Abstract
Conflicts or disagreements during which negative, antagonistic emotions are expressed are perceived as uncomfortable. By contrast, disagreements accompanied by positive, affiliative emotions are less detrimental to interaction quality. We assessed whether individual differences in emotional mimicry have differential effects on interaction quality during disagreements with negative emotions compared to disagreements with positive emotions. For this, participants talked with someone who disagreed with them in a controlled laboratory setting, while emotional mimicry was assessed via facial EMG. The interaction partner showed either an antagonistic or an affiliative demeanor during the interaction. Following the interaction, participants reported on perceived interaction quality. In line with the Emotional Mimicry in Context view (Hess and Fischer in Pers Social Psychol Rev 17:142–157, 2013), emotional mimicry decreased interaction quality when the person who disagreed showed an antagonistic demeanor but increased interaction quality when the person who disagreed showed an affiliative demeanor. Furthermore, implicit affiliation motivation predicted emotional mimicry regardless the context.
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Notes
The TOST procedure (Lakens 2016) indicated that the observed effect size was significantly within the equivalence bounds of a medium effect size (of Cohen’s d = −0.5 and Cohen’s d = 0.5), t(34) = 2.16, p = .019.
The TOST procedure (Lakens 2016) indicated that the observed effect size was significantly within the equivalence bounds of a medium effect size (of Cohen’s d = −0.5 and Cohen’s d = 0.5), t(34) = 2.61, p = .007.
To reduce participants’ suspicion, we also collected all the other explicit motives, which, however, will not be further discussed here.
To increase feelings of similarity to video-taped interaction partners, we also placed electrodes on participants’ forehead to measure Frontalis (lifting the eyebrows) activity even though those measures were not relevant for the present research question.
The TOST procedure (Lakens 2016) indicated that the observed effect sizes were significantly within the equivalence bounds of medium effect sizes (of Cohen’s d = − 0.5 and Cohen’s d = 0.5), t(126) = − 2.47, p = .008; t(126) = − 2.50, p = .007; t(126) = 2.50, p = .007.
Probing the interaction effect revealed that whereas participants in the affiliative conflict condition reported significantly higher interaction quality with increasing levels of mimicry (simple slope z = .15(.05), t = 2.85, p = .005), no significant simple effect of mimicry on the self-reported interaction quality during the antagonistic conflict condition could be found (p > .74).
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Funding
Data collection of this study was supported by a grant from the structured graduate program “Self-Regulation Dynamics Across Adulthood and Old Age: Potentials and Limits” (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin) to Heidi Mauersberger.
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Mauersberger, H., Hess, U. When smiling back helps and scowling back hurts: individual differences in emotional mimicry are associated with self-reported interaction quality during conflict interactions. Motiv Emot 43, 471–482 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-018-9743-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-018-9743-x