Energy transfers

Sources

Each numbered mark above opens the evidence behind that idea: the label, what it does not show and where it comes from.

1. 1Evidence: Supported with caveatsIn laboratory studies, people tended to take on the mood another person displayed: a trained confederate's expressed mood shifted group members' mood, and short clips of happy or sad faces shifted viewers' own happiness and sadness.

   Why this label

   Several studies agree, with stated limits such as student samples or lab settings. Demonstrates: in a group experiment with a confederate (Barsade) and in a study of 41 women watching video clips (Hess and Blairy), displayed mood was followed by matching mood in the observers, and a book-length review (Hatfield, Cacioppo and Rapson) collects the wider literature. Marketing framing: 'your energy transfers to her', so projecting an emotion makes the other person feel it (common framing, unattributed).

   What it does not show

   • Laboratory settings with a trained confederate or filmed strangers, not first dates; 'mood' was measured by ratings, not by attraction.
   • Small samples (41 women in one study) and, in the Hess and Blairy study, women only; students and managers-in-training were typical participants.
   • No meta-analysis of person-to-person contagion was read for this file; the effects shown are real but sizes vary and are not given here.
   • No large multi-site replication of these particular studies found in this search; the lab-contagion literature has not had the replication scrutiny that the facial-feedback literature has (see c4).
   • The Hatfield book was read only as a publisher blurb; it frames the construct but is not the evidence for the effect.

   Who it applies to

   A pattern across groups of people, not a statement about any one person.

   Sources

   • Barsade, S. G. (2002). The Ripple Effect: Emotional Contagion and its Influence on Group Behavior, Administrative Science Quarterly.
   • Hess, U., Blairy, S. (2001). Facial mimicry and emotional contagion to dynamic emotional facial expressions and their influence on decoding accuracy, International Journal of Psychophysiology.
   • Hatfield, E., Cacioppo, J. T., Rapson, R. L. (1993). Emotional Contagion, Cambridge University Press.
2. 2Evidence: PlausibleIn a Facebook experiment with 689,003 people, showing fewer positive or fewer negative posts in the News Feed shifted the share of positive or negative words in people's own posts, but the effects were tiny.

   Why this label

   One study, or indirect evidence from a nearby question. Demonstrates: the authors report that the shift in word share was very small (Cohen's d about 0.02 for the main comparisons and 0.001 for the others), and the outcome was the words people posted, not a measure of how they felt. Marketing framing: contagion is 'massive-scale', proof that you can reliably steer how others feel (common framing, unattributed).

   What it does not show

   • Single experiment by its authors; no independent replication found.
   • Outcome was word counts in public posts, which is expression, not measured mood.
   • Facebook users in 2012, a population and platform that cannot be generalised to in-person or dating contexts.
   • The article drew an editorial expression of concern about consent (see c3).
   • Large samples make tiny effects statistically significant; significance is not importance.

   Who it applies to

   A pattern across groups of people, not a statement about any one person.

   Source

   • Kramer, A. D. I., Guillory, J. E., Hancock, J. T. (2014). Experimental evidence of massive-scale emotional contagion through social networks, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
3. 3Evidence: Supported with caveatsThe idea that smiling makes you feel happier has a mixed replication record: a 17-lab registered replication of the famous pen-in-mouth study found essentially no effect, while a meta-analysis found a small and variable effect and a later multi-lab study found some effects of deliberate smiling and mimicry tasks.

   Why this label

   Several studies agree, with stated limits such as student samples or lab settings. Demonstrates: the replication of Strack et al.'s Study 1 found a 0.03-point difference against the original 0.82; Coles and colleagues' meta-analysis of 138 studies found a significant but small, heterogeneous effect on emotional experience; the Many Smiles study (3,878 participants) found that a mimicry and voluntary facial action task could amplify and initiate happiness, but evidence for the pen-in-mouth manipulation was less conclusive. Marketing framing: make her feel the emotion you want by making your face or body show it first (common framing, unattributed). These studies concern a person's own face and own feelings, not another person's.

   What it does not show

   • Facial feedback concerns one's own expression and own feeling; none of these studies tests whether displaying an emotion makes another person feel a chosen one.
   • Mostly self-reported emotion in a lab, often after instructions that can reveal the aim (demand characteristics are debated).
   • The meta-analysis found publication bias for affective judgments and the original pen result was the most-cited one; the replication record is contested, not settled.
   • Participants were mostly students, though Many Smiles spanned 19 countries.
   • Effects were small; the studies do not show a reliable mood tool.

   Who it applies to

   A pattern across groups of people, not a statement about any one person.

   Sources

   • Wagenmakers, E.-J., Beek, T., Dijkhoff, L., Gronau, Q. F., et al. (2016). Registered Replication Report: Strack, Martin, & Stepper (1988), Perspectives on Psychological Science.
   • Coles, N. A., Larsen, J. T., Lench, H. C. (2019). A meta-analysis of the facial feedback literature: Effects of facial feedback on emotional experience are small and variable., Psychological Bulletin.
   • Coles, N. A., March, D. S., Marmolejo-Ramos, F., Larsen, J. T., et al. (2022). A multi-lab test of the facial feedback hypothesis by the Many Smiles Collaboration, Nature Human Behaviour.
4. 4Evidence: PlausibleMirroring someone is not a dependable way to build rapport: a preregistered virtual-reality study found no effect of avatar mimicry on rapport or trust, although an earlier study in the same paper had found higher rapport.

   Why this label

   One study, or indirect evidence from a nearby question. The first study (n=50) found higher rapport towards mimicking avatars, but the preregistered replication (n=40) found no effects on rapport, trust or trust behaviour. This is a single research group's pair of small studies, so the safest wording is that the effect is not dependable.

   What it does not show

   • Small samples; avatars in virtual reality, not live human conversation.
   • Second study also tested cultural ingroup versus outgroup avatars, which may have diluted power.
   • One failed replication does not show the effect is zero.

   Who it applies to

   Depends on the setting and the people involved.

   Sources

   • Hale, J., Hamilton, A. F. D. C. (2016). Testing the relationship between mimicry, trust and rapport in virtual reality conversations, Scientific Reports 6, 35295.
   • Chartrand, T. L., Bargh, J. A. (1999). The chameleon effect: The perception–behavior link and social interaction, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 76(6), 893-910.
5. 5Evidence: PlausibleNone of the sources checked shows that a person can choose which emotion another person feels, and the contagion they do show is small, mostly short-lived and measured in labs or in what people type.

   Why this label

   One study, or indirect evidence from a nearby question. Demonstrates: displayed mood was followed by similar mood in groups and clip viewers, and Facebook word use shifted by tiny amounts, but no source tested attraction or deliberate emotional steering in dating. Marketing framing: 'your energy transfers to her'; 'make her feel the emotion you want' (common framing, unattributed). Honest warmth and calm are fine to practise, but the evidence does not support treating emotions as something done to another person.

   What it does not show

   • Claim of absence from the sources checked, not an exhaustive search (a Herrando and Constantinides 2021 review exists and was not read).
   • Studies were of groups, filmed strangers and online posts, not one-to-one romantic interactions.
   • Self-report or coded ratings of mood, short-term outcomes only.
   • Effects of the kind shown can run in either direction; the studies do not support the idea that a person can deliberately make another feel a specific emotion.

   Who it applies to

   Depends on the setting and the people involved.

   Sources

   • Barsade, S. G. (2002). The Ripple Effect: Emotional Contagion and its Influence on Group Behavior, Administrative Science Quarterly.
   • Hess, U., Blairy, S. (2001). Facial mimicry and emotional contagion to dynamic emotional facial expressions and their influence on decoding accuracy, International Journal of Psychophysiology.
   • Kramer, A. D. I., Guillory, J. E., Hancock, J. T. (2014). Experimental evidence of massive-scale emotional contagion through social networks, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.