Cognitive and social consequences of exposure to emotional narratives: Two studies on secondary social sharing of emotions

People who listen to a narrative concerning another's experience feel the urge to share in turn their experience of listening. This phenomenon is called secondary social sharing of emotion and has been widely investigated in the last ten years (Christophe & Di Giacomo, 1995; Christophe & Rimé, 1997). The present two studies aimed to provide new evidence concerning secondary social sharing of emotion. In the first study, participants were asked to recall an emotional narrative they had been told no more than three months before and to specify their social sharing about the narrative. In the second study, a diary strategy was used in order to encourage participants to recall an emotional narrative they had listened to during the day that had just elapsed. A follow‐up, three weeks after the completion of the diaries, was used to assess secondary social sharing over time. Results from both studies confirmed that secondary social sharing is a widespread phenomenon, involving many partners, mainly belonging to the circle of intimates, and affected by the intensity of listeners' emotional reactions. Adults exhibited significantly higher ratings of secondary social sharing than young people. In the first study, the valence (positive vs. negative) of the emotional experience affected secondary social sharing. However, no differences were found for sharing positive and negative experiences in the diary study.