
Bugental, 1974; Krumhuber & Manstead, 2009; Mehrabian & Ferris, 1967). Although
this research provides insight into the relative weight observers attach to particular
expressive channels within a particular context, it does not speak directly to the notion
of functional equivalence. The functional equivalence hypothesis holds that the direc-
tion of the interpersonal effects of emotional expressions is similar across expressive
modalities, but it makes no assumptions about the relative influence of simultaneous
expressions via different channels.

[Link]
 Critical evaluation, theoretical integration, and implications 203
Although comparing the magnitude of effects is thus problematic, the
direction of effects can be meaningfully compared across studies involving
different expressive modalities. The research on the social effects of emo-
tions reviewed in the previous chapters has used a variety of procedures to
manipulate emotional expressions. Some studies relied on verbal expres-
sions of emotion, which were often delivered in the context of (simulated)
computer-mediated interactions (e.g., Adam, Shirako, & Maddux, 2010;
Bono & Ilies, 2006; Friedman et al., 2004; Melwani & Barsade, 2011; Van
Kleef, De Dreu, & Manstead, 2004a). Other studies used pictures of facial
emotional expressions (e.g., Hess, Blairy, & Kleck, 2000; Van Doorn,
Heerdink, & Van Kleef, 2012) or film clips containing emotional expres-
sions in face, voice, and posture (e.g., K. Lewis, 2000; Van Kleef et al., 2009).
Still other studies utilized face-to-face paradigms, in which confederates
were trained or naïve participants were induced to emit certain emotional
expressions in interaction with another person (e.g., Barsade, 2002;
Sinaceur & Tiedens, 2006; Sy, Côté, & Saavedra, 2005; Wang, Northcraft,
& Van Kleef, 2012). Yet other research (often conducted in the field)
involved self-reports of emotions and/or perceptions or coding of emo-
tional expressions as they arose in the context of ongoing social interac-
tions (Anderson, Keltner, & John, 2003; Averill, 1982; Grandey, 2003; Pugh,
2001; Tsai, 2001). Finally, some reports contain a combination of studies
that involved written emotion messages, emoticons, pictures of facial dis-
plays, film clips containing facial, vocal, and postural expressions, and/or
emotional expressions shown in face-to-face interaction (e.g., Bono & Ilies,
2006; Heerdink, Van Kleef, Homan, & Fischer, 2013; Sinaceur & Tiedens,
2006; Tiedens, 2001; Van Kleef, Van den Berg, & Heerdink, 2015).
Importantly, all these different procedures have yielded highly consis-
tent effects. Even though the reviews in the preceding chapters revealed
some inconsistent findings, these inconsistencies do not appear to arise
from a focus on different expressive modalities. As it stands, there is no
evidence of differential effects of emotions expressed through different
expressive modalities. Moreover, support for the key relationships stipu-
lated in EASI theory is provided by all types of studies, regardless of the
expressive modalities that were examined. When it comes to their inter-
personal effects, it appears that different channels of emotional commu-
nication are functionally equivalent, at least as far as the direction of their
effects is concerned. Clearly, however, more direct evidence from com-
parative studies would be valuable.

The mediating roles of affective reactions and inferential processes

EASI’s notion that emotional expressions may elicit affective reactions
and/or inferential processes in observers emerged in part from a synthesis
204 Part III Conclusions, implications, and new directions
of earlier work in which various instances of such effects had already been
demonstrated. Unsurprisingly, then, evidence for the effects of emotional
expressions on various types of affective reactions and inferential pro-
cesses on the part of observers is overwhelming – such evidence comes
from all five of the research domains reviewed in this book.
Far fewer studies speak directly to the mediating role of affective
reactions and/or inferential processes between emotional expressions
and observers’ (behavioral) responses. With regard to the role of affective
reactions, evidence for mediation has so far been obtained in the context
of close relationships (e.g., Anderson et al., 2003), group decision making
(e.g., Barsade, 2002), negotiation (e.g., Friedman et al., 2004; Van Kleef &
Côté, 2007), customer service and consumer behavior (e.g., Barger &
Grandey, 2006), and leadership (e.g., Sy et al., 2005; Van Kleef et al.,
2009). As such, there is reasonable support for the mediating role of
affective reactions postulated by EASI theory, but more research is
needed to further consolidate this conclusion.
Direct support for the presumed mediating role of inferential processes
between emotional expressions and (behavioral) responses has only
begun to emerge in the last decade. The most robust evidence comes
from studies on group decision making (e.g., Heerdink et al., 2013),
research on negotiation and social dilemmas (e.g., de Melo, Carnevale,
Read, & Gratch, 2014; Sinaceur & Tiedens, 2006; Van Kleef et al., 2004a),
and leadership (e.g., Van Kleef et al., 2009). Although several authors
have argued and shown that emotional expressions provide information
about individuals’ goals and desires in close relationships (e.g., Clark,
Pataki, & Carver, 1996; Eisenberg, 2000; Kennedy-Moore & Watson, 2001;
Yee & Greenberg, 1998), direct evidence for a mediating role of such
inferences in the link between emotional expressions and behavioral
responses is scarce (for a rare example, see Yee & Greenberg, 1998; also
see Bruder, Dosmukhambetova, Nerb, & Manstead, 2012). The customer
service literature has also not paid great attention to the role of inferential
processes, although some suggestive evidence has been reported in this
domain as well (Hareli et al., 2009).

The moderating roles of information processing and perceived

appropriateness
The EASI framework accords prominent moderating roles to the infor-
mation-processing motivation and ability of the observer of an emotional
display and to the perceived appropriateness of the emotional display.
Support for the moderating influence of information processing has
slowly begun to accumulate over the past decade. Current evidence
comes from the literatures on group decision making (e.g., Heerdink
 Critical evaluation, theoretical integration, and implications 205
et al., 2013), conflict and negotiation (e.g., Van Kleef, De Dreu, &
Manstead, 2004b; Van Kleef, Steinel, & Homan, 2013), and leadership
(e.g., Chi & Ho, 2014; Van Kleef et al., 2009). Evidence from the area of
customer service and consumer behavior is limited to one study on
persuasive communication (Van Kleef et al., 2015), and research in the
realm of close relationships has so far not explicitly considered the role of
information processing at all. Thus, although the existing data converge
to show that the social effects of emotional expressions are modulated by
the observer’s motivation and ability to engage in thorough information
processing, more evidence from different social settings is needed to
further bolster confidence in the robustness of this pattern.
Empirical support for the moderating role of the perceived appropri-
ateness of emotional displays has also begun to materialize only rela-
tively recently. There is considerable evidence from various domains that
emotional expressions that are perceived as inappropriate for the situa-
tion give rise to negative affective reactions in observers (e.g., Grandey,
Fisk, Mattila, Jansen, & Sideman, 2005; Hennig-Thurau, Groth, Paul, &
Gremler, 2006; Menon & Dubé, 2000; Van Kleef & Côté, 2007). EASI
theory further posits that the relative influence of negative affective reac-
tions (as compared with inferential processes) in shaping observers’
responses to others’ emotional expressions becomes greater to the degree
that observers perceive the expressions as inappropriate. This proposi-
tion can only be directly examined in studies that involve a measure of
both affective reactions and inferential processes. Such studies are rare,
however, which is due in part to a disproportionate reliance on affective
processes in several of the research domains in which the social effects of
emotions have been studied. Especially the literature on group decision
making and the literature on customer service have traditionally shown a
strong interest in the mediating role of affective reactions. The body of
research that is currently available is consistent with the proposition that
negative affective reactions become more influential in shaping (beha-
vioral) responses to emotional expressions to the degree that the expres-
sions are perceived as inappropriate (e.g., Adam et al., 2010; Harinck &
Van Kleef, 2012; Hennig-Thurau et al., 2006; Koning & Van Kleef, 2015;
Lewis, 2000; Van Doorn, Van Kleef, & Van der Pligt, 2015b; Van Kleef &
Côté, 2007), but additional research is needed to examine more directly
whether the predictive power of inferential processes simultaneously
decreases.
In sum, there is growing support for the key premises of EASI
theory. The framework has emerged from a synthesis of early research
on the social effects of emotions, which has in more recent years been
complemented with evidence from studies that were specifically
designed to test central tenets of the theory. Thus there is now a
206 Part III Conclusions, implications, and new directions
reasonable body of empirical evidence for the presumed functional
equivalence of expressive channels, for the mediating roles of affective
and inferential processes, and for the moderating influences of infor-
mation processing and of social-contextual factors that shape the
perceived appropriateness of emotional expressions. Clearly, how-
ever, because the EASI framework has evolved only recently, several
aspects of the theory await further empirical attention. I discuss these
issues in Chapter 11.

How does EASI theory relate to other approaches? Differences,

commonalities, and integration
A key premise of EASI theory is that emotional expressions provide
information to observers that may shape their behavior. Other central
components of the theory include the mediating roles of affective reactions
and inferential processes and the moderating influences of information
processing and social-contextual factors that shape the perceived appro-
priateness of emotional expressions. Some of these ideas also appear in
various other theoretical perspectives. It is therefore useful to consider the
commonalities and differences between EASI theory and other models.

Affect-as-information, affect infusion, mood-as-input, and the dual-process

tradition
The notion that emotions provide information is far from new (see, e.g.,
Damasio, 1994; Frijda, 1986; Oatley & Johnson-Laird, 1987). This idea has
been featured in numerous influential emotion models, including (but
not limited to) the affect-as-information model (Schwarz & Clore, 1983),
the affect infusion model (Forgas, 1995), and the mood-as-input model
(Martin, Ward, Achee, & Wyer, 1993). The key distinction between EASI
theory and these approaches lies in the level of analysis. Whereas earlier
frameworks are concerned with the question of how individuals’ atti-
tudes, cognitions, and behaviors are influenced by information indivi-
duals may obtain from their own emotions (whether consciously or
nonconsciously), EASI theory is concerned with the question of how
individuals are influenced by information they glean from the emotional
expressions of others. Given its different level of analysis (i.e., interper-
sonal as opposed to intrapersonal), EASI theory is fully compatible with
the earlier models.2 Besides adopting a different level of analysis, EASI
2
Due to their focus on intrapersonal affective influences, the earlier models are not
particularly relevant for understanding the inferential processes that may underlie
the interpersonal effects of emotions. However, the various processes of affect infusion
 Critical evaluation, theoretical integration, and implications 207
theory extends the intrapersonal models by specifying conditions that
influence the relative impact of affective versus inferential processes in
shaping the social effects of emotions.
Building on the idea that emotional expressions are a source of infor-
mation, EASI theory posits that the interpersonal effects of emotions are
modulated by observers’ information-processing motivation and ability.
Similar notions of information-processing motivation and ability feature
prominently in dual-process models of social information processing and
persuasion (see, e.g., Chaiken & Trope, 1999), as well as in Forgas’ (1995)
affect infusion model and Kruglanski’s unimodel (e.g., Kruglansi &
Thompson, 1999), all of which are again situated at the intrapersonal
level of analysis (i.e., they illuminate how attitudes, judgments, and
behavior are shaped by a person’s own affective state). In contrast,
EASI theory is situated at the interpersonal level of analysis (i.e., it
seeks to explain how one person’s attitudes, judgments, and behavior
are shaped by the emotional expressions of others). Given the different
foci and levels of analysis, the perspectives are complementary rather
than mutually exclusive.
EASI is also different from some of the classic dual-process models in
that it does not assume that people process information (in this case about
others’ emotions) either peripherally or systematically (e.g., Petty &
Cacioppo, 1986; cf. Chen & Chaiken, 1999). Rather, it posits that indivi-
duals may simultaneously experience affective reactions to the emotional
expressions of others and engage in inferential processing to interpret the
meaning and implications of the emotional expressions. Given that both
processes may occur at the same time and to varying degrees, responses
to others’ emotional expressions cannot be meaningfully conceptualized
on a single bipolar continuum (cf. Kruglanski & Thompson, 1999). EASI
theory builds on the dual-process tradition by distinguishing between
inferential processes and affective reactions to expressions of emotion
and by specifying conditions under which one or the other process
becomes relatively more influential.
Finally, it should be noted that EASI theory’s scope is somewhat
different than that of the traditional dual-process theories. Although
differences in focus exist among the classic models, they share a concern
with understanding processes of social information processing and per-
suasion, broadly defined. Although EASI theory can be and has been
applied to questions of persuasion and related phenomena such as

that are described in the intrapersonal models are relevant for understanding how
observers’ responses to others’ emotional expressions are shaped by the impact of
their own affective states on their cognitions, attitudes, and behavior, as detailed in
Chapter 3.
208 Part III Conclusions, implications, and new directions
compliance and conformity (Heerdink et al., 2013; Van Doorn et al.,
2015b; Van Kleef et al., 2015), its scope is broader in the sense that it
also speaks to the effects of emotional expressions in other domains of
social interaction that have traditionally not been the focus of work in
the realm of dual-process theories, including (but not limited to) close
relationships, group decision making, conflict and negotiation, custo-
mer service, and leadership and coaching. At the same time, EASI’s
scope is narrower than that of classic dual-process models in that it is
concerned specifically with the effects of emotional expressions,
whereas traditional models seek to understand the effects of both affec-
tive and nonaffective communications.

Emotional contagion, social appraisal, and reverse appraisal

Although the interpersonal approach to emotions is relatively young
compared to the long history of theory and research on intrapersonal
effects, several models and ideas have been proposed that speak to
different aspects of the social effects of emotional expressions. The oldest
of these is emotional contagion theory (Hatfield, Cacioppo, & Rapson,
1994), which seeks to explain when and how emotions spread between
individuals. The concept of emotional contagion is incorporated in EASI
theory’s notion of affective reactions. Besides (primitive) emotional con-
tagion, however, these affective reactions may also include sentiments
about the expresser of an emotion, such as increased or decreased liking
of happy versus angry people (see Chapter 3 for an in-depth discussion).
Existing models of emotional contagion are therefore relevant to under-
standing some of the affective reactions individuals may experience
when they are confronted with the emotional expressions of others.
However, these models are less useful when it comes to understanding
inferential processes that may be triggered in perceivers of emotional
expressions. The focus on such inferential processes constitutes a unique
aspect of EASI theory.
Another notion that has bearing on the social effects of emotions is the
concept of social appraisal (Bruder, Fischer, & Manstead, 2014; Fischer,
Manstead, & Zaalberg, 2003; Manstead & Fischer, 2001; Mumenthaler &
Sander, 2012; Parkinson, 2001). Social appraisal can be defined as “the
appraisal of behaviors, thoughts, or feelings of one or more other persons
in the emotional situation, in addition to the emotional event per se”
(Manstead & Fischer, 2001, p. 222). Social appraisal speaks to the influ-
ence of other individuals on one’s own emotional experiences and expres-
sions. Two key facets of social appraisal can be distinguished (Bruder
et al., 2014; Evers, Fischer, Rodriguez Mosquera, & Manstead, 2005).
 Critical evaluation, theoretical integration, and implications 209
First, other people’s emotional or behavioral reactions to events may
influence one’s own appraisals of those events, which in turn shape one’s
emotional experience. More specifically, an individual’s appraisal of an
emotional event may be influenced by the apparent appraisals other
individuals make of the same event. In support of this idea, one study
showed that participants’ reactions to a poor grade depended on the
emotional responses of fellow students to the same event, with angry
reactions by participants becoming more likely when other students
responded with anger and sad reactions becoming more likely when
other students responded with sadness (Fischer, Rotteveel, Evers, &
Manstead, 2004).
Second, social appraisal speaks to the imagined consequences of
expressing particular emotions in the presence of others (Manstead &
Fischer, 2001). That is, individuals may anticipate how others will react
to their own emotional expressions and/or how such reactions may
affect the attainment of their personal goals. In line with this idea,
Evers and colleagues (2005) reported evidence indicating that women
are less likely than men to express their anger because women are more
likely to believe that negative social consequences will ensue when they
show their anger.
The notion of social appraisal is pertinent to understanding social
factors that shape the experience and expression of emotions. Theorists
working with this concept have stressed that emotional episodes do not
unfold in a social vacuum that contains only the emotional stimulus and
the focal individual but are always embedded in a larger social context
(Fischer et al., 2003). The notion of social appraisal captures how people’s
emotional experiences and expressions are shaped by and regulated in
light of the perceived and anticipated reactions of other individuals in
the social context, which are appraised in relation to people’s social
objectives.
The first facet of social appraisal shows some resemblance with EASI
theory’s notion of inferential processes, although the two perspectives
have different foci. The social appraisal account is primarily concerned
with the question of how people’s emotional experiences and expressions
in response to relevant events are shaped by the reactions of others, which
may or may not be emotional in nature. EASI theory is not primarily
concerned with the determinants of emotional reactions to events but
rather with the question of how people’s (behavioral) responses to others’
emotional expressions are shaped by affective and inferential processes
that are triggered by those expressions. A commonality between the
social appraisal account and the EASI framework is the emphasis on the
social context. However, whereas the social appraisal account empha-
sizes the influence of (anticipated) reactions of others to one’s own
210 Part III Conclusions, implications, and new directions
emotional expressions, EASI theory stresses the importance of the per-
ceived appropriateness of other people’s emotional expressions in light of
the social context.
A related notion that is of relevance here is that of reverse appraisal,
which was discussed in detail in Chapter 3. The concept of reverse
appraisal refers to the interpretation of other people’s appraisals based
on their emotional expressions (de Melo et al., 2014). This process has
previously been referred to as “tracking” (Van Kleef, De Dreu, &
Manstead, 2004a), “backtracking” (Elfenbein, 2007), and “reverse engi-
neering appraisals” (Hareli & Hess, 2010). The process is also implied in
social appraisal theory (Manstead & Fischer, 2001), which describes how
individuals integrate information gleaned from others’ emotional expres-
sions into their own appraisals of a situation (i.e., “situation-oriented
social appraisal”; Bruder et al., 2014). Although different researchers
have used different terms to refer to this process, the basic idea is the
same: Individuals use others’ emotional expressions to inform their own
interpretations of situations and events. This notion is central to the
inferential processes stipulated in EASI theory.
As was the case with the other theoretical accounts discussed above,
the relationship of EASI theory to accounts of emotional contagion,
social appraisal, and reverse appraisal is one of complementarity rather
than mutual exclusiveness – the models have been developed to
address different types of questions. For instance, the social appraisal
account seeks to understand how emotional expressions are modulated
by the social context, whereas EASI theory aims to illuminate how the
social context shapes responses to emotional expressions. As such the
various models can exist next to one another. Nevertheless, the shared
focus of these perspectives on interpersonal rather than intrapersonal
emotional processes raises the question of whether they can be com-
bined into a unifying theoretical account. Parkinson and Simons (2009)
noted that “neither social appraisal nor emotion contagion can provide
an all-purpose theory of interpersonal emotional influence, and the
challenge facing future research is to specify when and how each of
these processes operates and how the two processes might interact
with each other” (p. 1083). EASI theory aspires to provide such an
integrative theoretical account by accommodating relevant aspects of
emotional contagion, social appraisal, and reverse appraisal and spe-
cifying how the relative impact of affective reactions (which are fueled
in part by emotional contagion and social appraisal) and inferential
processes (which rely in part on reverse appraisal) are shaped by
people’s information-processing motivation and ability and the per-
ceived appropriateness of emotional expressions in light of the social
context.
 Critical evaluation, theoretical integration, and implications 211
Affective events theory and the dual threshold model of anger
A prominent framework in the organizational literature is affective
events theory (AET; Weiss & Cropanzano, 1996), which was developed
to explain how affectively laden work events influence job satisfaction
and performance. AET holds that features of the work environment can
give rise to affective reactions (i.e., moods and emotions), which in turn
shape job satisfaction and performance. The theory played an important
role in stimulating research on affective phenomena in the workplace by
according a mediating role to affective states in explaining how organiza-
tion members respond to their work environment. This focus on affective
reactions represents a commonality with EASI theory. The main differ-
ence between the theories resides in their level of analysis. AET aims to
explain the emergence and intrapersonal consequences of affective states,
whereas EASI describes the interpersonal consequences of emotional
expressions. Besides this critical distinction, there are differences in the
scope of the theories. AET is concerned specifically with the role of
affective states in shaping job-related attitudes and behaviors, whereas
EASI seeks to explain the interpersonal effects of emotions across
domains of life.
Another perspective from the organization sciences that merits discus-
sion here is the dual threshold model of anger (Geddes & Callister, 2007).
This model posits that emotion recognition and organizational display
rules jointly create two thresholds that determine outcomes of anger epi-
sodes in the workplace. The expression threshold is crossed when individuals
express rather than suppress their anger at work, so that the anger can be
perceived by others. The impropriety threshold is crossed when expressed
anger violates organizational emotion display norms. The general argu-
ment of the dual threshold model is that anger can only be expected to have
favorable consequences at work when (1) it is expressed and (2) the
expression does not cross the impropriety threshold. Anger that is sup-
pressed cannot have beneficial consequences because it is not registered by
others, and anger that crosses the line is likely to backfire because it is
unfitting for the situation. Just like EASI theory, the dual threshold model
is situated at the interpersonal level of analysis – it seeks to explain the
social consequences of emotional expressions. Furthermore, the two per-
spectives share an interest in the perceived appropriateness of emotional
expressions. However, whereas the scope of the dual threshold model is
limited to the effects of expressions of anger in work settings, EASI theory
speaks to the effects of expressions of any emotion across a wide range of
social and organizational settings. Furthermore, EASI accords a critical
moderating role to perceivers’ information-processing motivation and
ability, whereas the dual threshold model does not.
 Free ebooks ==> [Link]
212 Part III Conclusions, implications, and new directions
In sum, EASI theory shares some elements with a number of existing
models, but it differs from these models in notable ways. EASI comple-
ments traditional perspectives that speak to the intrapersonal conse-
quences of affective experiences (e.g., the affect-as-information model,
the affect infusion model, affective events theory, and the various dual-
process accounts) by illuminating the interpersonal consequences of
emotional expressions. EASI further provides a way to integrate key
elements of various approaches that are relevant to understanding the
social effects of emotions. It borrows insights from emotion contagion
theory and translates the dual-process models’ notions of information-
processing motivation and ability to the interpersonal level of analysis by
considering how information processing shapes responses to others’ emo-
tional expressions as opposed to one’s own affective experiences. EASI’s
scope is narrower than that of some other models (most notably those in
the dual-process tradition) in that it does not incorporate the effects of
nonaffective communications but is limited to the effects of emotional
expressions. EASI is broader in scope than other models (e.g., emotion
contagion theory, the dual threshold model, and the social appraisal and
reverse appraisal approaches) in that it incorporates both affective and
inferential processes, identifies moderating influences on the relative
priority of both processes, is not limited to one particular emotion, and
speaks to the effects of emotional expressions across social and organiza-
tional domains.

Implications for theory and research

In this section I discuss some of the implications of the view of emotions
as social information and of the empirical research reviewed here. Several
implications for the respective research domains reviewed in Part II have
already been considered. I therefore focus the current discussion on more
overarching theoretical considerations and implications for research.

Evolution and the social functionality of emotions

Theorists differ in terms of the functionality they ascribe to emotions.
Some argue that emotions are merely an evolutionary by-product of the
neural regulation of the autonomic nervous system (e.g., Porges, 1999).
Others have proposed that emotions are functional in that they help us
prioritize our goals, signal the importance of events to relevant concerns,
and/or prepare our mind and body for adaptive responses to relevant
changes in the environment (e.g., Darwin, 1872; Ekman, 1992; Farb,
Chapman, & Anderson, 2013; Frijda, 1986; Lazarus, 1991). Although
these accounts differ in terms of the specific functions they ascribe to

[Link]
 Critical evaluation, theoretical integration, and implications 213
emotions, they share the assumption that (basic) emotions are evolved,
biological adaptations that help the organism deal with issues that are
crucial for survival, such as avoiding threats or noxious substances,
approaching opportunities, and fighting off enemies. Emotions are sys-
tematically associated with physiological processes geared toward ade-
quate (behavioral) responding to pertinent events. For instance, anger
leads to enhanced distribution of blood to the hands, whereas fear
involves a reduced blood flow to the periphery (Levenson, 1992). These
processes have been suggested to facilitate adaptive fight and flight
responses (Keltner, Haidt, & Shiota, 2006).
In addition, emotions have been proposed to contribute to the effective
regulation of social interaction (Keltner & Haidt, 1999; Parkinson et al.,
2005). Some argue, for instance, that emotions help to solve problems of
commitment and cooperation, which are central to human ultrasociality
(Frank, 1988, Keltner et al., 2006). For example, love and compassion
signal psychological attachment and commitment to a relationship
(Gonzaga, Keltner, Londahl, & Smith, 2001). Embarrassment and shame
appease dominant individuals and signal submissiveness (Keltner &
Buswell, 1997). Pride protects the social status of accomplished indivi-
duals (Tiedens, Ellsworth, & Mesquita, 2000). Anger motivates punish-
ment of individuals who violate norms of reciprocity and cooperation
(Lerner, Goldberg, & Tetlock, 1998). According to this perspective, emo-
tions may have evolved because they help coordinate social life by sol-
ving problems of commitment and cooperation.
The theoretical framework and research discussed in this book high-
light another – related – possibility, namely that emotions have evolved
because of their role in facilitating communication and coordination
and shaping processes of social influence. Individuals often lack infor-
mation about others’ internal states, which makes it difficult to predict
their behavior and determine an appropriate course of action. It stands
to reason that such lack of insight into other individuals’ goals and
intentions was even more pressing in preliterate times, when language
as a communication device was not yet available. In the absence of
language, observable nonverbal behaviors – including facial, vocal,
and postural expressions of emotion – likely provided useful clues
regarding other people’s motives and intentions (Fridlund, 1992), mak-
ing such expressions especially vital for adaptive responding, survival,
and reproduction.
Humans’ unique mastery of language later added an extra dimension
to emotional expression (Oatley, 2003) and the regulation of social inter-
action (Keltner et al., 2006). It seems reasonable to assume that children
who more effectively convey distress to their caregivers are more likely to
be nurtured, and that parents who are better attuned to their children’s
214 Part III Conclusions, implications, and new directions
suffering are more likely to intervene when needed, thereby increasing
the chances of their offspring’s survival. Similarly, individuals who dis-
play anger at appropriate times and in the appropriate manner are more
likely to scare off dangerous enemies, just as attackers who are better
attuned to signs of anger in their enemies are more likely to avoid deadly
combat (cf. Fridlund, 1994). Finally, people who express happiness in the
right circumstances probably develop better social networks, receive
more social support, and lead more successful social lives (Lopes,
Salovey, Côté, & Beers, 2005). In short, appropriate use of and responses
to emotional expressions facilitate successful social adaptation, and these
benefits derive in part from the capacity of emotional expressions to
signal important information to others and thereby influence their beha-
vior in ways that are beneficial for the self and/or for others.
Over the years several theorists have noted that emotional expressions
may be used deliberately to influence others. Clark and colleagues (1996)
reported anecdotal evidence that people strategically use displays of
sadness to solicit help. This can be effective (especially in communal
relationships), because observers may infer that the expresser is needy
and dependent. Likewise, people may express anger to intimidate and
influence others (Frank, 1988). For instance, managers have been reported
to strategically feign anger in order to influence their subordinates
(Fitness, 2000). Furthermore, people may purposefully express happiness
to get others to like them (Clark et al., 1996). Finally, criminal interroga-
tors and bill collectors report using emotional strategies to bring about
compliance in their targets (Rafaeli & Sutton, 1991). The theory and
research reviewed in this volume resonate with these arguments.
Emotions are powerful agents of social influence (Côté & Hideg, 2011;
Van Kleef, Van Doorn, Heerdink, & Koning, 2011), and this influence is
driven in large part by the informational relevance of emotional displays.
The view of emotions as social information implies that emotional
expressions should have a stronger impact on social behavior to the
extent that other, more direct information about a person’s social goals
and intentions is unavailable (Van Kleef, De Dreu, & Manstead, 2010).
If emotions serve to disambiguate social interaction, providing trust-
worthy information about another person’s intentions might under-
mine the impact of that person’s emotional expressions. Despite the
intuitive plausibility of this idea, little direct evidence currently exists
to support it. A rare exception is a study by Hareli and colleagues
(2009), who examined how emotional expressions of customers influ-
ence service providers’ inferences regarding the credibility of a com-
plaint. They found that when the credibility of a complaint was
uncertain, displays of anger by the customer bolstered perceptions of
injustice and enhanced the perceived credibility of the complaint in
 Critical evaluation, theoretical integration, and implications 215
the eyes of the service provider compared to displays of sadness.
However, when the complaint was unambiguously justified, the cus-
tomers’ emotional expressions had no effect on perceptions of cred-
ibility because they provided no relevant additional information.
Along similar lines, it is conceivable that emotional expressions have
less impact when strong social norms are in place to guide behavior.
Such norms might take over emotion’s disambiguating function by
making other people’s behavior relatively easy to predict.
Another implication of the view of emotions as social information is
that social interaction is shaped in important ways by individual differ-
ences in emotional expressivity and decoding accuracy (see Chapter 4).
Some individuals are more emotionally expressive than others (Kring,
Smith, & Neale, 1994), and it stands to reason that individuals who
interact with emotionally expressive others are presented with more
cues as to their interaction partner’s inner states, goals, motives, and
intentions. Observers, in turn, differ in the extent to which they are
capable of accurately decoding others’ emotional expressions, for
instance as a result of variation in emotional intelligence (Salovey &
Mayer, 1990) or clinical conditions such as Parkinson’s disease (Jacobs,
Shuren, Bowers, & Heilman, 1995) and certain types of autism spectrum
disorder (Uljarevic & Hamilton, 2013), as discussed in Chapter 2.
Individuals who are better at recognizing emotions in others should
have more valuable information at their disposal to inform their behavior
in interactions with other people. Evidence that people who are more
emotionally expressive contribute to more comfortable interactions
(Butler et al., 2003) and experience greater interpersonal closeness and
social support (Srivastava, Tamir, McGonigal, John, & Gross, 2009) cor-
roborates the notion that emotional expressions provide relevant infor-
mation that is critical for social adaptation.

Bounded functionality: emotion regulation and emotional intelligence

It is important to stress that arguments for the social functionality of
emotional expressions do not imply that every emotional expression is
always functional (also see Fischer & Manstead, in press). Although it
may be tempting to interpret many of the social consequences of emo-
tional expressions reviewed here as functional, several effects can also be
construed as dysfunctional, depending on the perspective one takes.
Some interpersonal effects appear to be unequivocally beneficial, such
as the tendency to provide consolation to distressed individuals. Other
types of effects, however, can be positive or negative, depending on
individuals’ goals and situational requirements. For instance, even
though contagion of positive emotions in groups may contribute to
216 Part III Conclusions, implications, and new directions
understanding and rapport among group members, the resulting affec-
tive homogeneity can constitute a liability insofar as it undermines critical
evaluation of each other’s ideas.
The functionality of emotional expressions also depends on character-
istics of the social setting and on the goals and social motives of the parties
that are involved. If we consider the functionality of emotional expres-
sions in competitive settings such as negotiations, for instance, we run
into a paradox. One could argue that expressions of anger are functional
in that they may help a negotiator to extract concessions from his or her
counterpart. However, from the perspective of the counterpart the func-
tionality of such an effect is highly debatable, and in many cases the
consequences of the anger will be perceived as unfavorable. One could
argue that the anger is still functional at the system level (in this case the
dyad) because it helps the two parties coordinate their offers and
demands and thereby reach an agreement. However, there are also
instances where (the expression of) anger and concomitant aggression
unmistakably have unfavorable consequences at the system level, such as
in intractable conflicts (Halperin & Gross, 2010).
One way of thinking about the functionality of emotional expressions is
by considering issues they may help to address. Different emotions (or
families of emotions) have been proposed to serve different social func-
tions that may help to solve various types of problems that can emerge in
social life (Keltner & Gross, 1999). Logically, then, the functionality of any
emotional display depends on the degree to which it helps to remedy a
relevant problem. For instance, expressions of anger may be functional to
the extent that they sanction a transgression or call attention to a per-
ceived injustice. However, when no injustice or transgression has been
committed, displays of anger may exacerbate the quality of social rela-
tionships instead of improving them, partly because expressions of anger
are more likely to be perceived as inappropriate in such circumstances.
Clearly, then, the presumed functions of emotional expressions should be
critically evaluated and weighed against the possibility of dysfunctional
outcomes (Parrott, 2001).
Given the many complexities and contingencies surrounding the social
effects of emotions, the functionality of any emotional display (from the
perspective of the individual and/or the larger system) depends on the
extent to which the expresser is able to regulate the emotional display in
light of his or her goals and in light of the constraints and demands of the
social context. This means that the social functionality of emotional dis-
plays hinges critically on expressers’ emotional intelligence and asso-
ciated emotion regulation abilities (Côté, 2005). Emotion regulation
includes all efforts to increase, maintain, or decrease one or more compo-
nents of an emotion, including its subjective experience and public
 Critical evaluation, theoretical integration, and implications 217
display (Gross, 1998b). If emotional expressions can have favorable or
unfavorable consequences depending on the degree to which they fit
within the current social context, it follows that the ability (or lack thereof)
to appropriately regulate one’s emotional displays has repercussions for
the quality of social exchange and, more broadly, for the functionality of
emotional expressions. In keeping with this idea, research has documen-
ted links between emotion regulation ability and outcomes such as rela-
tionship quality (Lopes et al., 2005) and leadership effectiveness (Côté,
Lopes, Salovey, & Miners, 2010; Kellett, Humphrey, & Sleeth, 2006).
Other work has linked more general conceptions of emotional intelli-
gence to customer service performance (Rozell, Pettijohn, & Parker,
2004) and negotiation success (Elfenbein, Foo, White, Tan, & Aik, 2007),
although evidence for the latter relationship is mixed.
An implication of this argument is that the (dys)functionality of emo-
tional displays can only be understood by considering the role of inter-
acting partners’ emotional intelligence, including not only the emotion
perception skills and emotional understanding of the perceiving partner,
but also the emotion regulation abilities of the expressing partner (see
Figure 10.1).

Implications of the functional equivalence of expressive modalities

As noted earlier in this chapter, no studies have directly compared tests of
EASI theory based on emotional expressions emitted via different chan-
nels. However, evidence from studies of basic responses to emotional
expressions (which did involve direct comparisons of expressive modal-
ities) supports the functional equivalence hypothesis. For instance, there
is evidence that various discrete emotional expressions are well recog-
nized (i.e., far above chance level) regardless of the expressive channel
(Hawk, Van Kleef, Fischer, & Van der Schalk, 2009) and that emotions
displayed via different expressive channels trigger comparable physiolo-
gical responses in observers (Magnee, Stekelenburg, Kemner, & De
Gelder, 2007). Moreover, as indicated above, a comparison of the social
effects of emotional expressions emitted through various expressive
channels across studies did not reveal differences in the direction of
such effects. Even though the lack of such differences cannot be inter-
preted as conclusive evidence, these patterns are consistent with the
assumption of functional equivalence.
If one accepts the possibility of such functional equivalence of expres-
sive channels, several implications are worth considering. First, the
notion of functional equivalence implies that the social-signaling function
of emotions is served equally well by verbal, facial, and vocal expressions
of emotion, provided that the emotional expression can be accurately
218 Part III Conclusions, implications, and new directions
registered. Thus, for instance, a distant cry of distress, a teary face at close
range, and an e-mail stating one’s distress may all be effective in eliciting
social support by triggering affective reactions and/or inferential pro-
cesses in an observer, even though the strength of the effects might differ
across expressive modalities (Hawk et al., 2009).
Second, the notion of functional equivalence has implications for
designing studies on the social effects of emotions. Some scholars appear
to believe that nonverbal manipulations of emotional expression more
accurately capture the essence of emotion than do verbal manipulations.
The growing evidence for the functional equivalence of different manip-
ulations of emotional expressions casts doubt on the tenability of this
belief. In addition, now that communication increasingly occurs via social
media that rely primarily on verbal communication, verbal expressions of
emotion become ever more prevalent in social interaction. Disregarding
them as unnatural does not do justice to the ways in which emotions are
expressed in everyday life.
Third, on a more practical note, functional equivalence means that
researchers interested in the social effects of emotions have a rich reper-
toire of manipulations at their disposal, none of which is inherently
superior or inferior. This is not to say that the different procedures do
not have different advantages and disadvantages. For instance, verbal
expressions of emotion arguably afford the most tightly controlled
manipulation, but they lack a certain degree of social richness. Face-to-
face interaction involving verbal, facial, postural, and vocal emotional
expressions provides the richest social context, but such a setting does not
allow for rigid experimental control because the responses of the target
may influence the behavior of the expresser. The choice of a particular
procedure should therefore depend on the objective of the study (e.g.,
how much experimental control is desired) and on what is feasible and
believable given the research setting.

Emotion specificity: the importance of studying discrete emotions

In the last decades, numerous scholars have argued and shown that there
are robust and theoretically meaningful differences among the various
discrete emotions that cannot be understood purely in terms of valence.
Initial support for such emotion specificity came from studies on the
distinct appraisal patterns (e.g., Frijda, Kuipers, & ter Schure, 1989;
Roseman, 1984), physiological correlates (e.g., Levenson, 1992;
Levenson, Ekman, & Friesen, 1990), and intrapersonal effects of emo-
tional states on cognition and behavior (e.g., Bodenhausen, Sheppard, &
Kramer, 1994; DeSteno, Petty, Wegener, & Rucker, 2000; Keltner,
Ellsworth, & Edwards, 1993; Lerner & Keltner, 2001; Tiedens & Linton,
 Critical evaluation, theoretical integration, and implications 219
2001). The theoretical framework and the research reviewed here further
add to this increasing awareness by emphasizing that the interpersonal
effects of emotions are also emotion specific.
For instance, research on emotional expressions in close relationships
has identified critical differences between the negative emotions of anger
(which can have beneficial consequences for the quality of relationships)
and contempt (which typically has negative consequences for relation-
ships; e.g., Averill, 1982; Fischer & Roseman, 2007; Gottman, 1993).
Research on the effects of emotional expressions on compliance with
requests has found that expressing disappointment (which is deemed
relatively appropriate in this context) is more effective than expressing
anger (which is deemed quite inappropriate) in securing compliance with
a request (Van Doorn et al., 2015b). This pattern may be explained by the
fact that disappointment does not involve assigning blame to another
person whereas anger does (Wubben, De Cremer, & Van Dijk, 2009a).
Studies on the effects of emotional expressions in groups have shown that
displays of anger versus sadness signal different levels of acceptance to
targets (Heerdink, Van Kleef, Homan, & Fischer, 2015), which have
differential consequences for conformity versus deviance in groups
(Heerdink et al., 2013). Research on emotions in conflict and negotiation
has documented opposite effects of expressions of anger versus guilt
(Van Kleef et al., 2004a, 2006a). These patterns can be understood in
terms of the “core relational themes” of anger and guilt, which are
other-blame and self-blame, respectively (Smith, Haynes, Lazarus, &
Pope, 1993). In the leadership realm, several researchers have reported
differential effects of leaders’ expressions of anger versus sadness, with
expressions of anger by male leaders signaling greater status (Tiedens,
2001) and leadership effectiveness (K. Lewis, 2000) than expressions of
sadness, but expressions of sadness eliciting greater liking (Madera &
Smith, 2009). These patterns can be explained in terms of the greater
action orientation that is implied by displays of anger rather than sadness
(which suggests leadership capacities) in combination with the negative
interpersonal signals that are radiated by expressions of anger (e.g.,
blame, aggression). These examples demonstrate that there is greater
promise in conceptualizing emotions in terms of their unique appraisal
patterns, action tendencies, and social signals than in terms of their
valence. Even though crude distinctions in terms of valence may be
sufficient for some research goals, measuring diffuse positive versus
negative affect may inadvertently obfuscate theoretically meaningful
differences among discrete emotional expressions.
Besides the limited conceptual and empirical precision involved in
measuring diffuse positive versus negative affect instead of discrete
emotional states and expressions, one may question what it means to
220 Part III Conclusions, implications, and new directions
conceptualize emotions in terms of their valence. Even though this prac-
tice is widespread and viable alternative approaches have yet to be
proposed, several theorists have questioned the usefulness of referring
to emotions as “positive” or “negative.” Some scholars have stressed that
both positive and negative emotions can have favorable as well as unfa-
vorable consequences (Lindebaum & Jordan, 2014; Parrott, 2014),
depending on time, place, context, and culture (Lazarus, 2003; Nesse &
Ellsworth, 2009). Nesse (1990, p. 281) argued that “bad feelings exist for
good reasons.” Focusing on one “bad feeling” in particular, others have
proposed that anger is an approach-related affect that is associated with
the appetitive motivational system (Carver & Harmon-Jones, 2009) and,
perhaps more controversially, that anger should be seen as a positive
rather than a negative emotion (Hess, 2014; Lerner & Tiedens, 2006).
The fundamental question is: What is positive and negative about
positive and negative emotions? Positive emotions may generally feel
more pleasant than negative emotions, but people also report experien-
cing particular instances of negative emotions such as anger or sadness as
pleasant in some way, and they voluntarily expose themselves to nega-
tive emotional stimuli such as sad movies, depressing music, or disturb-
ing art (Oliver, 1993; Schubert, 1996). Moreover, emotions that are
experienced as unpleasant may have quite beneficial social consequences
(e.g., displays of sadness may evoke social support and draw people
closer to one another; Clark et al., 1996), and emotions that are experi-
enced as pleasant may have counterproductive social consequences (e.g.,
expressions of happiness may invite exploitation in negotiations; Van
Kleef et al, 2004a).
Adopting an evolutionary perspective, Nesse and Ellsworth (2009)
argued that emotions have been shaped by natural selection to regulate
responses to events that are relevant to an individual’s ability to reach
personal goals. Accordingly, they stated that “in situations that decrease
fitness, negative emotions are useful and positive emotions are harmful”
(Nesse & Ellsworth, 2009, p. 129). In accordance with this presumed
flexibility, individuals have been observed to deliberately upregulate
their negative emotions to increase their chances of success in situations
that potentially “decrease fitness.” For instance, people may strategically
upregulate anger to claim a larger share of the pie in a negotiation or
cultivate sadness so as to be more effective at soliciting help (Tamir, 2009).
Numerous studies discussed in this book further question the utility of
the positive-negative dimension. We have seen myriad examples of posi-
tive effects of expressions of negative emotions such as anger, sadness,
and disappointment on relationship quality (e.g., Fischer & Roseman,
2007; Graham, Huang, Clark, & Helgeson, 2008), various aspects of
group functioning (e.g., Heerdink et al., 2013; Klep, Wisse, & Van der
 Critical evaluation, theoretical integration, and implications 221
Flier, 2011), negotiation outcomes (e.g., Sinaceur & Tiedens, 2006; Van
Kleef et al., 2004a), the quality of customer service (e.g., Hareli et al., 2009),
and leadership effectiveness (e.g., Sy et al., 2005; Van Kleef, Homan,
Beersma, & Van Knippenberg, 2010). We have also seen some instances
of potentially counterproductive consequences of positive emotional
expressions (typically of happiness), most notably in the context of
group decision making (e.g., Heerdink et al., 2013; Klep et al., 2011;
Tsai, Chi, Grandey, & Fung, 2012), conflict and negotiation (e.g., Steinel,
Van Kleef, & Harinck, 2008; Van Kleef et al., 2004a), and leadership (e.g.,
Sy et al., 2005; Van Kleef et al., 2010).
All of this suggests that there is limited value in thinking about emo-
tions primarily in terms of positivity versus negativity. In light of the
growing body of evidence in support of emotion specificity at the inter-
personal level of analysis, future research would do well to measure or
manipulate discrete emotions rather than positive or negative affect.
Clearly, the research context may constrain measurement options to
some degree. It may be partly for this reason that many field studies on
emotion have relied on measures of positive versus negative affect,
especially in cases where consent and collaboration from organizations
were needed to conduct the research. Such constraints notwithstanding,
operationalizations of discrete emotions should be preferred to measures
of general affect wherever possible.

Conclusion
The myriad studies that were reviewed in Part II of this book speak to the
critical yet intricate ways in which emotional expressions regulate our
social lives. EASI theory was developed in an attempt to account for the
wide variety of social effects of emotional expressions that have been
documented in the literature and to guide future research in this area. In
this chapter I presented an integrative summary of the key tenets of the
theory, which I critically reviewed in light of the available evidence. This
review revealed that there is mounting support for the notion of (quali-
tative) functional equivalence of expressive modalities, for the mediating
roles of affective reactions and inferential processes, and for the moder-
ating influences of observers’ information processing and the perceived
appropriateness of emotional displays. The review also revealed that
there are appreciable differences between the various literatures covered
in Chapters 5 to 9 in terms of the emphasis they put on particular emo-
tional processes and outcomes. As a result, several blind spots can be
identified within each domain of research. When the five literatures are
combined, however, considerable support for EASI’s central propositions
is observed.
222 Part III Conclusions, implications, and new directions
An analysis of the various commonalities and differences between
EASI theory and other theoretical approaches revealed that the EASI
framework complements traditional perspectives in various ways. The
most obvious difference with many other models concerns EASI’s focus
on the interpersonal rather than the intrapersonal effects of emotions. The
theory further provides a way to integrate key elements of various
approaches that are relevant to understanding the social effects of emo-
tions. Specifically, it borrows insights from emotional contagion accounts
and various appraisal models, and translates notions of information-
processing motivation and ability from the dual-process tradition to the
interpersonal level of analysis by considering how information proces-
sing shapes responses to other people’s emotional expressions. I have
addressed some of the implications of the EASI framework for theory and
research, including theorizing about the evolution and social functional-
ity of emotions, the role of emotion regulation and emotional intelligence,
methodological implications of the assumption of functional equivalence
of expressive modalities, and the importance of studying discrete emo-
tions. In the final chapter I will discuss caveats in the current state of the
art and present an agenda for future research.
 CHAPTER 11

Caveats and future directions

Science never solves a problem without creating ten more.

George Bernard Shaw

In the preceding chapters of this book, I have offered a new integrative

framework for understanding and investigating the interpersonal
dynamics of emotions: Emotions as Social Information (EASI) theory. I
have reviewed the empirical literature on the social effects of emotions
across a wide range of domains, analyzed the current support for EASI
theory, discussed some of its implications, and highlighted differences
and commonalities between EASI theory and other theoretical
approaches. In this final chapter I discuss boundaries and limitations of
the theory that have remained somewhat implicit in the preceding chap-
ters. In addition, I identify lacunae in our current understanding of the
social effects of emotions more generally and provide an agenda for
future research. Even though countless specific research questions per-
taining to the social effects of emotions in each of the domains reviewed in
Part II of this book await future research (several of which have been
highlighted in the respective chapters), the focus here is on bigger-picture
questions that cut across the various domains.

The elusive nature of evolutionary arguments

EASI theory is partly rooted in evolutionary accounts of the social func-
tionality of emotion. The theory proposes that emotions have evolved at
least in part because of their social-communicative functions (also see
Fridlund, 1994). As is the case with more common arguments about the
evolutionary benefits of the intrapersonal functions of emotions (e.g., fear
preparing the organism to flee; Farb, Chapman, & Anderson, 2013; Frijda,
1986), this proposition cannot be directly tested or falsified. Empirically
speaking, the usefulness of the proposition is therefore limited. Its pri-
mary value lies in the emphasis it puts on the social-communicative
functions of emotions, which may serve the purpose of shifting attention
toward the interpersonal effects of emotions and stimulating future the-
orizing and research in this direction.

223
224 Part III Conclusions, implications, and new directions
Even though obtaining direct support for the idea that emotions
have evolved because of their social-signaling functions is a scientific
utopia, several arguments and observations provide suggestive evi-
dence for this possibility. There is abundant evidence that emotional
expressions play a pivotal role in regulating social behavior in non-
human primates, as reviewed previously in this book. Although such
data clearly do not constitute evidence that the social functionality of
emotional expressions shaped the evolution of emotions, they are
consistent with this possibility. Furthermore, we know that emo-
tional expressions help coordinate human social behavior in the
present day, and there are no apparent reasons to assume that they
would not have had such potential in the evolutionary past, espe-
cially since many modern-day means of coordination (including
language) were not available in those times. It would seem plausible
that emotional displays played a role in coordinating social interac-
tion in the era when our humanoid ancestors started living in
groups, thus contributing to the development of human ultrasocial-
ity as we know it today (Buck, 1984; Fridlund, 1994; Keltner, Shiota,
& Haidt, 2006).
Providing strong support for the role of emotional displays in
shaping the evolutionary trajectory of human kind will require multi-
disciplinary collaborations among biologists, evolutionary theorists,
archaeologists, psychologists, philosophers, and anthropologists,
among others. For instance, further research into the anatomy of the
facial muscles of our various evolutionary ancestors, combined with
data about solitary versus group living in the respective time periods,
may reveal new cues as to when certain groups of muscles that are
involved in creating emotional expressions evolved, and whether the
emergence of such muscles coincided with a transition toward greater
sociality. As a case in point, a study by Waller, Cray, and Burrows
(2008) on the anatomy of contemporary faces revealed that some facial
muscles are not present in all individuals and that individuals com-
monly exhibit considerable asymmetry in their facial musculature (i.e.,
muscles are larger on one side of the face than on the other, or entirely
absent on one side). Interestingly, however, the facial muscles that are
essential for producing the basic emotions of happiness, sadness,
anger, surprise, fear, and disgust were always present and showed
minimal asymmetry. The authors concluded that “specific facial mus-
cle structures have likely been selected to allow individuals to pro-
duce universally recognizable signals” (p. 439). Arguments and data
such as these combine to create a case for the important role of
emotional displays throughout our evolutionary past, but clearly
more research is needed.
 Caveats and future directions 225
Measurement and separability of affective versus inferential
processes
EASI theory posits that affective and inferential processes have mutually
influential yet conceptually distinct and empirically separable effects on
observers’ behavioral responses to others’ emotional expressions. It
further specifies two classes of moderating influences that jointly deter-
mine the relative influence of the two processes in shaping responses to
emotional displays. Even though the incorporation of two distinct pro-
cesses and two groups of moderators makes the theory flexible and
therefore potentially capable of accounting for a wide range of interper-
sonal emotional phenomena, a number of conceptual and empirical
issues merit attention.
EASI theory can be seen as part of a larger family of dual-process
models that aim to describe the contributions of two distinct classes of
processes to judgments and behavior. A problem of some of these models
is the (often implicit) assumption of “process purity,” the idea that only
one process drives responses in a particular situation (Sherman,
Krieglmeyer, & Calanchini, 2014). In reality, it is more likely that multiple
processes simultaneously contribute to individuals’ (behavioral)
responses to stimuli. This is why EASI’s propositions pertaining to med-
iating processes (i.e., affective reactions and inferential processes) and the
moderating influences that govern them (i.e., observers’ information
processing and the perceived appropriateness of emotional displays)
are stated in relative rather than absolute terms. That is, the theory posits
that the relative influence of inferential processes (compared to affective
reactions) in driving responses to emotional expressions increases to the
degree that observers are more motivated and able to engage in thorough
information processing and perceive the emotional expression as appro-
priate in light of the social context.
Even though EASI does not make the problematic assumption of
process purity, several other issues pertaining to the interplay between
affective reactions and inferential processes remain. One problem is
that, in general, cognitive and affective processes are not always as
neatly separable as one might like them to be. Even though affect and
cognition are traditionally seen as distinct building blocks of human
behavior (Zajonc, 1980), it is also well established that affect and cogni-
tion are mutually influential (LeDoux, 1998). Partly due to this potential
for mutual influence, the boundaries between affect and cognition
become blurry in some situations, and this is also true for EASI’s dis-
tinction between affective reactions and inferential processes. For
instance, where lies the boundary between inferences of threat and
feelings of fear? Appraisal theories of emotion (e.g., Frijda, 1986;
226 Part III Conclusions, implications, and new directions
Ortony, Clore, & Collins, 1988; Roseman, 1984; Scherer, Schorr, &
Johnstone, 2001; Smith, Haynes, Lazarus, & Pope, 1993) stress that
cognitive processes (e.g., inferences of threat) give rise to emotions
(e.g., feelings of fear), which implies that sharp boundaries may not
always exist.
The classic studies on social referencing (Klinnert, Campos, Sorce,
Emde, & Svejda, 1983; Sorce, Emde, Campos, & Klinnert, 1985) that
were discussed in Chapter 2 represent another case in point. Is social
referencing predominantly affective or inferential in nature? Given that
very young infants are already capable of using others’ emotional dis-
plays to inform their own behavior, elaborate cognitive processing does
not seem to be required for social referencing to occur. At the same time,
there is also no compelling evidence that social referencing is mediated by
affective processes. Social referencing most likely relies on well-learned
associations between emotional displays and situational features that are
easily accessed when relevant events occur. It is unclear exactly how and
in which proportion affective and cognitive processes contribute to this
phenomenon. Indeed, teasing apart the affective and cognitive constitu-
ents of social referencing is not an easy task. Self-report measures are
obviously not an option in infant research, and physiological measure-
ments also bring about significant challenges in such samples.
To illuminate the relative contribution of affective and inferential pro-
cesses in shaping responses to emotional displays, investigations of the
processes underlying the social effects of emotions should ideally include
direct and unambiguous measures of both types of process. However,
even though numerous studies have demonstrated mediating effects of
affective reactions or inferential processes, to date only few investigations
have simultaneously incorporated measures of affective reactions and
inferential processes in the same study. This limits the conclusions that
can currently be drawn regarding the underlying mechanisms of the
social effects of emotions. For instance, if only affective reactions were
measured in a study and mediation is properly established, one may
conclude that affective reactions play a role in driving a particular effect,
but it remains unclear how that role compares to the role of inferential
processes, which were not measured. Researchers who are interested in
the mechanisms underlying the social effects of emotions are therefore
advised to incorporate measures of affective reactions as well as inferen-
tial processes where possible.
With regard to the measurement of underlying mechanisms, the some-
what heterogeneous nature of inferential processes also poses a chal-
lenge. Whereas affective reactions to the emotional expressions of
others can be measured in fairly similar ways across different social
settings (i.e., in terms of reciprocal and complementary emotions and
 Caveats and future directions 227
sentiments), the inferences observers may draw from others’ emotional
expressions take on different forms depending on the context. Surely,
there is considerable common ground at an abstract level. Based on the
appraisals associated with discrete emotions, expressions of anger may
be interpreted as a signal of goal blockage and other blame; expressions of
happiness may be taken as a sign that good progress toward goal achieve-
ment is being made; expressions of sadness may be construed as evidence
of irrevocable loss and lack of control over the situation; expressions of
disappointment may be interpreted as an indication that the expresser
had expected a more favorable outcome; and expressions of fear may be
taken as a signal of a potential threat in the environment. It is doubtful,
however, whether generic measures based on these global appraisal
patterns (e.g., in terms of blame, goal progress, or irrevocable loss) are
able to expose the inferential processes that drive responses to others’
emotional displays in specific social settings.
Consider the case of anger. Even though anger typically arises from
some form of goal blockage, the more detailed content of the inferences
that may be drawn from displays of anger is likely to vary considerably as
a function of the social setting. For instance, displays of anger by a
romantic partner may point to a particular problem in the relationship
that requires attention (Averill, 1982; Fischer & Roseman, 2007). Displays
of anger in a group setting may spark inferences of deviance or failure to
cooperate (Lerner, Goldberg, & Tetlock, 1998). Displays of anger in a
negotiation may provide information regarding the expresser’s limits
and toughness (Sinaceur & Tiedens, 2006; Van Kleef, De Dreu, &
Manstead, 2004a). Displays of anger by a customer may be taken as a
sign of poor service (Mattila & Enz, 2002). And displays of anger on the
part of a leader may be interpreted as a sign of subpar follower perfor-
mance (Sy, Côté, & Saavedra, 2005; Van Kleef, Homan, Beersma, Van
Knippenberg, Van Knippenberg, & Damen, 2009). In light of the situa-
tion-dependent nature of inferential processes, attempts to employ gen-
eric measures of inferences across different settings seem ill advised.
Instead, researchers would do well to carefully think about the most
relevant inferences that may be drawn from particular emotional expres-
sions in a particular context, and to adapt their measures accordingly.
Besides making sure to measure inferential processes at the right level
of specificity, researchers may consider complementing self-report mea-
sures with implicit and/or physiological measures. Questionnaire data
rely on participants’ access to and accurate reports of their inferential
processes. Accordingly, poor introspection and self-report failures pose a
threat to the validity of questionnaire data. Whereas self-report measures
of affective processes can be complemented with physiological measures
(e.g., heart rate, blood pressure, cardiac output, skin conductance) that
228 Part III Conclusions, implications, and new directions
help to circumvent problems of introspection and self-report (Kreibig,
2010; Mauss & Robinson, 2009), such measures are not suitable for asses-
sing cognitive processes. However, in research designs that allow for the
incorporation of implicit measures, situation-specific adaptations of pro-
cedures such as the lexical decision task (Meyer & Schvaneveldt, 1971),
the implicit association test (Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998), and
the affect misattribution paradigm (Payne, Cheng, Govorun, & Stewart,
2005) may provide additional insight into the contents of participants’
inferential processes. In addition, some experimental designs allow for
the measurement of neural activation in response to emotional expres-
sions (e.g., using event-related fMRI), which provides yet another win-
dow on the cognitive processes that are involved in the processing of
emotional expressions (Phan, Wager, Taylor, & Liberzon, 2002; Sato,
Kochiyama, Yoshikawa, Naito, & Matsumura, 2004; Vuilleumier, 2005).
Another approach to separating the influences of affective reactions
and inferential processes might be through multinomial modelling. This
is a statistical technique that involves estimating hypothetical parameters
to quantify the influence of multiple (unobservable) processes (Riefer &
Batchelder, 1988). Multinomial modelling is frequently used in cognitive
psychology to study the simultaneous influence of multiple processes,
but it has so far not been applied to the study of emotions. It would seem
worthwhile to examine the applicability of multinomial modelling as a
way of simultaneously representing the contribution of affective reac-
tions and inferential processes to observers’ responses to emotional dis-
plays in mathematical terms.

Expanding the repertoire of emotional expressions

Even though research in recent decades has made considerable progress
in enhancing insight into the interpersonal dynamics of emotion, current
understanding is limited by a number of theoretical and methodological
constraints that are evident in much of the extant literature on the social
effects of emotions. Many of these constraints relate to the rather simpli-
fied ways in which emotional expressions tend to be conceptualized and
operationalized. These caveats point to fruitful directions for future
research.

The need to go (further) beyond valence

There still is a tendency in the literature to conceptualize emotions in
terms of their positive or negative valence, although this practice differs
somewhat between research domains (as discussed in Chapter 10). The
theoretical framework and literature review presented in this book
 Caveats and future directions 229
challenge the valence approach. We have seen, for instance, that dom-
inance-related emotions such as anger and contempt, supplication emo-
tions such as sadness and disappointment, and appeasement emotions
such as guilt and embarrassment have qualitatively different interperso-
nal effects, even though all of these emotions share a negative valence.
Together with a considerable body of research on the intrapersonal effects
of emotions on judgment and behavior (e.g., Bodenhausen, Sheppard, &
Kramer, 1994; DeSteno, Petty, Wegener, & Rucker, 2000; Keltner,
Ellsworth, & Edwards, 1993; Lerner & Keltner, 2001; Tiedens & Linton,
2001), the conclusions that emerge from the interpersonal approach to
emotion suggest that there is greater promise in conceptualizing emo-
tions in terms of their unique appraisal patterns, action tendencies, and
associated social signals than in terms of their valence. For instance, the
“core relational themes” of anger and guilt are other-blame and self-
blame, respectively (Smith et al., 1993), which helps to explain why they
have opposite effects – displays of anger may help to enforce cooperation,
whereas displays of guilt may invite exploitation (Van Kleef, De Dreu, &
Manstead, 2010).
Even though emerging evidence points to the differential effects of
discrete negative emotional expressions, the potential differential effects
of positive emotional expressions remain a blind spot. Research on the
social effects of positive emotions tends to be limited to happiness
(Sauter, 2010). However, as is the case for negative emotions, positive
emotions can be differentiated on the basis of their underlying appraisal
patterns, their accompanying action tendencies, and their social signals
(Leach, Spears, & Manstead, 2015). For instance, even though pride and
gratitude are both positively valenced, the implied locus of responsibility
for the positive state of affairs that triggered the emotion is different. As
per appraisal theories of emotion (Frijda, 1986; Ortony et al., 1988;
Roseman, 1984; Scherer et al., 2001; Smith et al., 1993), pride implies
that responsibility for positive outcomes resides in the self, whereas
gratitude implies that responsibility is located in another person. The
question thus arises whether different positive emotions have different
social effects, as is the case for negative emotions. For example, it is
conceivable that positive emotions with an other-focus (e.g., gratitude,
awe) elicit different types of responses than positive emotions with a self-
focus (e.g., pride, self-content). Furthermore, positive emotions that are
associated with different degrees of certainty (e.g., relief vs. hope) can be
expected to trigger different kinds of inferences in observers and to evoke
different reactions.
In light of these and other findings and considerations, future research
would do well to measure or manipulate discrete emotions rather than
more diffuse positive versus negative mood states whenever this is
230 Part III Conclusions, implications, and new directions
feasible. Failure to do so will result in an overly simplistic picture of the
social effects of emotions. However, studying the differential effects of
discrete emotional expressions is not an easy task. Although several
emotions have clearly distinguishable facial expressions and bodily pos-
tures (e.g., anger, happiness, disgust, sadness, fear, pride, embarrass-
ment, contempt, surprise), the nonverbal behavioral patterns of other
emotions are less clear or at least not widely supported by systematic
validation studies (e.g., guilt, regret, gratitude, disappointment, hope).
This makes studying the interpersonal effects of such emotions a challen-
ging enterprise.
One way around this problem is to use explicit verbal manipulations of
emotional expressions, as has been done in several studies on the inter-
personal effects of anger, happiness, guilt, sadness, disappointment, and
contempt (e.g., Adam, Shirako, & Maddux, 2010; Clark & Taraban, 1991;
Lelieveld, Van Dijk, Van Beest, & Van Kleef, 2013; Melwani & Barsade,
2011; Van Kleef, De Dreu, & Manstead, 2004a, 2006). However, as noted in
the previous chapter, there are limits to this approach, especially in terms
of lack of social richness. Another solution is to use correlational designs,
in which the self-reported emotions of one person are used to predict the
responses of another person (e.g., Anderson, Keltner, & John, 2003; Van
Kleef et al., 2008). However, this method is limited by the fact that not all
experienced emotions are expressed, and even if they are expressed they
may not be recognized as such, especially if the profile of nonverbal
displays of the emotion under study is unclear. A third option is to ask
participants which emotions they perceived in another person and to
record their (behavioral) responses (e.g., Grandey, Fisk, Mattila, Jansen,
& Sideman, 2005; Pugh, 2001). Even though this approach can provide
insight into how people may respond to the emotions they perceive in
others, it does not speak to the question of whether the emotion that was
perceived was actually experienced by the expresser.
Given the inherent limitations of each of these methods, robust conclu-
sions regarding the differential effects of discrete emotional displays will
require multimethod studies involving combinations of verbal and non-
verbal expressions of emotions and subjective ratings of those emotions
from the expresser as well as the perceiver. Furthermore, it will be
important to invest in basic research aimed at pinpointing the configura-
tions of nonverbal (facial) behavior associated with several discrete emo-
tions whose expressive patterns are as yet unmapped.

The mystery of mixed and dynamic emotions

Almost without exception, studies on the social effects of emotions have
examined the effects of “pure” expressions of a single emotion. Even
 Caveats and future directions 231
though such investigations may capture a considerable portion of every-
day emotional dynamics, there are at least three notable ways in which
this research could be meaningfully extended by considering more intri-
cate patterns of emotional expression. First, research on everyday emo-
tional experiences has shown that individuals commonly experience
blends of emotions in daily life (Scherer & Tannenbaum, 1986). These
blends may even comprise emotions of different valence. For instance,
individuals reported that they simultaneously experienced happiness
and sadness on graduation day (Larsen, McGraw, & Cacioppo, 2001).
Similarly, the emotional experience of nostalgia has been demonstrated to
consist of a combination of positive and negative affective states
(Sedikides, Wildschut, Arndt, & Routledge, 2008). To the degree that
such mixed emotional experiences are expressed in perceptible ways,
they may evoke social responses from others. However, the interpersonal
effects of mixed emotional displays are uncharted territory.
Second, people may be confronted with different emotional expres-
sions from two or more other individuals, be it simultaneously or in close
succession. Early qualitative evidence suggests that the alternation or
simultaneous expression of positive and negative emotions between
two people (i.e., one person expressing positive emotions at a target
and the other expressing negative emotions, as in a good-cop/bad-cop
routine) may be an effective means of gaining compliance (Rafaeli &
Sutton, 1991). The authors of this study proposed that the disparity
between positive and negative emotional expressions creates a percep-
tual contrast in perceivers that enhances the perceived positivity and
negativity of the respective expressions. Targets would then presumably
comply with the expressers’ requests either because they want to escape
the interaction with the “bad cop” or to reciprocate the perceived kind-
ness of the “good cop,” or because they believe that doing so is in their
own best interest. More research is needed to further substantiate these
intriguing possibilities.
Third, individuals often display emotions that change over time. It is
interesting to ponder how observers may respond to such dynamic emo-
tional displays, especially in light of theoretical arguments that the sig-
naling function of emotions derives from the fact that emotions change in
response to relevant events (Frijda, 1986; Kuppens, Oravecz, &
Tuerlinckx, 2010; Scherer, 2009). Although research is scarce, two nego-
tiation studies suggest that changing emotions elicit different inferential
processes, affective reactions, and behavioral responses from interaction
partners than stable emotional expressions. Filipowicz, Barsade, and
Melwani (2011) found that negotiators who first expressed happiness
and then switched to anger during a negotiation elicited more favorable
impressions and larger concessions from counterparts than negotiators
 Free ebooks ==> [Link]
232 Part III Conclusions, implications, and new directions
who consistently expressed anger. The emotional transition from happi-
ness to anger elicited more situational and less dispositional attributions,
whereas steady-state anger elicited more dispositional and less situa-
tional attributions. In addition, there was evidence of emotional conta-
gion, such that the initial happiness of the expresser was caught by
observers and carried over as a positive emotional buffer for subsequent
expressions of anger. In a related vein, Sinaceur, Adam, Van Kleef, and
Galinsky (2013) found that negotiators who alternated several times
between expressing anger and expressing happiness were able to claim
more value in a negotiation than negotiators who consistently expressed
anger or happiness. Such emotional inconsistency helped to extract con-
cessions from counterparts because it made them feel less in control over
the situation.
These studies can be seen as a proof of concept in that they indicate that
changing emotional expressions can elicit markedly different responses
from observers than stable emotional expressions, but they have merely
begun to scratch the surface. The previous studies considered changes of
emotions across valence (i.e., from positive to negative or vice versa), but
changes across other dimensions than valence remain to be explored (e.g.,
changes in intensity and/or in appraisals related to blame, control, and
uncertainty). For instance, what might observers infer when an interac-
tion partner’s emotional expressions change from sadness to anger, or
from anger to fear? And how would they subsequently respond to such
expressions? Clearly, future research is needed to shed more light on the
effects of such intricate configurations of emotional expressions.
Moreover, it remains to be investigated how such effects are modulated
by factors such as the observer’s information processing and the per-
ceived appropriateness of the emotional displays.

The role of emotional intensity

Another aspect that has been largely overlooked so far concerns the
intensity of emotional expressions. It seems intuitively plausible that
emotional expressions have different effects depending on their intensity,
but it is currently unknown exactly how intensity moderates the effects of
emotional expressions. On the one hand, one could argue that more
intense emotional expressions are interpreted by perceivers as signaling
more urgent information, which would point to a linear relationship
between emotion intensity and outcomes. On the other hand, EASI theory
posits that emotional expressions that are perceived as overly intense are
likely to elicit negative affective reactions in observers, which may coun-
teract the effects of inferential processes. This suggests that there is an

[Link]
 Caveats and future directions 233
optimal level of intensity at which emotional expressions convey clear
information without evoking negative reactions.
This idea resonates with Geddes and Callister’s (2007) dual threshold
model of anger (see Chapter 10), which postulates that anger can only
have beneficial interpersonal effects when it is expressed in perceptible
ways while the expression does not cross the “impropriety threshold.” In
keeping with this model, a field study across different organizations
indicated that anger can have positive or negative consequences depend-
ing on the intensity with which it is displayed and the appropriateness of
the display in light of organizational norms (Gibson, Schweitzer,
Callister, & Gray, 2009). Similarly, a study on the effects of anger expres-
sions of customer service representatives pointed to the interactive effects
of anger intensity and cultural display rules in shaping the effects of
anger expressions, which could be explained in terms of the perceived
appropriateness of the expressions (Glikson, Rafaeli, & Wirtz, 2015).
Thus, in the case of anger, it appears as though the likelihood of positive
social consequences is best conceptualized as a curvilinear rather than a
linear function of expression intensity.
Although the differential social effects of expressions of anger at dif-
ferent levels of intensity have thus begun to be addressed, the role of
intensity in shaping the interpersonal effects of other emotions remains
unclear. Preliminary findings from a customer service study suggest that
mild expressions of happiness and sadness on the part of service employ-
ees have more favorable effects on customers than more intense expres-
sions (Cheshin, Amit, & Van Kleef, 2015), suggesting that the effects of
these emotions also follow a curvilinear pattern, but clearly more
research is needed to substantiate this tentative conclusion. In addition,
it would be interesting to examine whether the effects of emotional
intensity depend on the perceiver’s information-processing motivation
and ability.

Integral versus incidental emotions

The studies reviewed in this book differ in the degree to which the cause
of an emotion was clear to the observer of the emotional expression. In
many studies, respondents were confronted with emotional displays of
another person (e.g., a spouse, a fellow group member, a negotiation
partner, a customer service representative, a leader) that were not expli-
citly connected to a particular antecedent event, whereas in other studies
the emotional expression was explicitly related to a particular situation or
an action. Interestingly, however, to date no studies have directly com-
pared the interpersonal effects of emotions with a known versus an
unknown cause. Yet there are theoretical reasons to assume that
234 Part III Conclusions, implications, and new directions
knowledge regarding the antecedent event that triggered an emotional
expression makes a difference.
One way of approaching this problem is in terms of the distinction
between integral and incidental emotions (Lerner, Small, &
Loewenstein, 2004). Integral emotions arise during the particular social
interaction of interest, whereas incidental emotions are spillovers from
other situations. Classic research on the intrapersonal effects of emo-
tions indicates that this difference matters. For instance, Schwarz and
Clore’s (1983) affect-as-information model describes how a person’s
judgments may be influenced by a positive or negative mood evoked
by an unrelated and irrelevant event (i.e., an incidental mood state).
According to this perspective, stronger affective influences occur when
ambiguity regarding the source of one’s mood leads one to misattribute
the mood to the target of judgment, such as when a cheerful mood
arising from beautiful weather is used to guide responses to questions
about one’s life satisfaction. Thus, stronger intrapersonal affective influ-
ences may be expected in the case of incidental as opposed to integral
affect.
The distinction between incidental and integral emotions can be
extended to the interpersonal level of analysis, where it might play
out quite differently. Emotional expressions that are explicitly con-
nected to an antecedent cause potentially contain more diagnostic
information than emotional expressions whose history is unclear. In
other words, integral emotional expressions provide more input for
inferential processes than incidental emotional expressions. At the
same time, both types of emotional expressions may trigger affective
reactions. Logically, then, all else being equal, the relative influence of
inferential processes compared to affective reactions can be expected to
be stronger in the case of integral emotional expressions than in the
case of incidental emotional expressions, which means that the two
types of emotional expressions may have different downstream con-
sequences. The possible differential processes and effects of integral
versus incidental emotional displays represent a promising area for
future research.

Temporal issues regarding the social effects of emotions

So far, studies on the social effects of emotions have focused almost
exclusively on the immediate consequences of short-lasting episodes
of emotional expressions. Even though this research has revealed a lot
about the mechanisms and contingencies of the social effects of emo-
tions, the bulk of the literature is limited by several temporal
 Caveats and future directions 235
constraints. These limitations open up a number of interesting ave-
nues for future research.

Long-term consequences of emotional expressions

One basic issue that is surprisingly poorly understood is how emotional
expressions influence relationships, social interactions, and behavior over
time. A few studies indicate that the effects of emotional expressions may
extend beyond the immediacy of the current encounter. For instance, a
negotiation study showed that the inferences that negotiators draw from
their counterpart’s emotions may continue to influence behavior in later
interactions with the same person (Van Kleef & De Dreu, 2010). In a second
encounter with an opponent who had previously expressed anger, parti-
cipants conceded again because they believed that the opponent had
ambitious limits, even when that person expressed no emotion during
the second encounter. Another study found that the effects of expressions
of anger in groups on conformity of deviant group members were still
manifest three weeks after the anger expression (Heerdink, Van Kleef,
Homan, & Fischer, 2013). Studies such as these indicate that emotional
displays may have longer-term consequences that remained off the radar
in most investigations. Clearly, however, more research is needed to clarify
the boundary conditions of such longer-term effects and to establish
whether they are limited to anger or generalize to other emotions.
Harker and Keltner (2001) took a different approach to the issue of
longer-term effects by exploring in a longitudinal study whether the emo-
tional displays of young women on their college yearbook photos pre-
dicted several aspects of the women’s life trajectories. Their study (which is
discussed in detail in Chapter 5) revealed that greater smile intensity
predicted marital status and relationship satisfaction up to thirty years
later. Although it is unclear to what extent these effects can be attributed
to the interpersonal effects of smiling per se or to third variables associated
with smiling behavior, the study highlights the intriguing possibility that
individual differences in the propensity to smile can have a pervasive
impact on important personal and social outcomes over the lifespan.
In light of these and other suggestive findings, it seems worthwhile to
initiate more systematic research into the longer-term consequences of
emotional expressions across domains of social interaction. For instance,
it is interesting to consider the possibility that the emotional styles of
group members contribute, over time, to the emergence, negotiation, and
consolidation of stable group roles and processes (Keltner & Haidt, 1999).
It is also possible that relationship partners’ patterns of emotional expres-
sion shape recurring interpersonal processes in close relationships.
Questions such as these await empirical examination. Furthermore, it
236 Part III Conclusions, implications, and new directions
would be interesting to investigate whether and how the longer-term
effects of emotional expressions depend on the specific emotion in ques-
tion, on its intensity, and on factors such as the observer’s information
processing and the perceived appropriateness of the emotional display.
Addressing issues such as these will further enhance understanding of
the interpersonal dynamics of emotions.

The frequency of emotional expressions

Another neglected temporal issue in the study of the social effects of
emotions concerns the frequency with which emotions are expressed.
In most studies conducted so far, respondents were confronted with
one emotional expression or a few emotional expressions, upon which
their responses were recorded. It is unclear whether and how the
social consequences of emotions depend on the frequency with
which they are expressed, yet there are reasons to assume that fre-
quency of expression matters. It has long been established that organ-
isms become progressively less responsive to stimuli that are repeated
over time (Thompson & Spencer, 1966). It is conceivable that such
habituation also occurs for responses to emotional displays. This
would imply that one person’s emotions come to exert weaker social
effects on another person to the extent that they are expressed more
often in the presence of that person.
A more fine-grained pattern is suggested by attribution theories (e.g.,
Weiner, 1986). The logic of such approaches suggests that behavior that is
exhibited repeatedly by a particular person across different situations
becomes more likely to be attributed to dispositions of that person than
to characteristics of the situation. Extending this argument to the case of
emotional expressions, it is conceivable that emotional expressions are
perceived as more diagnostic about the expresser to the extent that they
occur more frequently, whereas they would be perceived as more diag-
nostic about the situation to the degree that they occur less frequently. For
instance, if a leader gets angry several times a week, followers may come
to attribute the anger to the leader’s personality, but if the leader only
sporadically gets angry, followers may be more likely to connect the
anger with a particular event or situation. Thus, individuals may distill
qualitatively different kinds of information from others’ emotional
expressions depending on the frequency of the expressions. In addition,
the frequency of emotional expressions may influence their perceived
appropriateness, which would in turn shift the relative predictive
strength of inferential processes and affective reactions on observers’
behavioral responses, as per EASI theory. These and many other possi-
bilities remain to be tested.
 Caveats and future directions 237
Feedback loops and reciprocal emotional influence
The extant literature on the social effects of emotions is also limited in the
sense that research has focused almost exclusively on unidirectional
effects, which were in most cases isolated from their temporal context.
That is, the typical study would examine how one person’s emotional
displays influenced another person, without considering how the obser-
ver’s response might subsequently influence the expresser. Clearly, how-
ever, in many real-life interactions one person’s response to another’s
emotional expression is not the end point of the interaction but may set in
motion further interpersonal processes (Hareli & Rafaeli, 2008; Walter &
Bruch, 2008). Even though the potential importance of such feedback
loops and processes of reciprocal emotional influence has been acknowl-
edged in the literature, empirical research is lacking.
Two types of processes seem particularly relevant from the perspective
of the interpersonal dynamics of emotion. First, an observer’s behavioral
response to another person’s emotional expression may influence the
original expresser’s emotional display, which may in turn influence the
observer (this process is visualized by the feedback arrow in Figure 10.1
in the previous chapter). For instance, someone who expresses anger at
another person for failing to deliver on a promise may tone it down after
the other promised to make up for the mistake, and the softened emo-
tional expression may in turn encourage the other to act out his or her
good intentions. Second, the original expresser’s emotional display may
evoke an emotional expression in the observer, which may in turn trigger
affective and inferential processes and behavioral responses in the origi-
nal expresser. Thus, two parallel instances of interpersonal emotional
influence may emerge within the same interaction, in which both parties
simultaneously act as expresser and as observer. All the variables that are
depicted in Figure 10.1 would then factor into the affective reactions,
inferential processes, and behavioral responses of both parties, and the
resulting processes may further interact in ways that remain to be inves-
tigated. Although such investigations promise to be challenging, analy-
tical approaches such as the Actor-Partner Interaction Model (Kenny,
Kashy, & Cook, 2006) may help to separate the simultaneous reciprocal
processes of emotional influence in dyads.

The social effects of anticipated emotions

A final temporal limitation of the extant body of research is that it has
only addressed the effects of emotional expressions that already took
place. Although at first blush it seems nonsensical to consider the inter-
personal effects of nonexpressed emotions, a large literature on the
238 Part III Conclusions, implications, and new directions
intrapersonal effects of anticipated emotions suggests that there is value
in entertaining the consequences of emotions that are not (yet) manifest
(e.g., Mellers & McGraw, 2001; Perugini & Bagozzi, 2001; Zeelenberg,
1999). This literature has documented that human decision making is
influenced by the anticipated emotions that are associated with the out-
comes of choice alternatives (for a recent review, see Lerner, Li,
Valdesolo, & Kassam, 2015). Furthermore, a recent study showed that
the emotional expressions of other people in response to certain events
may trigger anticipated emotions in observers, which in turn shape their
behavior (Van der Schalk, Kuppens, Bruder, & Manstead, 2014).
Participants in this study were exposed to a person who expressed
pride or regret after having made a fair or unfair proposal in an economic
game. Expressions of regret about acting fairly resulted in a lower like-
lihood of subsequent fair behavior on the part of participants compared
to expressions of pride, whereas expressions of regret about acting
unfairly resulted in a greater likelihood of subsequent fair behavior
compared to expressions of pride. The effect of the other’s emotional
expressions on participants’ behavior was mediated by participants’
own anticipated pride and regret.
The logic of the intrapersonal effects of people’s own anticipated emo-
tions can be relatively straightforwardly extrapolated to the interpersonal
level of analysis. People may learn through repeated interactions that
certain behaviors tend to evoke anger in another person, and the expecta-
tion that anger will result if the behavior is shown may lead them to
refrain from showing it in the first place. Conversely, people may delib-
erately decide to engage in behaviors that they know will make others
whom they care about feel good. Thus, much as actual emotional expres-
sions can serve as incentives or deterrents for behavior (Cacioppo &
Gardner, 1999; Keltner & Haidt, 1999), so may anticipated emotional
expressions.
Such interpersonal effects of anticipated emotions would appear to
play a prominent role across domains of life, for instance in child-
rearing, romantic relationships, and leader–follower interactions. A
daughter who knows that her father will be proud of her when she
eats her vegetables may be more inclined to finish her plate. Someone
who goes out with colleagues after work may decide to have one less
drink because she realizes that her partner will be sad if she comes
home late for dinner. And an employee may work a little harder to
make a deadline because he anticipates that his boss will get angry if
he misses it. Future research could explore whether such interpersonal
effects of anticipated emotions indeed occur, and whether and how
they are modulated by factors such as the anticipator’s information-
processing motivation and ability.
 Caveats and future directions 239
Broadening the outlook on the social context
It is clear from the present review and analysis that the interpersonal
dynamics of emotions are heavily shaped by the social context within
which they occur. Emotional expressions take on different meanings
depending on the situation and depending on characteristics of the
expresser and the perceiver, and such differences have implications for
the perceived appropriateness of the displays and for observers’ subse-
quent responses. Scientific understanding of the social effects of emotions
would benefit from more research into various aspects of the social
context, of which I provide a few examples below.

Culture
The vast majority of studies on the social effects of emotions have been
conducted within Western samples and contexts, even though there is a
steadily growing body of research on the effects of emotional expressions
in East Asian cultures. Very few researchers have examined the social
effects of emotions in other areas of the world, such as South America,
Africa, or the Middle East. One obvious direction for future research
would thus be to examine the generalizability of emerging patterns in
the social effects of emotions to these neglected regions of the world.
Several findings indicate that such research is needed to develop a proper
understanding of the interpersonal dynamics of emotion.
Although there are striking similarities in how emotions are expressed
across cultures (Ekman, 1994), research has also documented cultural
influences on several aspects of the emotion process, including experi-
ence, expression, regulation, and recognition (e.g., Elfenbein & Ambady,
2002b; Markus & Kitayama, 1991; Mesquita & Frijda, 1992). Partly related
to the notion of emotional display rules (see Chapter 4), research has
documented differences in the way individuals across cultures think
about emotions. For instance, whereas Americans associate happiness
with personal achievement, Japanese associate it with social harmony
(Uchida & Kitayama, 2009). At the same time, this study suggested that
Japanese are more aware than Americans of the potential negative side
of happiness (e.g., social disruption, the envy of others) and the positive
side of distress (e.g., the sympathy of others). Besides pointing to cross-
cultural differences in the interpretation of emotions, these findings shed
further doubt on the usefulness of conceptualizing emotions as positive
versus negative (see Chapter 10).
With regard to social norms about the experience and expression of
emotions, Matsumoto (1990) found that Japanese people tend to accept
expressions of negative emotions toward lower-status individuals, because
240 Part III Conclusions, implications, and new directions
such expressions serve to uphold power distances that are valued in the
Japanese culture. In comparison, Americans are less tolerant of negative
emotions directed at lower-status individuals because such expressions
highlight hierarchical differences that are at odds with the emphasis on
equality in the American culture. Research by Eid and Diener (2001)
further showed that pride and contentment are more desirable in indivi-
dualistic cultures such as North America and Australia than in collectivis-
tic cultures such as China and Taiwan, whereas no such differences
emerged for joy and affection. Moreover, Americans and Australians
appear to face stronger pressures than Chinese and Taiwanese to express
pleasant emotions. Eid and Diener concluded that “deviation from this
norm of happiness might have a substantial impact, and being unhappy
might be regarded as a failure” (p. 880).
In light of the considerable literature on cross-cultural differences in
display rules (Matsumoto et al., 2008) and emotion recognition (Elfenbein
& Ambady, 2002b), it is surprising that only a few studies have begun to
examine how culture shapes behavioral responses to others’ emotional
expressions. The rare exceptions reported by Kopelman and Rosette
(2008) and Adam and colleagues (Adam et al., 2010; Adam & Shirako,
2013) were discussed in Chapter 7. These studies indicate that the social
effects of emotional expressions in negotiations are moderated by the
cultural backgrounds of both the expresser and the perceiver. Consistent
with EASI theory, the moderating role of the perceiver’s culture could be
explained in terms of the perceived appropriateness of the emotional
expressions, which differed systematically between cultures. These stu-
dies thus show that display rules play a theoretically meaningful role in
shaping the behavioral consequences of emotional expressions across
cultures, but clearly much more work needs to be done in this domain
before solid conclusions can be drawn.
Another caveat is that much cross-cultural research operates on the
basis of very broad conceptions of cultural differences (e.g., Easterners vs.
Westerners), which do not do justice to the complexity of actual differ-
ences. It is also common to conceptualize cultural differences in terms of
collectivism versus individualism, and this tendency goes at the expense
of other relevant cultural differences that tend to remain off the radar. For
instance, the aforementioned study by Matsumoto (1990) indicates that
the cultural dimension of power distance is important for understanding
cultural differences in social responses to emotional expressions.
Moreover, effects of emotional expressions that are at odds with cultural
norms of collectivism versus individualism or high versus low power
distance may in turn be moderated by differences in tightness–looseness,
yet another dimension of cultural differences. Tight cultures have many
strong norms and a low tolerance of deviant behavior, whereas loose
 Caveats and future directions 241
cultures have weak norms and a high tolerance of deviant behavior
(Triandis, 1989). It seems plausible that emotional deviance from prevail-
ing norms would have more adverse consequences in tight rather than
loose cultures. Future studies should move beyond the individualism–
collectivism dimension to paint a more complete picture of the ways in
which culture shapes the interpersonal dynamics of emotion.
Finally, besides investigating cultural influences on affective and beha-
vioral responses to emotional expressions, it would be worthwhile exam-
ining how cultural differences modulate the inferential processes that are
triggered in observers by other people’s emotional expressions. Given
that people from different cultures have different associations with cer-
tain emotions (e.g., associating happiness with personal success vs. social
harmony; Uchida & Kitayama, 2009), it seems plausible that observers of
emotional expressions would also reach different conclusions about the
appraisals of the expresser that gave rise to the emotion depending on
their own cultural background. Future research is needed to uncover how
culture shapes the content of the inferences individuals draw on the basis
of others’ emotional expressions.

The neglected option of “moving away”

Behavioral responses to the emotional expressions of others can be con-
ceptualized in terms of Horney’s (1945) classic distinction between “mov-
ing towards,” “moving away,” and “moving against” tendencies (Van
Kleef, De Dreu, & Manstead, 2010). To date, research on the interpersonal
effects of emotions has focused almost exclusively on behavioral
responses that can be construed as instantiations of moving toward
(e.g., providing support to one’s partner, conforming to the majority
position in a group, making concessions in a negotiation, spreading
positive word of mouth about a store, exerting effort on behalf of a leader)
or moving against (e.g., arguing with one’s partner, deviating from the
majority position in a group, making competitive demands in a negotia-
tion, spreading negative word of mouth about a store, refusing to exert
effort on behalf of a leader). Very little is known about when observers of
emotional expressions may decide to avoid or end the interaction with
the expresser, that is, when they choose to move away. The lion’s share of
research on the social effects of emotions is silent with regard to this
question. This is due in large part to the fact that most (laboratory) studies
do not afford participants an option to leave the situation. A notable
exception is the literature on customer service (which is dominated by
field studies rather than experiments), where customers’ decisions to
revisit a store or not make up a prominent dependent variable. Not
revisiting a store can be seen as an instance of moving away.
 Free ebooks ==> [Link]
242 Part III Conclusions, implications, and new directions
The relative neglect of moving away tendencies poses a threat to the
validity of studies on the social effects of emotions whose focus is on
behavioral outcomes. In many real-life situations individuals have the
option of ending the interaction or dissolving the interdependent rela-
tionship. Married couples may divorce, people may leave groups that
they no longer enjoy being a part of, negotiators may seek a better deal
with another partner, employees may find a job elsewhere, and followers
may try to avoid their boss. By failing to incorporate such moving away
responses in empirical studies, researchers may inadvertently force par-
ticipants into certain behavioral tendencies, and this in turn may bias the
conclusions we reach about the interpersonal effects of emotions. When
the natural tendency to move away cannot be realized simply because
that option is not made available, we may erroneously conclude that
people freely show particular behaviors. The work by Heerdink and
colleagues (2013) on conformity versus deviance in groups provides a
case in point. Their studies indicated that expressions of anger on the part
of fellow group members can, under particular circumstances, lead tar-
gets to conform to the majority’s position. However, in a study in which
the authors explicitly built in the option, in one condition, of leaving the
group for another group, almost 60 percent of the participants who were
confronted with expressions of anger chose that option. Future research
on the social effects of emotional expressions would therefore do well to
incorporate the option of moving away, especially if such an option is
typically available in the types of situations that the study attempts to
model.

Exploring the social effects of emotions in new domains

A final suggestion for future research is to expand our investigations of
the social effects of emotions beyond the social settings that have been
studied so far. The literature review presented in Part II of this book
shows that many facets of the interpersonal dynamics of emotions have
been examined across a wide range of settings, but many exciting new
horizons remain to be explored. For instance, the view of emotions as
social information is highly relevant to developmental psychology and
clinical psychology. Indeed, although the amount of empirical research
on the interpersonal effects of emotions in these disciplines is limited,
several classic studies have been conducted in these areas (see Chapters 2
and 5). Furthermore, in the last decade, the interpersonal approach to
emotions has begun to attract interest in the fields of political science
(Richards, 2004), sports psychology (Friesen et al., 2013), and criminology
(Leys, Licata, Marchal, & Bernard, 2012; Wrede, Ask, & Strömwall, 2015).
Numerous interesting questions remain to be addressed in these various

[Link]
 Caveats and future directions 243
fields. For instance, can sports coaches boost the performance of their
teams by expressing certain emotions? How do parents’ emotional
expressions influence their children’s moral development? How should
behavioral therapists regulate their emotions in order to create good
rapport with their clients and also bring about the desired behavioral
change? And how can political candidates best manage their emotions to
garner support from the electorate? Exploring these and other questions
will allow the study of the social effects of emotions to continue to
blossom in the decades to come.

Coda
A thorough understanding of the intrinsically social nature of emotions
requires a focus on their interpersonal dynamics. We do not just feel our
emotions; we express them in the presence of others, and others in turn
respond. Even though there are cultural dialects in emotion expression
and cross-cultural variations in emotion perception, these differences are
insignificant compared to the insurmountable incompatibility of most
verbal languages. Wherever we travel, our emotional displays allow us
to express our desires and intentions to others in a way that enables at
least rudimentary communication. Emotions, then, constitute the only
actual world language. In spite of the widely studied intrapersonal effects
of emotions, their social-communicative functions may very well be
emotions’ primary raison d’être.
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 Author Index

Adam, H., 128–132, 138–142, 230–232, Connelly, S., 172–177, 180

239–241 Cornelius, R. R., 92–93
Ambady, N., 109–112 Côté, S., 138–142, 180, 190–192
Amit, A., 153–154 Cray, J. J., 223–224
Anderson, C., 84–86
Andrade, E. B., 128–132 Dahling, J. J., 165–167
Aristotle, 56 Damen, F., 172–177
Armstrong, Louis, 38–42 Darwin, Charles, 1–2, 19–21,
Ashkanasy, N. M., 172–177 23–30
Averill, J. R., 93–96 De Dreu, C. K. W., 132–134
De Melo, C., 48–50
Barsade, S. G., 101, 104–108, 109–113, De Vos, B., 143–145
128–132, 177–182, 230–232 Dezecache, G., 104–108
Bartel, C. A., 104–108 Diener, E., 239–241
Baumeister, R. F., 96–98 Dimberg, U., 42–43
Bavelas, J. B., 24 DiPaolo, M., 81–84
Bettenhausen, K., 177–182 Donaldson, Sam, 69–71
Bogo, A., 190–192 Dubé, L., 150–153
Bommer, W. H., 172–177
Bono, J. E., 172–177 Eid, M., 239–241
Briner, B., 104–108, 109–112 Eisenberg, N., 34–35
Buck, R., 21–23 Ekman, P., 87n.1, 89–90
Burrows, A. M., 223–224 Ellsworth, P. C., 218–221
Buswell, B. N., 96–98 Englis, B. G., 109–112
Butler, E. A., 57–58, 81–84 Enz, C. A., 158–159
Buttelmann, D., 17–19
Fabes, R. A., 34–35
Callister, R. R., 232–233 Fehr, B., 3–4
Cheshin, A., 113–115, 153–154, Fielden, S. L., 180
155–158 Filipowicz, A., 128–132, 230–232
Chi, N.-W., 182–184 Fischer, A. H., 37, 38–42, 93–96
Churchill, Winston, 170 Forgas, J. P., 206–208
Clark, C., 212–215 Frank, R. H., 128–132
Clark, M. S., 81–84, 90–93 Fridlund, A. J., 21–23, 25–26
Clinton, Hillary, 69–71 Friedman, R., 125–127
Clore, G. L., 233–234 Friesen, W. V., 89–90

292
 Author Index 293
Gage, Phineas, 31 Johnson, S. K., 172–182
Galinsky, A. D., 230–232 Johnston, R. E., 24
Gates, Bill, 146
Geddes, D., 232–233 Kant, Immanuel, 197
George, J. M., 104–108, 177–182 Katz, L. F., 34–35
Gibson, D. E., 101 Kellett, S., 104–108, 109–112
Glikson, E., 155–158 Kelly, J. R., 102–108
Glomb, T. M., 172–177 Keltner, D., 89–90, 96–98, 235–236
Gordijn, E. H., 143–145 Khrushchev, Nikita, 131–132
Gottman, J. M., 34–35 King, Martin Luther, 172–177
Graham, S. M., 81–84 Klapwijk, E. T., 128–132
Grandey, A., 150–153, 189–190 Klep, A., 104–108
Grandjean, D., 48–50 Knutson, B., 27–30
Gross, J. J., 81–84 Koning, L. F., 184–190
Groth, M., 150–153 Kopelman, S., 127–128, 138–142,
239–241
Haag, C., 127–128 Kramer, R. M., 132–134
Haddon, Mark, 31–33 Kraut, R. E., 24
Hareli, S., 27–30, 48–50, 158–159, Kruglanski, A. W., 206–208
214–215 Kuppens, S., 73–74
Harker, L. A., 89–90, 235–236
Hatfield, E., 38–42 Lanzetta, J. T., 109–112
Hawk, S. T., 38–42 Le Bon, G., 101–102
Heatherton, T. F., 96–98 Lelieveld, G.-J., 125–132
Heerdink, M. W., 27–30, 113–115 Levenson, R. W., 34–35
Hendriks, M. C., 27–30, 38–42, 92–93 Levine, J. M., 101–102
Hennig-Thurau, T., 150–153 Lewis, M., 176–177
Hess, U., 27–30, 48–50 Lindebaum, D., 180
Hitler, Adolf, 172–177 Little, L. M., 162–165
Ho, T.-H., 128–132, 182–184
Hochschild, Airlie, 147 Maddux, W. W., 138–142
Holbrooke, Richard, 124, 131–132 Madera, J., 172–177
Homan, A. C., 27–30, 112–113, 190–192 Magee, J. C., 112–113
Hooven, C., 34–35 Mandela, Nelson, 172–182
Horney, K., 241–242 Manstead, A. S. R., 37, 96–98, 132–134
Huang, Y., 149–150 Matsumoto, D., 239–241
Hulin, C. L., 172–177 Mattila, A. S., 158–159
Mayer, J. D., 81–84
Ilies, R., 172–177 McCrone, J., 25–26
Israely, R., 113–115 McDougall, W., 101–102
McGonigal, K. M., 81–84
Jackall, R., 170 Melwani, S., 177–182, 230–232
James, William, 3–4 Menon, K., 150–153
Jobs, Steve, 177–182 Meulders, M., 73–74
John, O. P., 81–84 Mladic, Ratko, 124, 131–132
Johnson, G., 180 Moreland, R. L., 101–102
294 Author Index
Munz, D. C., 172–177 Spoor, J. R., 102–108
Murphy, S. T., 160–162 Srivastava, S., 81–84
Steiner, C., 101–102
Nesse, R. M., 218–221 Stillwell, A. M., 96–98
Newcombe, M. J., 172–177 Strayer, J., 34–35
Nixon, Richard, 131–132 Sy, T., 180

Obama, Barack, 69–71, 172–182 Tamir, M., 81–84

Öhman, A., 42–43 Taraban, C. B., 81–84
Teuchman, K., 104–108, 109–112
Parkinson, B., 37, 38–42 Thompson, L., 132–134
Parrott, W. G., 4, 71–72 Tiedens, L. Z., 27–30, 73–74, 112–113,
Perez, L. A., 165–167 128–132
Peters, S., 128–132 Totterdell, P., 104–108, 109–112,
Planalp, S., 1, 58–60 116–117
Postmes, T., 143–145 Tsai, W.-C., 149–150
Turner, J. D. F, 109–112
Rafaeli, A., 113–115, 155–158
Ramsay, Gordon, 177–182 Valley, K. L., 132–134
Repacholi, B. M., 16–17 Van Beest, I., 125–127
Roberts, W. L., 34–35 Van der Flier, H., 104–108
Rosenman, I. J., 93–96 Van der Schalk, J., 109–112
Rosette, A. S., 138–142, 239–241 Van Doorn, E. A., 27–30, 90–93
Ruark, G., 172–177 Van Kleef, G. A., 27–30, 38–43, 84–86,
Rubin, R. S., 172–177 112–113, 132–134, 138–142, 143–145,
Rupp, D. E., 155–158 153–154, 155–158, 182–192, 230–232
Russell, J. A., 3–4 Van Mechelen, I., 73–74
Van Zomeren, M., 143–145
Saavedra, R., 104–108, 180 Vasilivic, D., 127–128
Salovey, P., 81–84 Vermeiren, R. R. J. M., 128–132
Sanchez-Burks, J., 27–30, 112–113 Vingerhoets, A. J., 27–30, 38–42,
Scherer, K. R., 19–21, 48–50 92–93
Schutte, N. S., 81–84 Visser, V. A., 180–181
Schwartz, N., 233–234
Semin, G. R., 96–98 Waller B. M., 223–224
Shaw, George Bernard, 223 Waples, E. P., 172–177
Shields, S. A., 64–67 Ward, A. J., 109–112
Shipman, K., 25–26 Weisbuch, M., 109–112
Shirako, A., 128–132, 138–142, 239–241 Wilde, Oscar, 123
Simons, G., 38–42 Wisse, B., 104–108
Sinaceur, M., 127–132, 230–232 Wubben, M. J., 134–135
Smith, D. B., 172–177
Sonnenfeld, J. A., 109–112 Zajonc, R. B., 160–162
Spencer, S., 155–158 Zeman, J., 25–26
 Subject Index

absenteeism by service providers, emotional expressions as trigger for,

customer aggression linked to, 38–45
155–158 in Emotions as Social Information (EASI)
acceptance, motivation in groups for, theory, 198–201
117–118 of followers, leaders’ expressions of
action readiness, emotions and, 4 anger and, 180
affect group functioning and, 104
cognition and, 225–228 immediacy of, 61–62
defined, 4 impacting factors in, 60–61
Emotions as Social Information (EASI) inferential processes and, 52–55
theory and, 7 ingroup vs. outgroup members, 109–112
infusion of, 206–208 leadership quality and, 172–177
affect-as-information model, 43–45, measurement and separability of, 225–228
206–208, 233–234 mediating role of, 203–204
“affect infusion,” 43–45 moderating role information processing
affective convergence and perceived appropriateness,
group emotions and, 104–108 204–206
of groups, 116–117 during negotiation, 125–127, 134–135,
in negotiations, 125–127 138–142
team performance and, 116–117 perceived appropriateness and, 64–67
affective delivery reciprocal reactions, anger and happi-
authenticity of emotional displays by ness and, 125–127
service providers and, 150–153 service providers’ behavior and,
inauthentic emotional expression and, 159–160, 168–169
69–71 smiling by service providers, impact on
by service providers, impact on custo- customers of, 149–150
mers of, 149–150 social effects of, 98–100
affective divergence and diversity, group affect misattribution paradigm, 225–228
behavior and, 109–112 group emotions, inferences from fellow
affective diversity, group behavior and, members’ emotional displays and,
109–112 113–115
affective events theory (AET), 211–212 affect-priming models, 43–45
affective reactions afferent feedback, primitive emotional
appropriateness of leaders’ emotional contagion and, 38–42
displays and, 184–190 affiliation emotions
behavioral consequences of, 125 happiness and social bonding, 87–90
complementary reactions, 42–43 social effects of, 27–30, 98–100
customers’ displays of, 155–158, aggression
168–169 crying as buffer against, 92–93
downstream consequences of, 43–45 by customers, 155–158

295
296 Subject Index
agreeableness inferential processes and, 50–52
appropriateness of leaders’ emotional in negotiation, 132–134
displays and, 184–190 appraisals
perceptions of appropriateness and, inferential processes and, 46–47
75–77 role in emotion of, 4
altruism, social effects of emotions and, social and reverse appraisals, 48–50
92–93 appropriateness, perception of, 64–67
anger anger expressions and, 93–96
affective and inferential processing and, authenticity of emotional expression
225–228 and, 69–71, 150–153
affective reaction to, 42–43 customer aggression and, 155–158
ambition, toughness, threat and cred- display rules and, 67–68
ibility and expressions of, 128–132 in Emotions as Social Information (EASI)
appropriateness of leaders’ displays of, theory, 198–201
184–190 functionality of emotional expression
Aristotle on, 56 and, 81–84
blame and, 27–30 intensity of emotional expression and,
in close relationships, 93–96, 98–100 71–72, 153–154
consumers’ expression of, impact on leaders’ emotional displays and,
service providers, 158–159, 168–169 176–177, 184–190, 192–194
cultural differences in expression of, moderating role of, 204–206
67–68, 138–142 in negotiations, 138–142
customers’ display of, 155–158, 168–169 observer characteristics and, 75–77
as discrete emotion, 218–221 situational appraisal and, 68–69
dominance and blame and, 93–96 associative networks, affective reactions
dual threshold model of, 211–212, and, 43–45
232–233 attitude favorability, third party emotional
gender and expressions of, 73–74, expressions and, 160–162
138–142 attribution
group affective divergence and diversity frequency of emotional expression and,
and, 109–112 236
in groups, inferences from fellow mem- self-serving and ego-defensive biases in,
bers’ emotional displays, 113–115 72–73
inferential processes and, 46–47 audience, emotional expressivity modula-
information processing in negotiation tion in presence of, 25–26
and, 135–138 authenticity of emotions
interpersonal effects of, 125 emotional labor and, 147
judgment and behavior and, 43–45 in leaders, 176–177, 189–190
leaders’ expressions of, 172–177, 180 during negotiation, 138–142
in negotiations, 124, 134–135, 138–142 perceptions of appropriateness and,
primitive emotional contagion and, 69–71
38–42 service providers’ emotional displays,
reciprocal affective reactions and, 125–127 150–153, 168–169
rejection inferences and, 117–118 autistic spectrum disorder, 31–33,
research on, 5–6 215
targeting of, 72–73 avoidant reactions, failure of emotional
anticipated emotions, social effects of, expression and, 33
237–238
apologies, interpersonal effects of, 96–98 backtracking, reverse appraisal as,
appeasement emotions 208–210
in close relationships, 96–100 bargaining research. See negotiation
 Subject Index 297
behavior charisma
affective and inferential processing and, leaders’ emotional expression linked to,
225–228 172–177
affective reactions and, 42–45, 60–61, 125 positive vs. negative mood of leadership
anger and, 5–6 and, 177–182
culture and, 239–241 charity donations, expressions of disap-
customers’ emotional displays and, pointment, impact of, 90–93
155–158 classical conditioning, primitive emotional
leader-follower relations, 180 contagion and, 38–42
frequency of emotional expression and, clinical conditions, failure of emotional
236 signaling and, 30–34
functionality of emotions in regulation close relationships
of, 212–215 anger in, 93–96
in groups, inferences from fellow mem- appeasement in, 96–98
bers’ emotional displays and, 113–115, dominance and blame in, 93–96
119–122 emotional similarity in, 84–86
inferential processes and, 50–52, 128 functionality of emotions in, 81–84
mediating role of affective reactions and happiness and social bonding in, 87–90
inferential processes and, 203–204 interpersonal approach to emotion and,
reciprocal affective reactions and, 125–127 7
service providers’ emotions, effect on positive emotions and social bonding in,
customer behavior, 148–149, 154–155 87–90
signals in emotions and coordination of, power and emotional convergence in,
21–23 116–117
smiling by service providers, impact on sadness and social support elicitation in,
customers, 149–150 90–93
behavioral ecology theory, signals in emo- social consequences of emotion in, 86–87
tions and, 21–23 cognition
“behavioral repair work,” 96–98 affective reactions and, 225–228
biological affordances, emotional expres- anger and, 5–6
sions and, 19–21 customers’ emotional displays, effect of,
blame, anger and, 27–30 in service providers, 158–159
borderline personality disorder (BPD), downstream consequences of affective
failure of emotional expression and, reactions, 43–45
33 inferential processes and, 52–55
botulinum toxin injections, physical con- information processing in negotiation
straints on emotional expression and, and, 135–138
33–34 positive affect and, 87–90
brain structure cognitive load, information processing
emotional expression and, 14–15 and, 63–64
inferential processes and, 46–47 cohesiveness, in groups, outside obser-
brain trauma, failure of emotional expres- vers’ ratings of, 112–113
sion and, 31 collective emotional behavior
affective convergence and, 116–117
cardiovascular response, suppression of by groups, 102–104
emotion and, 81–84 common fate, in groups, outside observers’
changing emotions ratings of, 112–113
inferential process in negotiations and, communal relationships
128–132 anger targets and, 93–96
mixed and dynamic emotions as, emotional expression in, 81–84
230–232 expressions of sadness in, 90–93
298 Subject Index
communication group affective convergence and,
emotional expressions as tools for, 23–27 104–108
functional equivalence of expressive information processing in negotiation
modalities and, 26–27, 201–203, and, 135–138
217–218 interpersonal effects of emotions in, 8
functionality of emotions in, 212–215 over values, 138–142
match of sender and perceiver in, 58–60 social effects of emotions in, 123–145
social effects of emotions and, 201–203 conformity
social predisposition cues and, 27–30 in groups, inferences and motivation for,
targeting of emotional expression and, 113–115, 117–118
24 motivation in groups for, 117–118
compassion, disappointment and sadness consensus, lack of, in groups, inferences
and, 127–128 from fellow members’ emotional dis-
competitive behavior plays and, 113–115
affective divergence and diversity and, consumer behavior
109–112 affective consequences of emotional
appeasement and reduction of, 96–98 expressions and, 155–158
appropriateness of emotional expres- cognitive consequences of emotional
sions in, 67–68 expressions and, 158–159
inferential processes and, 50–52 customers’ emotions, effect on service
interpersonal effects of emotions and, 8 providers of, 155–160
in negotiations, 132–135 emotional intelligence of service provi-
social predisposition to, 27–30 ders concerning, 165–167
complementary states interpersonal emotion regulation strate-
affective reactions, 38, 42–43, 125–127 gies and, 162–165
disappointment/sadness and comple- moderating role information processing
mentary guilt/compassion, 127–128 and perceived appropriateness,
judgment and behavior and, 43–45 204–206
third party emotional expressions and, social effects of emotions on, 8,
160–162 146–169
computer-mediated interaction third parties’ emotional expressions
negotiation paradigm and, 125–127, and, 160–162
128–134 contempt
primitive emotional contagion and, as discrete emotion, 218–221
38–42 leaders’ display of, 177–182
social effects of emotions and, 201–203 cooperative behavior
concessionary behavior affective divergence and diversity and,
anger as trigger for, 125–127 109–112
display rules in negotiations and, appeasement and, 96–98
138–142 appropriateness of emotional expres-
inferential processes in negotiation and, sions and, 67–68
128–132 group affective convergence and,
information processing in negotiation 104–108
and, 135–138 inferential processes and, 50–52
confirmation bias, group affective diver- interpersonal effects of emotions and, 8
gence and diversity and, 110–111 in negotiations, 132–135
conflict social predisposition to, 27–30
disappointment, expression of and, coordination function
132–134 group affective convergence and,
discrete emotions in, 218–221 104–108
emotional intelligence in, 142–143 of group emotions, 102–104
 Subject Index 299
cosmetic surgery, physical constraints on smiling by service providers and,
emotional expression and, 33–34 149–150
creative performance, follower informa- social effects of emotions on, 8, 146–169
tion processing and, 182–184 third parties’ emotional expressions and
credibility consumer behavior, 160–162
anger and happiness expressions and
inferences of, 128–132 decision making
functionality of emotions and, 214–215 anticipated emotions and, 237–238
of service complaints, consumers’ beha- group affective convergence and,
vior and assessment of, 158–159 104–108
criminology, social effects of emotions and, group affective divergence and diversity
242–243 and, 110–111
crowd membership, group behavior and, moderating role information processing
101–102 and perceived appropriateness,
crying 204–206
helping behavior and, 43–45 social and reverse appraisals and, 48–50
social support solicitation and, 92–93 decoding
cues, in evolutionary biology, 23n.1 emotional expression and, 58–60
culture functionality of emotions and, 215
appropriateness of leaders’ emotional deep acting
displays and, 187–188 and authenticity of emotional expres-
customer aggression and, 155–158 sion, 69–71
display rules and, 67–68 emotional intelligence and, 165–167
emotional expressions and, 19–21 emotional labor and, 147, 150–153
negotiations and role of, 128–132, 138–142 in leadership, 189–190
perceptions of appropriateness and, during negotiation, 138–142
64–67 depression, failure of emotional expres-
social effects of emotions and, 239–241 sion and, 32–33
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night developmental psychology, emotional
Time (Haddon), 31–33 expression research and, 58
customer service deviance
appropriateness of emotional displays culture and, 239–241
in, 153–154 in groups, inferences from fellow mem-
authenticity of emotional displays by ser- bers’ emotional displays and,
vice providers and, 150–153, 189–190 113–115
customer aggression and unfairness in, disappointment, expression of
155–158 complementary guilt and compassion
customers’ emotions, effect on service and, 127–128
providers, 155–160 compliance as response to, 218–221
display rules in, 67–68 customers’ displays of, 168–169
emotional intelligence of service provi- information processing and, 135–138
ders in, 165–167 leader-follower relations and, 180
intensity of emotional expression and, in negotiations, 132–135
71–72, 153–154 perceptions of appropriateness and,
interpersonal emotion regulation and, 90–93
162–165 discrete emotions
moderating role information processing in customer service, 147–148
and perceived appropriateness, group expression of, 102–104
204–206 personality dimensions and, 75–77
service providers’ emotions, effect on specificity of, 218–221
customers of, 148–149, 154–155 valenced responses and, 228–230
300 Subject Index
display rules decoding and, 58–60
cultural factors in, 239–241 deliberate targeting of, 24
in groups, 113–115 display rules and, 67–68
in leadership, 172–177 encoding and, 57–58
in negotiations, 138–142 evolutionary adaptation and, 6, 14–21
perceived inappropriateness and, 67–68 expanded repertoire for, 228
privately felt emotions and, 69–71 failure of signaling in, 30–35
dispute resolution, reciprocal affective frequency of, 236
reactions and, 125–127 functional equivalence of expressive
dominance motivations modalities and, 26–27, 201–203,
anger displays and, 93–96, 98–100 217–218
emotional expression and, 27–30 in groups, 102, 112
group affective divergence and diversity inferential processes and, 45–52
and, 111–112 interpretation of others’ expressions,
dual-process models of information pro- 25–26
cessing, 206–208 leadership quality and, 172–177
affective reactions and inferential pro- long-term consequences of, 235–236
cesses and, 52–55 modulation in presence of others, 25–26
EASI and, 225–228 in negotiation, 123–124
emotional expressions and, 7, 61–62 in non-human primates, 6, 17–19
dual threshold model of anger, 211–212, perceived appropriateness of, 64–67
232–233 physical constraints on, 33–34
dynamic emotions, in EASI research, service providers’ emotions, effect on
230–232 customers of, 148–149
signals of, 21–23
elaboration-likelihood model (ELM), 52–55 social interaction and, 56
embarrassment, in close relationships, as social predisposition cue, 27–30
96–98 social referencing in human infants,
embodiment, 38–42 16–17
emotional attitude, Ekman’s concept of, social-signaling function of, 26–27
87n.1 subclinical impairment of, 34–35
emotional contagion, 38–42 of third parties, 160–162
in customer service, 168–169 universality of, 19–21
EASI theory and, 208–210 emotional inconsistency, in negotiations,
group affective convergence and, 131–132
104–108, 116–117 emotional intelligence
leaders’ emotional expressions and, bounded functionality and, 215–217
172–177 in conflict and negotiation, 142–143
third party emotional expressions and, decoding emotional expression and,
160–162 58–60
emotional convergence leader-follower relations and, 8–9
close relationships and, 7 leadership and, 190–192
interpersonal relationships, 84–86 in service providers, 165–167
reciprocal affective reactions and, 38–42 social interaction and, 81–84
emotional expression emotional knowledge, social and reverse
affective reactions to, 38–45 appraisals, 48–50
characteristics of, overview, 68–73 emotional labor, 147
clinical conditions and failure of, 30–34 authenticity of service providers’ emo-
as communicative tool, 23–27 tional displays and, 150–153
by customer service providers, 148–149, emotional intelligence and, 165–167
154–155 emotional norms, display rules and, 67–68
 Subject Index 301
emotional readout hypotheses, signals in future research in, 9
emotions and, 21–23 inferential processes and, 45–52
emotional similarity. See emotional information processing in, 135–138
convergence integral vs. incidental emotions and,
emotional suffering, affective reaction to, 233–234
42–43 intensity of emotional expression and,
emotion perception, decoding ability and, 153–154, 232–233
58–60 long-term consequences of emotional
emotion regulation strategies expression and, 235–236
bounded functionality and, 215–217 measurement and separability of affec-
in customer service, 147–148, 150–153 tive vs. inferential processes, 225–228
emotional intelligence and, 165–167 mediating roles of affective reactions
interpersonal emotion in customer ser- and inferential processes, 203–204
vice and, 162–165 mixed and dynamic emotions in,
emotions 230–232
definitional issues concerning, 3–5 moderating roles of information proces-
terminology of, 2 sing and perceived appropriateness,
Emotions as Social Information (EASI) 204–206
theory observer characteristics and, 75–77
affective events theory and, 211–212 perceptions of appropriateness and,
affective reactions and inferential pro- 64–67
cesses, 7, 43–45, 60–61 reverse appraisal and, 208–210
anger expressions and, 93–96, 98–100 social appraisal and, 208–210
appropriateness of leaders’ emotional social effectiveness of emotions and,
displays and, 184–190 92–93
appropriateness perceptions and, summary of, 198–201
138–142 temporal issues in social effects of emo-
authenticity of emotional expression tions and, 234–235
and, 150–153 valenced responses in, 228–230
basic principles of, 14 empathy, emotional intelligence and,
behavioral consequences in, 50–52 81–84
caveats and future directions for, encoding, emotional expression and, 57–58
223–243 entitativity, of groups, 116–117
comparisons with other theories, 206 environmental influences, emotional
complementary affective reactions and, expressions and, 7
42–43 epistemic motivation, information proces-
critical support for, 9 sing and, 62–63
cultural factors and, 239–241 evaluative conditioning
defined, 6 affective reactions and, 43–45
dual threshold model of anger and, third parties’ emotional expressions and
211–212 consumer behavior, 160–162
early models and, 206–208 evolutionary adaptation
emotional contagion and, 208–210 emotional expression as, 6, 14–21
empirical support for, evaluation of, 201 group emotions and, 102–104
evolutionary adaptation and, 223–224 of groups, inferences from fellow mem-
expansion of emotional expression bers’ emotional displays and, 113–115
repertoire and, 228 social functionality of emotions and,
frequency of emotional expression and, 212–215
236 specificity of emotions and, 218–221
functional equivalence hypothesis and, evolutionary biology, signals and cues in,
26–27, 201–203 23n.1
302 Subject Index
exchange relationships failure of emotional signaling, 30–35
emotional expression in, 81–84 fear
expressions of sadness in, 90–93 anger and, 42–43
expectancy violations, perceptions of group affective divergence and diversity
appropriateness and, 64–67 and, 109–112
expresser characteristics group emotions and, 102–104
appeasement and, 96–98 inferential processes and, 46–47
emotional intelligence in negotiation feedback loops, social effects of emotions
and, 142–143 and, 237
in negotiations, 134–135, 138–142 feeling rules, 67n.1
overview of, 73–74 Five-Factor Model of personality, 75–77
expression threshold, dual threshold follower behavior
model of anger and, 211–212 appropriateness of leaders’ emotional
expressive modalities, functional displays and compliance in, 184–190,
equivalence of, 26–27, 201–203, 218–221
217–218 emotional expression of leaders and,
expressive suppression, 34–35 8–9, 172–177
The Expression of the Emotions in Man and emotional intelligence of leadership and,
Animals (Darwin), 1–2 190–192
extraversion, perceived appropriateness information processing and, 182–184,
and, 75–77 192–194
leaders’ emotional displays and perfor-
face-to-face interactions mance, 177–182
in groups, inferences from fellow mem- four-branch ability model of emotional
bers’ emotional displays and, 113–115 intelligence, 58–60
in negotiations, 127–128, 138–142 frequency of emotional expression, 236
social effects of emotions and, 201–203 friendship formation, suppression of emo-
suppression of emotion in, 81–84 tion as barrier to, 81–84
Facial Action Coding System (FACS), functional equivalence hypothesis, 26–27,
89–90 201–203, 217–218
group affective divergence and diversity functionality of emotions
and, 109–112 anger, 93–96
facial electromyography (fEMG) appeasement, 96–98
group affective divergence and diversity bounded functionality, 215–217
and, 109–112 in close relationships, 81–84
modulation of expression in presence of emotional convergence in interpersonal
audience, 25–26 relationships and, 84–86
facial expressions evolution and social functionality of,
complimentary affective reactions and, 212–215
42–43 expressive modality and, 26–27,
emotional contagion and, 38–42 201–203, 217–218
in groups, outside observers’ ratings of, fallacy concerning, 119–122
112–113 in group life, 102–104
life success linked to, 89–90 intensity of emotional expression and,
modulation in presence of audience, 71–72
25–26 in negotiations, 143–145
signals in, 21–23
universality in humans and non-human gender
primates, 19–21 emotional expression and, 73–74
voting behavior and, 160–162 leaders’ emotional displays and role of,
facial mimicry, blocking of, 33–34 176–177
 Subject Index 303
long-term consequences of emotional cultural differences in perceptions of,
expression and, 235–236 67–68
negotiations and role of, 138–142 group acceptance and conformity and,
general intelligence, processing capacity 117–118
and, 63–64 inferential processes and, 46–47, 98–100
groups interpersonal effects of, 125
affective convergence and tone in, leader-follower relations and expres-
104–108, 116–117 sions of, 180–181
affective divergence and diversity in, in negotiations, 128–132, 134–135
109–112 primitive emotional contagion and,
affective reactions in, 104 38–42
characteristics of members in, 73–74 reciprocal affective reactions and,
cultural differences in perceptions of, 125–127
67–68 service providers’ displays of, 153–154,
entitativity in, 116–117 168–169
fellow members’ emotional displays, social bonding and, 87–90
inferences from, 113–115 third party emotional expressions and,
functionality fallacy concerning, 160–162
119–122 heuristic-systematic model (HSM), 52–55
functionality of emotions in, 102–104 hierarchical standing, emotional expres-
future research on emotions in, 119–122 sion as cue to, 27–30, 73–74
identification in, 116–117 human adaptation, group relationships
inferential processes in, 50–52, 113–115, and, 14–21
117–118 human infants
information processing in, 135–138 interpretation of others’ expressions by,
liability of convergence for, 105–108, 25–26
119–122 social referencing in, 16–17
motivation for acceptance and confor-
mity in, 117–118 identification
negotiation and conflict in, 135–138, group identity, 73–74, 116–117
143–145 observer identification with group,
observer identification with, 75–77 75–77
outside observers’ inferences from implicit association test, affective and
group displays, 112–113 inferential processing and, 225–228
perceptions of appropriateness and, impropriety threshold, 232–233
64–67, 73–74 dual threshold model of anger and,
social effects of emotions in, 8, 101–122 211–212
groupthink inappropriateness, perception of, 64–67
group affective divergence and diversity authenticity of emotional expression
and, 110–111 and, 69–71, 150–153
as potential liability, 105–108, 119–122 customer aggression and, 155–158
guilt display rules and, 67–68
in close relationships, 96–98 in Emotions as Social Information (EASI)
disappointment and sadness and, theory, 198–201
127–128 intensity of emotional expression and,
inferential processes and, 46–47 71–72
leaders’ emotional displays and,
habituation, frequency of emotional 176–177, 184–190
expression and, 236 moderating role of, 204–206
happiness, expressions of in negotiations, 138–142
affective reaction to, 42–43 observer characteristics and, 75–77
304 Subject Index
inappropriateness, perception of (cont.) information processing
targeting of emotional expression and, emotional expressions and, 7, 61–62
72–73 in Emotions as Social Information (EASI)
inauthenticity in emotional expression theory, 198–201
in leaders, 176–177, 189–190 epistemic motivation and, 62–63
perceptions of appropriateness and, by followers, 182–184, 192–194
69–71 functional equivalence of expressive
incidental emotions, 233–234 modalities and, 26–27, 201–203,
inclusionary status, in groups, inferences 217–218
from fellow members’ emotional dis- group affective convergence and,
plays and, 113–115 104–108
individualism-collectivism dimension, inferential processes and, 46–47
display rules and, 67–68 moderating role of, 204–206
inferential processes. See also perception in negotiations, 135–138
affective reactions and, 52–55, 134–135 perceptions of appropriateness
anger expressions and, 93–96, 98–100 and, 64–67
appropriateness of leaders’ emotional processing capacity and, 63–64
displays and, 184–190 social and reverse appraisal
customers’ emotional displays, effect of, and, 48–50
in service providers, 158–159, 168–169 third party emotional expressions
downstream consequences, 50–52 and, 160–162
emotional expression and, 45–52 integral emotions, 233–234
in Emotions as Social Information (EASI) integrative strategies, in negotiations, 132
theory, 7, 198–201 intensity of emotional expression
epistemic motivation and, 63–64 appropriateness of service providers’
fellow group members’ emotional dis- emotional displays and, 153–154
plays, 113–115 perceptions of appropriateness and,
in groups, 112, 113–115 71–72
impacting factors in, 60–61 research challenges concerning, 232–233
measurement and separability of, interactional unfairness for service
225–228 employees, customer aggression
mediating role of, 203–204 and, 155–158
moderating role information interdependence structure of situations,
processing and perceived perceived inappropriateness and,
appropriateness, 204–206 67–68
in negotiations, 128, 134–135, 138–142 interpersonal approach to emotion, 5–6
outside observers’ inferences from affective reactions and, 42–43
group displays, 112–113 close relationships and, 7
perceived appropriateness conflict and negotiation and, 125
and, 64–67 consumers’ emotional expression and,
rejection from group and, 117–118 162–165
reverse appraisal and, 208–210 early models and, 206–208
social and reverse appraisal and, 48–50, emotional convergence and, 84–86
98–100 emotional intelligence in negotiation
social predisposition cues and, 27–30 and, 142–143
supplication vs. appeasement in nego- feedback loops and reciprocal
tiation and, 132–134 influence, 237
third party emotional expressions and, happiness and, 87–90
160–162 inferential processes and, 50–52
informational value of emotional expres- information processing in negotiation
sions, 19–21 and, 135–138
 Subject Index 305
leaders’ emotional expressions and, magnitude of effects of emotional
172–177 expression, research on, 201–203
long-term consequences of emotional marital problems, emotional suppression
expression and, 235–236 and, 34–35
magnitude of expression and, 26–27 The Managed Heart (Hochschild), 147
moving away response and, 241–242 mean group trait effect, group affective
reciprocal affective reactions and, divergence and diversity and, 109–112
125–127 medical personnel
regret and, 96–98 emotional intelligence of, 165–167
supplication vs. appeasement in interpersonal emotion regulation by,
negotiations and, 132–134 162–165
intrapersonal affective influences men
anticipated emotions and, 237–238 emotional expression in, 73–74
early models of, 206–208 as leaders, emotional displays and,
176–177
judgment mental fatigue, information processing
affective reactions and, 43–45, 225–228 and, 63–64
inferential processes and, 225–228 mimicry
group affective divergence and diversity
language and, 109–112
primitive emotional contagion and,
emotional expression and, 15
functionality of emotions and, 212–215 38–42
leader-follower relations mixed emotions, in EASI research, 230–232
mixed-motive setting, negotiation in,
anger expressed by leaders and, 172–177
emotional expression and, 8–9, 172–177 124–125
mood
followers’ information processing
defined, 4
and, 182–184
group affective divergence and diversity
followers’ performance and leaders’
and, 110–111
emotional displays, 177–182
mood-as-input model, 206–208
inauthentic expression by leaders
and, 189–190 mood linkage, group affective conver-
gence and, 104–108
subjective/objective indices of
effectiveness, 171 mood maintenance, affective reactions
and, 43–45
leadership
moving away response, 241–242
appropriateness of emotional
multinomial modeling, 225–228
displays by, 176–177, 184–190,
multi-party coalitions
192–194
negative affective reactions
defined, 171
and, 125–127
emotional intelligence and, 190–192
negotiations in, 143–145
emotions and, 8–9
followers’ performance and emotional
displays by, 177–182 natural selection, discrete emotions and,
group emotions and, 119–122 218–221
social effects of emotions in, 170–194 negative affective reactions
lexical decision task, affective and anger expressions and, 93–96, 98–100
inferential processing and, 225–228 customer service providers and,
love, as affective state, 87n.1 162–165, 168–169
display rules and, 67–68
“madman strategy,” in negotiations, group affective convergence and,
131–132 104–108
306 Subject Index
negative affective reactions (cont.) inferential processes and, 46–47
inauthentic emotional expression non-human primates
and, 69–71 appeasement and embarrassment in,
intensity of emotional expression 96–98
and, 71–72 communication through emotion in,
leadership perceptions and, 172–177 23–27
in negotiations, 125–127, 134–135, emotional expression in, 6, 17–19
138–142 group behavior in, 102–104
observers’ responses and, 75–77 interpretation of others’ expressions by,
perceptions of appropriateness and, 25–26
64–67 nonverbal communication
psychopathology and, 32–33 emotional expression and, 15
negative emotions group affective convergence and,
appropriateness of leaders’ emotional 104–108
displays of, 184–190 group affective divergence and diversity
in close relationships, 81–84 and, 111–112
customers’ displays of, 155–158 reciprocal affective reactions, 38–42
followers’ performance and leaders’ targeting of, 24
display of, 177–182
in negotiations, 124
objective ratings of leadership, 171
specificity of, 218–221
observers, characteristics of
negative state relief, 43–45
emotional expression and, 75–77
negotiation
outside observers’ inferences from
affective reactions during, 125–127,
group displays, 112–113
134–135
orbicularis oculi muscle, 89–90
anger and happiness, expression
organizational citizenship behavior (OCB),
during, 125–127
appropriateness of leaders’ emotional
appropriateness during, 138–142
displays and, 184–190
defined, 123
organizational settings
disappointment/sadness and comple-
affective events theory and dual thresh-
mentary guilt/compassion and,
old model of anger and, 211–212
127–128
appropriateness of leaders’ emotional
discrete emotions in, 218–221
displays and, 184–190
emotional expression in, 123–124
display rules in, 67–68
emotional intelligence in, 142–143
leadership in, 171
inferential processes and behavioral
social-emotional requirements in,
consequences in, 128, 134–135
147–148
information processing in, 135–138
interpersonal effects of emotions in, 8
mixed and dynamic emotions in, parent-child relations, emotional expres-
230–232 sion and, 34–35, 58
mixed-motive setting for, 124–125 Parkinson’s disease, physical constraints
multi-party coalitions and, 143–145 on emotional expression and, 33–34
negative emotions in, 124 perception. See also inferential processes
positive emotions in, 124 of affective content, 81–84
social effects of emotions in, 123–145 emotional intelligence and, 58–60
supplication vs. appeasement in, emotional intelligence in negotiation
132–134 and, 142–143
neuroscience of inappropriateness, 64–67
affective and inferential processing of leadership quality, positive affectivity
measurement and, 225–228 and, 172–177
 Subject Index 307
self-serving and ego-defensive biases in, failure of emotional expression and
72–73 lesions in, 31
performance criterion, leader-follower inferential processes and, 46–47
relations and, 180 primitive emotional contagion, 38–42
personality traits prisoner’s dilemma, reverse appraisals
discrete emotions and, 75–77 and, 48–50
emotional expressions and, 7 processing capacity
epistemic motivation and, 62–63 information processing, 63–64
group acceptance and conformity and, social functionality of emotions and,
117–118 81–84
inferential processes and, 50–52 process purity, in dual-process models,
of observer, 75–77 225–228
positive affect and, 88–89 product evaluations, third party emotional
perspective taking, 38–42 expressions and, 160–162
phenomenological experience, emotions prosocial behavior, happiness and, 88–89
and, 4 psychological disorders
philosophy, emotions in, 1 emotional expression and, 6
phylogenetic continuity of emotional sys- failure of emotional expression and,
tem (Darwin), 19–21 31–33
physical constraints on emotional expres- public-good dilemmas, emotional expres-
sion, 33–34 sion in negotiation and, 132–134
politics
inauthentic emotional expression and, questionnaire data, affective and inferen-
69–71 tial processing and, 225–228
leaders’ emotional displays in, 172–177
perceptions of appropriateness and,
reciprocal states
64–67
affective reactions, 38
social effects of emotions and, 242–243
complementary affective reactions,
positive emotions
42–43
in close relationships, 81–84
emotional influence and, 237
customers’ displays of, 155–158, 168–169 underlying processes, 38–42
followers’ performance and leaders’
reconciliation, apologies and, 96–98
display of, 177–182 rejection, inferences of, in groups, 117–118
group affective convergence and,
reproduction, social referencing and, 17–19
104–108
requests, emotional expressions as part of,
interpersonal emotion regulation in
90–93
customer service and, 162–165
reverse appraisal
leadership quality linked to, 172–177
EASI theory and, 208–210
in negotiation, 124
emotional knowledge and, 48–50
of service providers, research on,
inferential processes and, 52–55
148–149, 168–169 voting behavior and, 160–162
smiling by service providers, impact on
customers, 149–150
sadness
social bonding and, 87–90
anger and, 27–30
specificity of, 218–221
appropriateness of service providers’
power
emotional convergence and, 84–86, displays of, 153–154
complementary guilt and compassion
116–117
and, 127–128
information processing in negotiation
gender stereotypes and, 138–142
and, 135–138
prefrontal cortex judgment and behavior and, 43–45
308 Subject Index
sadness (cont.) intensity of emotional expression and,
leader-follower relations and expres- 71–72
sions of, 180–181 interdependence structure and, 67–68
social support elicitation and displays in negotiations, 138–142
of, 90–93 smiling
third party emotional expressions and, life success linked to, 89–90
160–162 by service providers, impact on custo-
sarcasm from consumers, impact on mers of, 149–150
service providers of, 158–159 social appraisal, 38–42
schizophrenia, failure of emotional appropriateness of emotions
expression and, 32–33 and, 68–69
self-reported emotional intelligence display rules and, 67–68
affective and inferential processing EASI theory and, 208–210
and, 225–228 emotional contagion and, 38–42
customer service providers emotional knowledge and, 48–50
and, 165–167 gender, group identity and status in,
group affective divergence and 73–74
diversity and, 109–112 intensity of emotional expression and,
social effects of emotions and, 201–203 71–72
social interaction and, 81–84 social dilemma games, emotional expres-
service providers sion in negotiation and, 132–134
authenticity of emotional displays by, social effects of emotions
150–153, 189–190 adaptive behavior and, 2–3
emotional intelligence in, 165–167 affective reactions and inferential pro-
emotions of, effect on customer beha- cesses, 52–55, 98–100
vior, 148–149, 154–155 anticipated emotions, 237–238
intensity of emotional displays by, appeasement and, 96–98
153–154 broadening context for, 239
leaders’ emotional displays and perfor- in close relationships, 86–87, 98–100
mance of, 177–182 in conflict and negotiation, 123–145
service quality, authenticity of emotional on consumer behavior and customer
display and, 150–153 service, 146–169
signals, emotional expressions as, 21–23 contingencies of, 115–116
evolutionary biology and, 23n.1 culture and, 239–241
expressive modalities and, 217–218 dysfunctional outcomes for groups
failure of, 30–35 and, 119–122
group affective divergence and diversity emotional intelligence and, 58–60
and, 110–111 emotional intelligence in negotiation
targeting and, 24 and, 142–143
simulations, emotional contagion and, in Emotions as Social Information (EASI)
38–42 theory, 198–201
situational variables evolution of, 15, 212–215, 223–224
appropriateness of leaders’ emotional expressive modalities, 26–27, 201–203,
displays and, 184–190 217–218
appropriateness perceptions and, feedback loops and reciprocal influence,
138–142 237
cultural scripts and, 67–68 functional equivalence and, 217–218
display rules and, 67–68 in groups, 8, 101–122
in Emotions as Social Information (EASI) happiness and social bonding, 87–90
theory, 198–201 in leadership, 170–194
inferential processes and, 50–52 moderators of, 77–78
 Subject Index 309
moving away response and, 241–242 authenticity of emotional displays by
in new domains, 242–243 service providers and, 150–153
perceptions of appropriateness conformity as, 117–118
and, 64–67 emotion regulation strategies in custo-
prerequisites for, 56–60 mer service, 147–148
sadness display and social support functionality of emotions and, 212–215
elicitation, 90–93 interpersonal emotion regulation, cus-
scholarship on, 3 tomer service, 162–165
suppression of emotion and, 34–35 in negotiations, 131–132
survival and success and, 27–30 student learning and performance
temporal issues concerning, 234–235 emotional intelligence and, 190–192
theoretical framework for, 6 teachers’ emotional expression and,
social interaction. See also close 179–180, 182–184, 187
relationships subclinical conditions, emotional expres-
emotional regulation of, 56 sion impairment and, 34–35
functionality of emotions in regulation subjective feelings, authenticity in
of, 212–215 emotional expression and, 69–71
sociality, facial expressions and, 25–26 subjective ratings of leadership, 171
social predispositions, emotional supplication
expressions as cues to, 27–30 group affective divergence and diversity
social referencing and, 111–112
affective and inferential processing in negotiation, 132–134
and, 225–228 as prosocial trigger, 90–93, 98–100
in human infants, 16–17 suppression of emotion, social impact of,
social-signaling function 81–84
display rules and, 67–68 surface acting
emotional expression, 26–27 authenticity in emotional expression
specificity of emotions, 218–221 and, 69–71
sports psychology, social effects of emotional intelligence and, 165–167
emotions and, 242–243 emotional labor and, 147, 150–153
static conditions, group affective conver- emotion regulation strategies in custo-
gence and, 104–108 mer service and, 147–148
status during negotiation, 138–142
appeasement and embarrassment survival
and, 96–98 group emotions and, 102–104
emotional expression and, 73–74 of groups, inferences from fellow mem-
group affective divergence and bers’ emotional displays and, 113–115
diversity and, 111–112 sharedness of group emotions and,
group emotions and, 102–104 104–108
of observer, 75–77 signals in emotions as key to, 21–23
stereotypes social functionality of emotions and,
emotional expression and, 73–74 212–215
negotiations and role of, 138–142 social referencing and, 17–19
stimuli
affective reactions and inferential targeting of emotional expression, 24
processes and, 52–55 anger expressions and, 93–96
third parties’ emotional expressions in groups, inferences from fellow
and consumer behavior, 160–162 members’ emotional displays,
strategic behavior 113–115
authenticity in emotional expression information processing in negotiation
and, 69–71 and, 135–138
310 Subject Index
targeting of emotional expression (cont.) ultrasociality
leadership quality and, 172–177 evolution of, 223–224
perceptions of appropriateness and, functionality of emotions in regulation
72–73 of, 212–215
in requests, 90–93 understanding, emotional intelligence
task performance and, 58–60
authenticity of emotional displays by unexpected emotional expression, percep-
service providers and, 150–153 tions of appropriateness vs., 64–67
group affective convergence and, unimodel (Kruglanski), 206–208
104–108 unipolar depressive disorder, failure of
teachers, emotional expression by emotional expression and, 32–33
students’ learning performance and, universality of emotional expression,
179–180, 182–184, 187 19–21
team dynamics unpredictability, in negotiations, 131–132
affective convergence and, 116–117
affective divergence and diversity and, valenced responses
109–112 affective reactions and, 43–45
emotional expressions and, 27–30 emotional expression and, 3–5
emotional intelligence of leadership and, emotion specificity and, 218–221
190–192 group emotions and, 112–113
follower information processing and, leaders’ emotional displays, asymmetry
182–184 in, 172–177
group affective convergence and, in non-human primates, 18
104–108 research beyond, 228–230
inferences from fellow members’ of service providers, 168–169
emotional displays, 113–115 third party emotions and consumer
inferential processes and, 50–52 attitudes, 160–162
terror management, group emotions and, value conflicts, in negotiations, 138–142
102–104 verbal abuse by customers, 155–158
textual information, appraisals and, 48–50 visual cliff paradigm, social referencing
threat, anger and happiness expressions in human infants, 16–17
and inferences of, 128–132 vocal expression
time pressures emotional contagion and, 38–42
information processing in negotiation of emotions, 19–21
and, 135–138 voting behavior, third parties’ emotional
long-term consequences of emotional expressions and, 160–162
expression and, 235–236
social effects of emotions and, 234–235
What is an emotion? (James), 3–4
toughness, anger and happiness expres-
women
sions and inferences of, 128–132
emotional expression in, 73–74
tracking, reverse appraisal as, 208–210 as leaders, emotional displays and,
trait affectivity, customer aggression and, 176–177
155–158
long-term consequences of emotional
transactional leaders expression in, 235–236
appropriateness of emotional displays
work environments, emotional
by, 188–189
expressions in, 27–30
negative emotional displays by, 172–177
working memory capacity, information
transformational leaders, appropriateness
processing and, 63–64
of emotional displays by, 188–189
turnover of service employees, customer
aggression linked to, 155–158 zygomatic major muscle, activation of, 89–90
Studies in Emotion and Social Interaction

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Patrick Colm Hogan
Feelings and Emotions: The Amsterdam Symposium, edited by Antony
S. R. Manstead, Nico H. Frijda, and Agneta H. Fischer
Collective Guilt: International Perspectives, edited by Nyla R.
Branscombe and Bertjan Doosje
The Social Life of Emotions, edited by Larissa Z. Tiedens and Colin
Wayne Leach
Emotions and Multilingualism, by Aneta Pavlenko
Group Dynamics and Emotional Expression, edited by Ursula Hess and
Pierre Philippot
Stigmatization, Tolerance and Repair: An Integrative Psychological
Analysis of Responses to Deviance, by Anton J. M. Dijker and Willem
Koomen
The Self and Its Emotions, by Kristján Kristjánsson
Face-to-Face Communication over the Internet: Emotions in a Web of
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Nicole C. Krämer
What Literature Teaches Us about Emotion, by Patrick Colm Hogan
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