The lost e-mail: prosocial reactions induced by uniquely human emotions

Leyens et al. (2000) have developed a theory on the role of secondary emotions as a uniquely human characteristic. An implication of this theory is that the use of secondary emotions, compared to primary emotions, will increase prosocial intentions and behaviours. Given the uniquely human character of secondary emotions, people who express themselves in terms of these emotions are tacitly seen as more human. As a consequence, these individuals share the human nature that we usually reserve for our own group or ourselves and will therefore evoke prosocial attitudes and behaviours. In two studies, French-speaking participants were confronted with an e-mail that started with either a primary or a secondary emotion. As expected, secondary emotion messages, compared to primary emotion messages, provoked stronger intentions to help the sender (Expt 1) and elicited 'nicer' responses (Expt 2). Implications for intergroup relations are discussed.