The Social Power of Regret:The Effect of Social Appraisal and Anticipated Emotions on Fair and Unfair Allocations in Resource Dilemmas

We investigated how another person’s emotions about resource allocation decisions influence observers’ resource allocations by influencing the emotions that observers anticipate feeling if they were to act in the same way. Participants were exposed to an exemplar who made a fair or unfair division in an economic game and expressed pride or regret about this decision. Participants then made their own resource allocation decisions. Exemplar regret about acting fairly decreased the incidence of fair behavior (Studies 1A and 1B). Likewise, exemplar regret about acting unfairly increased the incidence of fair behavior (Study 2). The effect of others’ emotions on observers’ behavior was mediated by the observers’ anticipated emotions. We discuss our findings in light of the view that social appraisal and anticipated emotions are important tools for social learning and may contribute to the formation and maintenance of social norms about greed and fairness

Oxytocin and emotion recognition: Investigating the possible roles of facial synchrony and eye gaze

The neuropeptide oxytocin (OT) has been shown to influence social cognition, including better recognition of emotion in faces. One potential way in which OT improves emotion recognition is by increasing the correspondence between a perceiver's own facial activity and observed facial expressions. Here we investigate whether increased facial synchrony while viewing facial expressions increases emotion recognition, and whether this effect is moderated by OT. Change in visual attention as captured by eye-gaze is another way in which OT might improve emotion recognition. We also examine visual attention to observed expressions, and whether this is influenced by OT. One hundred and four male undergraduates took part in a double-blind, randomized, between-subjects study in which they self-administered either a placebo (PL) or 24 IU of OT before viewing dynamic facial expressions of emotion, during which their facial activity and eye-gaze were measured, before answering questions on emotion recognition and affiliation. It was hypothesized that participants in the OT condition would exhibit more facial synchrony than would those in the PL condition, and that OT would influence time spent looking at the eye region of target faces. Consistent with previous research, participants in the OT condition were marginally but significantly better at emotion recognition than those in the PL condition. However, participants in the OT condition displayed less facial synchrony for fearful expressions, and there was no effect of OT on measures of eye-gaze. These results suggest that OT does not improve emotion recognition through increased facial synchrony or changing visual attention

An epidemic context elicits more prosocial decision-making in an intergroup social dilemma

Societal challenges such as the COVID-19 pandemic have the quality of a social dilemma, in that they compel people to choose between acting in their own interests or the interests of a larger collective. Empirical evidence shows that the choices people make in a social dilemma are influenced by how this decision is framed. In four studies, we examined how context of an epidemic influences resource allocation decisions in a nested social dilemma task, where participants share resources between themselves, their subgroup, and a larger collective. Participants consistently allocated more resources to the collective in the context of the Ebola epidemic than in the context of a neighborhood improvement project, and these choices were strongly associated with prescriptive social norms. Together, the findings provide an experimental demonstration that the context of a quickly spreading disease encourages people to act more prosocially

Emotion and intergroup cooperation: How verbal expressions of guilt, shame and pride influence behavior in a social dilemma

In interpersonal relations, it is known that expressing self-conscious emotions such as guilt and shame following a transgression is beneficial to reconciliation. In the current research, we examine whether this also applies to intergroup relations. Groups of three persons played an intergroup version of the “centipede game,” in which one party can cooperate with or exploit another party. In Study 1, two groups played six rounds of this game in each of two phases. Between phases, groups rated how much guilt, shame, and pride they experienced in relation to how they had performed in Phase 1; these ratings were shared with the opposing group. Groups expressing high levels of guilt and shame were associated with greater cooperation in Phase 2, whereas groups expressing high levels of pride were associated with lower cooperation in Phase 2. In Study 2, all groups played against a “group” programmed to behave in an exploitative way in Phase 1. This group then expressed shame, pride, or no emotion (control) about its performance. Cooperation in Phase 2 was significantly higher in the shame than in the pride condition, and altruistic punishment was highest in the pride condition and lowest in the shame condition. Between them, these studies show that emotional expression plays an important role in repairing intergroup relationships and in particular that expressing shame about a transgression enhances intergroup cooperation following a transgression

Beyond actions: Reparatory effects of regret in intergroup trust games

Intergroup trust is vital for cooperation and societal well-being, but is harder to establish than interpersonal trust. We investigate whether expressions of negative emotions, in particular regret, following economic decisions can shape intergroup trust. In each of three studies participants were members of a group playing a two-round trust game with another group. In the first round, they observed an outgroup member who acted fairly or unfairly towards the ingroup and then expressed positive (i.e., happiness) or negative (i.e., regret, unhappiness) emotions about this behavior. In the second round, participants played with another outgroup member. Emotions displayed by the outgroup representative following unfair behavior in round 1 influenced participants' allocations in round 2, which were higher following regret and unhappiness than following positive emotions. Thus, emotions expressed by one outgroup member affected interactions with other members who had not communicated emotions. Findings of Study 3 revealed that these effects were driven by regret increasing intergroup trust, rather than by happiness decreasing it. Moreover, participants' allocations were predicted by their perceptions of the extent to which the outgroup representative wished to change her behavior. Together, the findings reveal that regret expressions influence intergroup trust by attenuating the detrimental effects of unfair behavior

Beautiful friendship: Social sharing of emotions improves subjective feelings and activates the neural reward circuitry

Humans have a strong tendency to affiliate with other people, especially in emotional situations. Here, we suggest that a critical mechanism underlying this tendency is that socially sharing emotional experiences is in itself perceived as hedonically positive and thereby contributes to the regulation of individual emotions. We investigated the effect of social sharing of emotions on subjective feelings and neural activity by having pairs of friends view emotional (negative and positive) and neutral pictures either alone or with the friend. While the two friends remained physically separated throughout the experiment—with one undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging and the other performing the task in an adjacent room—they were made aware on a trial-by-trial basis whether they were seeing pictures simultaneously with their friend (shared) or alone (unshared). Ratings of subjective feelings were improved significantly when participants viewed emotional pictures together than alone, an effect that was accompanied by activity increase in ventral striatum and medial orbitofrontal cortex, two important components of the reward circuitry. Because these effects occurred without any communication or interaction between the friends, they point to an important proximate explanation for the basic human motivation to affiliate with others, particularly in emotional situation

Intergroup emotional exchange: Ingroup guilt and outgroup anger increase resource allocation in trust games

Intergroup exchanges are an integral part of social life but are compromised when one group pursues its interests at another group’s expense. The present research investigates whether expressing emotion can mitigate the negative consequences of such actions. We examine how emotions communicated by either an ingroup or outgroup member following an ingroup member’s breach of trust affect other ingroup members’ feelings of guilt and pride, and subsequent allocation of resources. In both studies, groups of participants played a two-round trust game with another group. In round one, they observed a member of their own group failing to reciprocate a trusting move by the outgroup. In Study 1 (N = 85), an outgroup member then communicated anger or disappointment, whereas in Study 2 (N = 164), an ingroup member then communicated happiness or guilt. Comparisons with no-emotion control conditions revealed that expressions of outgroup anger and ingroup guilt increased participants’ allocations to an outgroup member in round two. The effect of an outgroup member’s anger expression was mediated by participants’ diminished feelings of pride about the ingroup action, whereas the effect of an ingroup member’s guilt expression was mediated by participants’ own feelings of guilt. Taken together, these findings support a social appraisal approach and highlight the roles that pride and guilt can play in shaping intergroup resource allocations

Dominance, reward, and affiliation smiles modulate the meaning of uncooperative or untrustworthy behaviour

We investigated the effects of different types of smiles on the perception of uncooperative or untrustworthy behaviour. In five studies, participants assigned to one group played an economic game with a representative of another group. In an initial round, the representative acted uncooperatively by favouring their group and then displayed a dominance, reward, or affiliation smile. Participants rated the motives of the representative and played a second round of the game with a different member of the same outgroup. Following uncooperative or untrustworthy behaviour, affiliation smiles communicated less positivity and superiority, and a greater desire to both repair the relationship between groups and change the uncooperative decision than reward or dominance smiles. Perceptions of a desire to repair the relationship and to change the decision were associated with trust and cooperation in a subsequent round of the game. Together, these findings show that smiles that are subtly different in their morphology can convey different messages and highlight the importance of these expressions in influencing the perceptions of others’ intentions

Existential threat and responses to emotional displays of ingroup and outgroup members

The present research investigates how emotional displays shape reactions to ingroup and outgroup members when people are reminded of death. We hypothesized that under mortality salience, emotions that signal social distance promote worldview defense (i.e., increased ingroup favoritism and outgroup derogation), whereas emotions that signal affiliation promote affiliation need (i.e., reduced ingroup favoritism and outgroup derogation). In three studies, participants viewed emotional displays of ingroup and/or outgroup members after a mortality salience or control manipulation. Results revealed that under mortality salience, anger increased ingroup favoritism and outgroup derogation (Study 1), enhanced perceived overlap with the ingroup (Study 3), and increased positive facial behavior to ingroup displays—measured via the Facial Action Coding System (Studies 1 and 2) and electromyography of the zygomaticus major muscle (Study 3). In contrast, happiness decreased ingroup favoritism and outgroup derogation (Study 2), and increased positive facial behavior towards outgroup members (Study 3). The findings suggest that, in times of threat, emotional displays can determine whether people move away from unfamiliar others or try to form as many friendly relations as possible

Neighborhood crime reduction interventions and perceived livability: A virtual reality study on fear of crime

High levels of Fear of Crime (FOC) are associated with people engaging with their community less, lower use of public spaces, and a general sense of overall anxiety. In short, such fear may reduce the livability of an area. The primary goal of this research was to examine the potential consequences of environmental interventions intended to reduce crime on FOC and perceived livability of the area. Using immersive Virtual Reality (VR) technology, in two studies we examined how environmental interventions in residential neighborhoods influence FOC. In Study 1, we examined how motion-activated, dynamic street lighting and sound may decrease FOC. In Study 2, we applied an adapted ‘watching eyes’ intervention and examined how it may inadvertently increase FOC in a neighborhood. In Study 1 the intervention did not affect feelings of safety. In Study 2, the ‘watching eyes’ intervention indirectly increased FOC via feelings of being watched. In the Discussion, we highlight the importance of better understanding the boundary conditions of such environmental interventions