Exposure to the social sharing of emotion: Emotional impact, listener responses and secondary social sharing

Abstract

In line with evidence showing that emotion involves a social sharing process in which the subject communicates about emotional experience, this article examines the impact of being exposed to such communications. First, it was predicted that being exposed to the social sharing of an emotion is emotion-inducing. Second, it was reasoned that if this holds true, then the listener should later engage in socially sharing with other persons the emotional narrative heard. Thus, a process of ‘secondary social sharing’ was predicted. In two independent studies subjects recalled a situation in which someone had shared an emotional experience with them. They then rated emotions felt while exposed to the narrative, responses adopted toward the sharing person, and extent of secondary social sharing. The predictions were supported. Exposure to a social sharing situation was confirmed as itself emotion-inducing. Secondary social sharing was recorded in 66 per cent of the cases in Study 1 and in 78 per cent in Study 2. Both studies also showed that exposure to the sharing of highly intense emotional episodes elicited more repetitive secondary social sharing and a superior number of target persons than exposure to episodes of low or of moderate emotional intensity. © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.