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Intentional sadness contagion: Social bonding with neural decoupling

Yanqiu Wei1,2, Jinglu Chen3, Siyuan Zhou4

  • 1Air Force Medical Center, Air Force Medical University, Beijing, China. wyq023@163.com.

Cognitive, Affective & Behavioral Neuroscience
|May 19, 2026
PubMed

Insights

Consciously sharing sadness enhances emotional contagion and prosocial behavior. This intentional emotional contagion involves reduced brain activation and altered neural synchronization, suggesting adaptive neurocognitive reorganization.

Area of Science:

  • Neuroscience
  • Social Psychology
  • Cognitive Science

Background:

  • Intentional emotional contagion mechanisms are unclear in natural communication.
  • Conscious engagement can enhance emotional contagion.

Purpose of the Study:

  • Investigate the neurobehavioral mechanisms of intentional sadness contagion.
  • Examine how intentional emotional contagion affects interpersonal intimacy and altruism.
  • Extend the Emotions as Social Information Model.

Main Methods:

  • fNIRS pseudo-hyperscanning to measure brain activity during dyadic communication.
  • Behavioral assessments of interpersonal intimacy and listener altruism.
  • Mediation analysis to explore emotional communication and self-other overlap.

Main Results:

  • Behavioral: Increased interpersonal intimacy and listener altruism.
  • Neurocognitive: Reduced activation in specific prefrontal and parietal regions.
  • Neural Synchronization: Weaker synchronization between speaker's and listener's dlPFC.
  • Mediation: Intentional emotional contagion linked emotional communication and self-other overlap.

Conclusions:

  • Intentional sadness contagion shows a behavioral-neural dissociation.
  • Adaptive neurocognitive reorganization facilitates prosocial behavior during dyadic story sharing.
  • Findings support and extend the Emotions as Social Information Model.

Keywords:
Emotions as Social Information ModelIntentional emotional contagionInterpersonal neural synchronizationSocial interactionStory sharing

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