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Feeling more together: group attention intensifies emotion
Garriy Shteynberg1, Jacob B Hirsh2, Evan P Apfelbaum3
1Department of Psychology, University of Tennessee.
Emotion (Washington, D.C.)
|August 25, 2014
Summary
Group attention, the shared experience of focusing on something with others, intensifies emotions. This phenomenon enhances fear, sadness, and happiness, unlike individual attention or attending with strangers.
Area of Science:
- Social Psychology
- Cognitive Psychology
- Affective Science
Background:
- The intensification of emotions in group settings is a long-standing idea.
- Empirical evidence explaining how group contexts influence emotional intensity remains limited.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate whether group attention, defined as simultaneous coattention with group members, heightens emotional intensity.
- To differentiate the effects of group attention from individual attention, attending with strangers, or non-simultaneous group attention.
Main Methods:
- Five studies were conducted using various stimuli, including advertisements, images, and videos.
- Participants experienced stimuli under conditions of group attention, individual attention, or attention with strangers.
- Emotional intensity and cognitive resource allocation were measured.
Main Results:
- Group attention led to increased fear from scary advertisements.
- Sadness and happiness were intensified by group attention towards negative and positive images, respectively.
- Group attention increased cognitive resources allocated to stimuli, correlating with heightened emotional responses.
Conclusions:
- Group attention significantly amplifies emotional intensity across various emotional valences (fear, sadness, happiness).
- These effects are not attributable to physiological arousal, emotional contagion, or vicarious experience.
- Shared attention within a group context demonstrably enhances emotional experiences.
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