情绪感染的发生机制

原始性情绪感染理论认为, 情绪感染是一个“情绪觉察-无意识模仿-生理反馈-情绪体验”的过程, 情绪感染是一个由生理诱发情绪的过程。早在1884年, 詹姆士和兰格就提出了情绪外周学说, 同样描述了从身体变化到情绪变化的关系路径, 但没有描述从刺激事件到外周身体变化的发生机制。对情绪感染的发生机制的研究能揭示这一“自下而上”的情绪产生机制。研究选取有效大学生被试62名, 参与下列研究：(1) 在眼动实验中使用情绪图片作为感官情绪信息, 以考察觉察者的情绪觉察水平。(2) 在生物反馈实验中, 使用仿真课堂教学视频作为感官情绪信息, 以考察觉察者的无意识模仿水平和生理反馈水平。使用路径分析证实了情绪感染的路径机制, 在真实情境的诱发下, 这种通过生理唤醒而诱发情绪的机制是可能的。

The mechanism of emotional contagion

According to the theory of primitive emotional contagion, emotional contagion is a psychological process of physiology eliciting emotion, which consists of the following courses: emotional awareness –> unconscious mimicry –> physiological feedback –> emotional experience. As early as 1884, William James and Carl Lange put forward a same periphery-feedback theory of emotion, which depicted a close relationship between physiological change and emotional change. Unfortunately, it described neither the mechanism from stimuli events to peripheral physiological change, nor the internal link between physiological feedback and emotional arousal. The above two issues could be resolved by research on the mechanism of emotional contagion. To prove the mechanism, we opened up recruitment to 62 college students as available participants in the following experiments. (1) In the eye movement experiment, International Affective Picture System was employed as sensorial emotional information to explore perceiver’s level of emotional awareness. All participants were distinguished into high and low score group by E-prime experiment of emotional awareness. Then Hi-speed eye tracker was used to study fixation time in area of interest (AOI) in two groups. The results showed that there were significant differences in relative fixation time (%) between high and low score group. (2) In the biological feedback experiment, we played teaching videos, as sensorial emotional information, to students through a real-time simulation during the experiment, which aimed to explore participants’ level of unconscious mimicry and physiologic feedback. The two physiological indices, facial electromyographic (EMG) and frontal EMG, were used to reflect the level of unconscious mimicry. The other two indices, Blood Volume Pulse (BVP) and Resistance from Skin Conductance (SCR), were employed to measure the extent of physiological feedback or emotional arousal. The Emotional Contagion Scale, a subjective experience scale, was put into use to infer the extent of participants’ emotional experience. The above indices could be confirmed with each other, not contradictory, in the final consequences. Significant differences were found in the above indices between high and low score group (p < 0.05 or p < 0.01). (3) The relative fixation time (%) in AOI was used as participants’ awareness index, the rate of change in facial EMG (ΔE) as unconscious-mimicry index, the rate of change in BVP amplitude as physiological-feedback index, the score on The Emotional Contagion Scale as estimate of participants’ emotional experience. Finally, path analysis was employed to confirm the mechanism of emotional contagion. Emotional contagion begins with a perceiver mimicking the other’s expression, which elicits the mimic’s physiological reaction in the specific circumstances. If the perceiver’s peripheral physiological change was cut off from the specific circumstances, his/her emotional experience would not come up. In a word, only when an individual is exposed under certain circumstances will physiological reaction arouse emotional experience.