Job van der Schalk: "Echoing Emotions: Reactions to Emotional Displays in Intergroup Context"

On July 2, 2010 Job van der Schalk successfully defended the PhD thesis entitled "Echoing Emotions: Reactions to Emotional Displays in Intergroup Context" at Agnietenkapel Amsterdam.

Promotor
Prof.dr. A.H. Fischer

Co-promotors
Prof.dr. D. Wigboldus
Dr. B.J. Doosje

Summary

The thesis discusses research that investigates how intergroup context and group based identity influence reactions to the emotions of others, and how these reactions, in turn, influence the relationships between members of different groups. It is hypothesized that there is more emotional contagion between ingroup members than between outgroup members. Another hypothesis is that the perception of expressed emotions will increase social bonding between ingroup members, but not between outgroup members. The results of three sets of studies largely confirm these propositions.
Using a new standardized set of filmed emotion expressions featuring North-European and Mediterranean models—the Amsterdam Dynamic Facial Expression Set (ADFES)—, the studies in Chapter 2 demonstrate that there is an ingroup advantage in emotion recognition. The studies also show that observing emotional displays of ingroup members increases liking of these models, but that this does not increase liking of outgroup models. Chapter 3 reveals that emotional expressions of anger and fear are mimicked to a greater extent when they are expressed by ingroup members than when they are expressed by outgroup members, and that expressions of outgroup members evoke emotions that diverge from the displays that are perceived. Moreover, mimicry of anger and fear displays increases liking for ingroup members, but not for outgroup members. Happiness displays, however, are mimicked independent of group membership. We suggest that happiness signals affiliation, and that this can overcome group boundaries. In the studies of Chapter 4 we therefore manipulated participants’ need for affiliation by having participants think about their mortality. The findings reveal that when mortality is salient, individuals converge more to outgroup happiness displays, and that attitudes towards the outgroup become more positive. In response to anger displays, in contrast, individuals converge more to ingroup displays, and attitudes towards the outgroup become more negative. These findings show that reactions to emotions of others are influenced by both group context and motivational factors. In Chapter 5, a model of emotional convergence and divergence in intergroup context is introduced.
The findings show that emotional displays bring individuals together when they share group membership, but drive individuals apart when they do not share group membership. Happiness displays, however, can overcome group boundaries, because individuals converge to outgroup happiness to the same extent as they do to ingroup happiness—sometimes even more so. Awareness of the differential responsiveness to emotions of ingroup and outgroup members may improve day-to-day intergroup interactions.