Emotion regulation contagion drives reduction in negative intergroup emotions
Abstract When emotions occur in groups, they sometimes impact group behavior in undesired ways. Reducing group’s emotions with emotion regulation interventions can be helpful, but may also be a challenge, because treating every person in the group is often infeasible. One solution is to treat a frac...
Saved in:
| Main Authors: | , , , , , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Nature Portfolio
2025-02-01
|
| Series: | Nature Communications |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-56538-x |
| Tags: |
Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
|
| _version_ | 1823861823967854592 |
|---|---|
| author | Michael Pinus Yajun Cao Eran Halperin Alin Coman James J. Gross Amit Goldenberg |
| author_facet | Michael Pinus Yajun Cao Eran Halperin Alin Coman James J. Gross Amit Goldenberg |
| author_sort | Michael Pinus |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Abstract When emotions occur in groups, they sometimes impact group behavior in undesired ways. Reducing group’s emotions with emotion regulation interventions can be helpful, but may also be a challenge, because treating every person in the group is often infeasible. One solution is to treat a fraction of a group, and then hope the effect of the treatment will spread to other group members. To test the viability of this option, we designed an experiment to examine the impact of emotion regulation applied to different proportions of groups of six Israeli participants (N = 2659) who shared real-time responses to negative emotions-inducing political stimuli. Before interacting with each other, we treated different proportions of each group with an emotion regulation intervention called cognitive reappraisal, which involved teaching participants to reinterpret events to reduce negative emotions. The results showed that as the proportion of participants who received the treatment increased, there was a reduction in emotions within the non-treated participants. Furthermore, targeting above 40% of participants resulted in reliable group emotional change. Using semantic projection analysis, we validated the contagion of reappraisal language. These findings shed light on the conditions that enable collective emotion regulation. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-9c7040fe7dca487384607a418bbbbb04 |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 2041-1723 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-02-01 |
| publisher | Nature Portfolio |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Nature Communications |
| spelling | doaj-art-9c7040fe7dca487384607a418bbbbb042025-02-09T12:46:07ZengNature PortfolioNature Communications2041-17232025-02-0116111210.1038/s41467-025-56538-xEmotion regulation contagion drives reduction in negative intergroup emotionsMichael Pinus0Yajun Cao1Eran Halperin2Alin Coman3James J. Gross4Amit Goldenberg5Harvard Business SchoolHarvard Business SchoolDepartment of Psychology, Hebrew University of JerusalemDepartment of Psychology, Princeton UniversityDepartment of Psychology, Stanford UniversityHarvard Business SchoolAbstract When emotions occur in groups, they sometimes impact group behavior in undesired ways. Reducing group’s emotions with emotion regulation interventions can be helpful, but may also be a challenge, because treating every person in the group is often infeasible. One solution is to treat a fraction of a group, and then hope the effect of the treatment will spread to other group members. To test the viability of this option, we designed an experiment to examine the impact of emotion regulation applied to different proportions of groups of six Israeli participants (N = 2659) who shared real-time responses to negative emotions-inducing political stimuli. Before interacting with each other, we treated different proportions of each group with an emotion regulation intervention called cognitive reappraisal, which involved teaching participants to reinterpret events to reduce negative emotions. The results showed that as the proportion of participants who received the treatment increased, there was a reduction in emotions within the non-treated participants. Furthermore, targeting above 40% of participants resulted in reliable group emotional change. Using semantic projection analysis, we validated the contagion of reappraisal language. These findings shed light on the conditions that enable collective emotion regulation.https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-56538-x |
| spellingShingle | Michael Pinus Yajun Cao Eran Halperin Alin Coman James J. Gross Amit Goldenberg Emotion regulation contagion drives reduction in negative intergroup emotions Nature Communications |
| title | Emotion regulation contagion drives reduction in negative intergroup emotions |
| title_full | Emotion regulation contagion drives reduction in negative intergroup emotions |
| title_fullStr | Emotion regulation contagion drives reduction in negative intergroup emotions |
| title_full_unstemmed | Emotion regulation contagion drives reduction in negative intergroup emotions |
| title_short | Emotion regulation contagion drives reduction in negative intergroup emotions |
| title_sort | emotion regulation contagion drives reduction in negative intergroup emotions |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-56538-x |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT michaelpinus emotionregulationcontagiondrivesreductioninnegativeintergroupemotions AT yajuncao emotionregulationcontagiondrivesreductioninnegativeintergroupemotions AT eranhalperin emotionregulationcontagiondrivesreductioninnegativeintergroupemotions AT alincoman emotionregulationcontagiondrivesreductioninnegativeintergroupemotions AT jamesjgross emotionregulationcontagiondrivesreductioninnegativeintergroupemotions AT amitgoldenberg emotionregulationcontagiondrivesreductioninnegativeintergroupemotions |