Related Experiment Video
Updated: Feb 15, 2026

The Emotional Stroop Task: Assessing Cognitive Performance under Exposure to Emotional Content
Published on: June 29, 2016
Matching Your Face or Appraising the Situation: Two Paths to Emotional Contagion
Abstract:
Emotions are believed to converge both through emotional mimicry and social appraisal. The present study compared contagion of anger and happiness. In Experiment 1, participants viewed dynamic angry and happy faces, with facial electromyography recorded from the zygomaticus major and corrugator supercilii as emotional mimicry. Self-reported emotional experiences were analyzed as emotional contagion. Experiment 2 manipulated social appraisal as the gaze of expression toward the target. The results showed that there was emotional contagion for angry and happy expressions both in Experiment 1 and Experiment 2. Experiment 1 indicated an overt mimicry pattern for happy faces, but not for angry faces. Experiment 2 found an influence of social appraisal on angry contagion but not on happy diffusion. The two experiments suggest that the underlying processes of emotional mimicry and social appraisal are differentially relevant for different emotional contagion, with happiness processing following a mimicry-based path to emotional contagion, and anger processing requiring social appraisal.
Related Concept Videos
The Sense of Self: Reflected Self-Appraisal and Social Comparison
Mean free path and Mean free time
Sign Test for Matched Pairs
To conduct the sign test, we first calculate the differences in...
Lazarus's Cognitive Appraisal Theory
Primary Appraisal:...
Path Between Thermodynamics States
Interference: Path Lengths
Two special sources may be considered when they are in phase. This can be easily achieved by feeding the two sources from the same source. An example would be synchronizing the two speakers by feeding them with the same source, such as the sound waves produced by a tuning fork. This setup ensures that the two sources have the same frequency and are...

