Contact high: Mania proneness and positive perception of emotional touches |
| |
| Authors: | Paul K. Piff Amanda Purcell June Gruber Matthew J. Hertenstein Dacher Keltner |
| |
| Affiliation: | 1. Department of Psychology , University of California , Berkeley , CA , USA paulpiff@gmail.com;3. Department of Psychology , Yale University , New Haven , CT , USA;4. Department of Psychology , DePauw University , Greencastle , IN , USA;5. Department of Psychology , University of California , Berkeley , CA , USA |
| |
| Abstract: | How do extreme degrees of positive emotion—such as those characteristic of mania—influence emotion perception? The present study investigated how mania proneness, assessed using the Hypomanic Personality Scale, influences the perception of emotion via touch. Using a validated dyadic interaction paradigm for communicating emotion through touch (Hertenstein, Keltner, App, Bulleit, & Jaskolka, 2006), participants (N=53) received eight different touches to their forearm from a stranger and then identified the emotion via forced-choice methodology. Mania proneness predicted increased overall accuracy in touch perception, particularly for positive emotion touches, as well as the over-attribution of positive and under-attribution of negative emotions across all touches. These findings highlight the effects of positive emotion extremes on the perception of emotion in social interactions. |
| |
| Keywords: | Hypomania/mania Mania proneness Positive emotion Touch Individual differences |
|
|
