Dr. Dany Klos

The role of causal attribution in emotional and motivational reactions of work teams failing an achievement task

Abstract

Teams that perform different tasks often fail in their task. Failure often leads to a series of emotional and other reactions which in part may relate to the team’s future functioning. For example, a failure may affect a team member’s willingness to continue to cooperate with other team members, may change the team's willingness to take risks in future tasks, etc (Argyris, 1982; Jehn, 1995). From here one can see that failure often can have an impact that goes beyond the immediate and apparent consequences of the failure itself. Past research reveals that one of the significant factors that determine the emotions and behavior of a team member who failed is the perceived cause for the failure. Although past studies have emphasized the importance of the perceived cause for failure in this context, these studies were restricted by focusing only on a narrow set of specific causes for the failure or on team members' personality characteristics that affect their perception of the causes for the failure.

The present study set a goal to expand our understanding of the role that the perceived cause of failure has on team members' emotional and motivational reactions by focusing on a wider range of causes that originate from the team itself and its performance. The study examined the role of these causes in teams with superficial familiarity among team members and also between team members who have a personal friendship under the assumption that in many cases team members establish relationships that are beyond the cooperation required for a given task and therefore it is important to explore the extent to which similar mechanisms influence the reactions of teams of both kinds.

As a theoretical framework for understanding the role that causes for failure have on the emotions and behavior of the team, the theory of causal attribution of motivation and emotion proposed by Weiner (Weiner, 1985; 1986) was used. This theory explains the connection between the perceived cause for a given failure and the emotional and behavioral consequences of that failure. Originally, this theory dealt with consequences of causal attributions made by observers who focused on causes that relate to their own or others behavior as individuals. In this study we apply this theory to the team level, that is, by reference of the team as an object of causal attribution. A series of experiments examined the relationship between perceived causes for the failure of the team (a dyad) with regards to how these causes are perceived by the team member and the emotion experienced by the individual team member and the and the implications of these emotions on the future of this team. Specifically, three experiments examined the relationship between different causes of failure inherent at the team level and a series of emotions and assessments regarding the future of the team and the future of its performance in similar contexts. The theory of causal attribution suggests that any given cause is characterized by three dimensions: locus, stability and controllability. Each such dimension has unique psychological implications which determine the relationship between the perceived cause of a given situation and the emotional and behavioral consequences of this situation. As previously stated, this study focused on causes at the team level so that the question of locus addressed the issue of whether the cause is internal or external to the team. The dimension of stability addressed the question of whether the cause is stable in that team or temporary, and the dimension of controllability refers to whether the team itself or someone external to the team controlled the cause, or whether neither the team nor an external factor had controlled the cause of failure. The first experiment was based on a vignette questionnaire in which participants were asked to imagine themselves as members of the team who failed for one of 8 reasons at team level which represented different possible combinations of the three causal dimensions. The two following experiments used a unique paradigm developed specifically for the study and which required pairs of participants to cooperate in constructing a device. The task was designed so that the rate of failure would be high even though in principle the task was feasible and appeared easy. External feedback which was ostensibly based on objective criteria provided the subjects with causes for the failure and which represented one of 4 combinations of the controllability and stability dimensions at team level. In these experiments, only internal causes were used because of the difficulty to manipulate reliably external reasons without evoking revolt on the part of team members. In this second experiment teams were comprised of individuals who were not friends whereas in the third experiment the pairs were comprised of friends by where the goal was an attempt to replicate the findings also in such teams.

Based on the theory of causal attribution, the following research hypotheses were raised regarding the measured variables of the study. With regards to anger, when the cause of the failure was perceived as being both external and controlled, the degree of anger exhibited towards the cause of the failure was expected to be higher than if the cause of failure was due to the other two reasons. Furthermore, the team member was expected to experience a higher degree of anger towards a teammate when the cause of failure was internal. This anger is expected to be further amplified when the cause of failure was perceived to be internal to, and controlled by, the team. Finally, it was hypothesized that the anger of a team member towards his partner will be higher than the anger of the individual towards the self. Regarding guilt and shame it was hypothesized that these emotions would be heightened when the cause for the failure was internal to the team. It was further suggested that the highest level of guilt will be observed when the cause of failure is not only internal but also controllable. Regarding shame, it was hypothesized that a cause of failure that is both internal and stable will lead to the highest level of that emotion as compared to the other causes.

Concerns related the future of an individual in an organization will be highest when the cause of failure was internal and stable. Emotion of helplessness will peak when the cause of failure was internal and uncontrollable. Regarding assessments towards the future, causes of failure perceived as being stable will result in estimations that the chance of future failure will be higher in comparison to the other causes. A failure due to an internal cause that is also stable and uncontrollable will result is a keen desire to leave the team and cooperate with another team partner. In comparison, an external cause of failure will not result in a desire to leave the team. This holds also true with regards to the willingness to cooperate with the same partner and to the perception that future failures will be low in such context.

In principle, it was assumed that the same pattern of responses would be observed in teams consisting of friends, with the exception that the anger towards the self would not be less than that towards a friend and team member, and also the desire to replace a team member will not be affected by the cause of failure when that member is a friend.

Overall, it was found that the emotions and motivation of team members subsequent to failure were largely determined by the perceived cause of the failure as that relates to the role of the team in bringing it about, and more specifically as a function of the dimensions of causality that characterizes these causes. In general, the pattern of the results was consistent with the predictions of the theory of attribution of motivation and emotion (Weiner, 1985; 1986) where in this case the theory relates to causes at the team level. In this context, the pattern of responses was in accordance to the hypothesis and similar to the responses obtained when the causes are at the individuals level, with the understanding that the relation between the perceived causes and the emotional and motivational response is equal in both cases.

As expected, friendship affected of the level of anger towards the partner such that this anger, which was relatively lower than self anger, was highest under conditions of controllability. Throughout the experiment, and in contrast with expectations, there were no signs of a self-serving bias as the degree of self anger was higher than that exhibited towards team members. In more general terms, the first experiment that utilized a scenario questionnaire failed to explain many of the hypotheses and only part of the variability of participants' reactions was related to the dimensions of causality. It appears that the situation which combines team failure and causes for failure at the team level is difficult for the participants to identify with and imagine of, due to lack of experience or ability to deal with its complexity. This possibility is consistent with general arguments found in the literature criticizing this methodology with regards to research of emotion (Parkinson & Manstead, 1993). On the other hand, the paradigm of the team task was founded effective in emotional elicitation and as a good foundation which provided feedback on causes for failure that in turn were perceived by the participants as trustworthy and influential on the response.

In conclusion, this study is the first to extend the applicable realm of attribution theory of emotion and motivation (Weiner, 1985; 1986) to the level of teams or groups. In this context, research shows that this theory can explain the emotions and responses of teams in situations involving achievements and also explain such reactions that were previously not examined, such as the concern of the individual’s future within the organization, or a willingness to continue cooperation with a team member. At a more general level, this research can contribute to an understanding of organizational processes in that it offers an understanding of some factors that affect the responses of teams that fail in their task while also offering the means with which to detect the causes of failures as perceived by team members as well as measures to regulate these reactions.

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Dr. Shlomo David

Response to emotion during negotiation as a function of the social status of the negotiator

Abstract

Emotional expression by one individual often affects others observing them. Research has found that emotion expressed by an individual affects various factors in others observing that emotion, among other things, the emotion of the observer, judgments that they make regarding the individual expressing the emotion, and their behavior, which are affected by exposure to the emotion that the other individual is expressing. In addition, it has been found that perception of the social status of a given individual depends on the emotion that they express. In this regard, it has been found that an individual expressing anger in response to failure is perceived as someone with higher social status than an individual who responds with embarrassment to the same failure. On the other hand, an individual who expresses pride in response to success will be perceived as having a higher social status than an individual expressing gratitude for the same achievement. Similarly, in a series of studies in the context of negotiations, the context of which was examined in the present study, it was found that an individual who is negotiating with another, uses emotional responses of the counterpart as a signal to the degree to which the counterpart accepts or does not accept the offer that is on the table. Specifically, it has been found that when the counterpart expresses happiness in response to a counter offer, the negotiator understands that their offer is acceptable to the counterpart; while if the individual expresses anger, they understand that the counterpart is not satisfied with the offer. Accordingly, the next offer made will be affected by perception of the counterpart’s emotional response and their interpretation of it. As can be seen, a central factor determining the manner in which one person's emotion affects another person depends greatly on the type of emotion expressed, .i.e., it depends on the question of whether the object expressed, for example, anger or happiness. However, the response expressed by the observer of the emotion will depend not only on the actual emotion but also on the context in which the emotion is expressed. Studies in the context of negotiations indicate that one observing an individual who is negotiating with another, will only attribute importance to the emotion that the counterpart expresses in response to an offer if the observer sees themselves as one who is in a position of inferior power relative to the other, e.g. as lacking alternatives to get what they are negotiating for from another party. The question of social perception of emotion has only recently begun to interest more researchers. The question of the impact of context over the process and its results has only recently begun to receive attention, as research regarding the question of the impact of context over social responses to emotion is still relatively sparse. The focus of the present study is an attempt to enrich understanding regarding the role that social context plays in the social perception of emotion. In this context, the present research examines the question of how emotion of one party to negotiations, as a function of their social status, affects the process and its results. In other words, to what degree does the power of the negotiator have identical impact under […] whereas participants defined as wielding much power (i.e., having many and highquality alternatives) were not affected by the emotions of their counterpart. One may conclude from this study that a central factor affecting the rate of impact of others' emotions over the negotiator is the power that they wield during negotiations. The present study indicates that response to emotion during business negotiations will vary according to the type of emotion aimed at the receiver of the emotion. A positive emotional response towards the negotiator on the part of a counterpart will lead the negotiator to concede less than a negotiator who experiences negative emotion such as anger. This finding raises the question: how does the power of the negotiator affect the negotiation process in light of emotional responses of a counterpart during the process. At the same time, since in some cases of the instance studies, power is used such that it may impact the perception of necessity to reach agreement, the present study examined the impact of power while attempting to detach it from this feeling of commitment. The research assumption was that negotiators with power will be less sensitive to negative emotional responses than those with less social power. This is because, as previously mentioned, those with power are "used to" not being sensitive to the emotions of others, while those with less social power are "used to" being sensitive to the emotions of others and being more dependent on others. In light of the above, anger on the part of a counterpart is expected to cause them to tend to compromise more significantly than individuals with more power. Alternatively, when a counterpart shows signs of happiness, those with little power are expected to respond in the same way as individuals with power, since the counterpart is broadcasting a message of satisfaction and willingness to compromise through their happiness, and therefore the individual with little power does not feel truly threatened and the response of expecting to achieve the most from the negotiation does not encounter any opposition. Specifically, within the framework of the present research two experiments were done that dealt with examining computer-mediated negotiations among negotiators who were exposed to emotion from their negotiating counterpart. In both experiments use was made of an identical negotiation technique to that used in the series of experiments of Van Kleef et al. (2004a,b). The task was planned such that it included the main characteristics of real negotiations (many issues that differ in their relative benefit to the negotiator, information about compensation, and a series of offers from one party, each with its resulting counter-offer). The participants received information and were assigned the role of a seller. Their goal was to negotiate over price, period of warrantee, and number of software updates. The participants were presented with a table of rewards from which they could learn what results were preferable for them. They were told that their goal was to earn the highest number of points. In order to increase the involvement of participants in the negotiation task, they were told that their points would be converted to a raffle ticket, and the more points they won, the higher their chance to win the prize of a dinner for two, in order to emphasize the contradictory motivations in negotiation situations (maximizing profit versus a desire to close a deal). Two hundred and twenty one individuals participated in the first study, they were assigned the role of sellers in the negotiation. The social power of each participant was determined through instructions regarding the type of role they played within the organization on behalf of which they were negotiating. Appointment as general manager was the greatest level of social power, while trainee salesperson was the lowest level of social power. In addition to informing each participant regarding their organizational status, external indicators were provided to indicate organizational status. These indicators included an instruction sheet for the general manager, a "general manager" tag or "trainee salesperson" tag which was given to each participant while they were waiting to participate in the experiment, a table sign which said either "general manager" or "trainee salesperson", a state-of-the-art computer screen which was labeled "general manager's screen" or an old screen labeled "trainee salesperson", a manager's chair for the general manager, or a simple chair for salespeople. In order to neutralize the possibility that participants would take liberties in making decisions based on the position itself and not based on the social status that the role provided, the participants were specifically instructed that the buyer was important to the company and that all efforts must be made to remain on good terms with the buyer. The results of this experiment showed that those with lower social power gave in more quickly to their counterpart than those with more social power. This can be seen in lower initial offers compared to those given by those with higher social standing, even before the negotiators were exposed to emotions of their counterparts. Afterwards, when the participants were exposed to the emotions of their counterparts, the trend changed based on type of emotion. Specifically, when the participants with lower social status were exposed to anger, they gave in more easily to the counterpart than when those with higher social status were exposed to anger from their counterpart. On the other hand, when exposed to happiness, the social status effect gradually disappeared, the longer the negotiation progressed, and the more they were exposed to happiness on the part of their counterpart, no matter what their social status. In general, the participants conceded less to a happy counterpart than to an angry counterpart. It may be assumed from this that the effect of social power during negotiation is affected by the emotional responses of the counterpart. In addition, it was found that emotion also affected the perceived sense of power by the participant when the counterpart responded with anger to the offer. The participants felt less in control when the counterpart responded in a different manner. Two hundred and forty eight individuals participated in the second experiment. This experiment was conducted in order to test if the findings of the first experiment would be repeated when the source of power differed. This experiment use manipulation of priming in order to control the social power of the participants. Priming has been proven to be effective for manipulation of power (see for example, Galinsky, Magee, Inesi, & Gruenfeld, 2006; Smith & Trope, 2006). Although power was achieved through priming which was not within the organizational context, manipulation was not expected to impact the degree to which sellers felt committed to reach an agreement. Again, the same negotiation paradigm was used as in the first experiment. The participants were told that they were going to participate in two separate studies which were unrelated to one another. The participants randomly received one of three priming texts which served as a power assignment. This manipulation was developed by Galinsky, et al. (2003). Specifically, the participants were asked to describe in as much detail as possible one of three options: a period in which they held more power relative to another person or people; or when another person or people had more power than them; or to describe what happened to them yesterday. The moment they finished this task, the participant placed the page in a box labeled "my position of power", "my lack of power" or "yesterday", accordingly. The box was left in front of them during the course of the entire study in order to increase the impact of the priming. Afterwards, the participants were told that they were going to begin the second study which dealt with negotiation. The tasks and procedure that followed were identical to those that occurred in the first experiment. The results of the second experiment were partially similar to those in the first experiment. Specifically, as in the first experiment, social power had a significant impact over the initial offer. The initial offer of a participant with higher social power was more demanding than that of participants with lower social standing. In addition, in general, those with higher social power compromised less than those with lower social power. In general, a happy counterpart encountered less concessions than an angry counterpart. However, in this study, the impact of social power decreased as the negotiations progressed. Apparently, the decrease in the impact of social power as negotiations progressed can be attributed to the decrease in the impact of priming and not the relative significance of power in relation to the emotions of the counterpart. Since the process of priming for power took place at the beginning of the experiment, it is possible that the immediate availability of the exposure to emotion was more significant to the response of the participant. In general, in both studies it was found that social power affects the initial offer in negotiation, such that one with higher social power will demand more than one with lower social standing. When the present research examined the response of the participant during the negotiations, it was found that the degree of impact of social power during negotiation varied and depended on the response of the counterpart to the offer that was made. When the counterpart indicated happiness or satisfaction with the offer, the impact of social power disappeared. On the other hand, faced with an angry response, those with higher social power conceded less than those with less social power. In summary, the present research found that while social power is significant in the initial stage of negotiations, in later stages, after receipt of the social responses of counterparts, the importance of the social status will vary. When encountering happiness, an individual with lower social standing will make up for a weak beginning and will concede less relative to one with higher social standing. However, when faced with an angry counterpart, an individual with lower social standing will concede, whereas an individual with higher social power will not compromise. In other words, it is not worthwhile to express happiness in negotiation.

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Dr. Shimon Elkabetz

The role of emotions in the learning of standards

Abstract

Persons are watching a game with rules and standards of performance with which they are not familiar. A good source of information for understanding these rules and standards of performance can be the emotional response of the rest of the spectators around, who are also watching the game. Indeed, the emotions of the audience watching a certain event can be a source of socio-behavioral information for the observer. This argument is consistent with studies showing that an observer who watches the emotions expressed by another person can derive meaningful information about the person expressing the emotion and about the circumstances in which the emotion was expressed. Still, different emotions vary as far as the amount and complexity of the information they contain, in other words, their degree of informativeness. One consequence of this difference is the extent and manner in which the observer uses the context of the emotional expression in order to understand the situation. The present study examines this argument by focusing on the process of deriving information about standards based on the emotional response of the audience at a given event. In this context, I examined the difference between the emotions of awe and of happiness that differ, among others, by the level of their informativeness. Distinguishing between emotions based on their level of informativeness has not yet been studied, nor has the possibility of learning about standards by observing emotions. In a series of experiments conducted for the purpose of this study, I examined the ability to learn about the standard by observing emotions of happiness, awe, and neutrality as a function of the identity of the person expressing the emotion. This work is based on the assumption that the information contained in the emotion can serve as an indication of the extent to which a particular behavior meets a given standard. Nevertheless, because an emotion of awe is a response to compliance with a standard or to deviation from it, an observer of this emotion is not required to consider the context in order to understand the meaning of the message. This is not the case with respect to happiness and neutrality; expressions that in order to understand the message carried by them to how the observed situation stands in relation to the standards requires reference to the identity of the spectator, attesting to his motives. Therefore, it is possible to consider awe as an emotion that has a higher degree of informativeness than do happiness and neutrality. Nevertheless, decoding emotions with a high degree of informativeness, such as awe, may also require reference to context. The question whether context affects the decoding of emotion depends, among others, on the type of judgment required. For example, when the required judgment refers not only to understanding the message inherent in the emotion but also to its validity, the context in which the emotion is expressed plays an important role, irrespective of the level of informativeness of the emotion. The present study examined these ideas in a series of three experiments in which the participant was exposed to performance in an unfamiliar sport and to the emotional response of a spectator to this performance. The spectator expressed an emotion of awe, neutrality, or happiness in response to behavior. The first experiment was based on vignettes. Together with information about the emotion being expressed, as a contextual factor, the identity of the spectator was also manipulated. Possible identities were (a) a fan of the contestant, (b) a fan of the opponent, or (c) a fan whose sympathy is not known. The second experiment repeated the first one using a set of pictures. The purpose of these two experiments was to show that in order to judge the performance of the player in the game based on the emotion expressed by a fan, happiness and neutrality require reference to context information in the form of the identity of the fan, but not so in the case of awe. The objective of the third experiment was to show that when the required judgment concerns the validity of the information contained in the emotion, awe, similarly to happiness and neutrality, requires reference to the identity of the fan. In this context, clues about the validity of the information contained in the emotion were manipulated by showing the reactions of two fans simultaneously (one fan of the contestant, the other of the opponent), under conditions in which the emotions match or do not match from the point of view of the message inherent in them. Largely, the results of the experiments confirmed the research hypotheses. Specifically, the first two experiments have shown that judgments concerning the quality of the player's performance, when the fans expressed awe, were independent of the identity of the fans, so that in this case the quality of the perceived performance was high. Regarding expressions of happiness and neutrality, the identity of the fan played a significant role in understanding the quality of the performance. Among others, whereas happiness on the part of a fan of the player led to the understanding that the quality of the observed performance was high, happiness on the part of a fan of the opponent was perceived as indicating a performance of a lesser quality. The third experiment showed that when there is contextual information that may have implications for the validity of the data contained in the emotion, the observer no longer ignores the identity of the fan even when the latter expresses awe but weighs it when decoding the emotion. For example, when both spectators expressed awe, it indicated that the perception of the performance of the contestant was exceptional, and better than in the case in which only the fan of the contestant expressed awe but the opponent's fan expressed happiness. This is because an expression of happiness on the part of the opponent's fan indicates a result that matches one's goals, that is, poor performance by the contestant. Therefore, emotional messages with contradictory meanings weakened the message contained in the awe expressed by the contestant’s fan. Overall, the present study contributes to the understanding of the social perception of emotions by addressing, for the first time, the role of informativeness contained in emotions in social perception of emotions. The study does so by taking into account the extent and manner of involvement in the process of the context in which the emotion was expressed.

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Dr. Orna Gryc

The Impact of Angularity and Curvature – Visual Cues Associated with Threat and Safety – on Cognitive Tuning

Abstract

Perspectives of situated cognition suggest that information processing style is flexible, and can be attuned to the demands and opportunities afforded by the environment in which it takes place. This process of attunement is referred to as cognitive tuning. In positive and benign environments, a broad and more global scope of attention could be beneficial as it would assist in the detection of new opportunities and encourage exploratory and creative behavior, both of which may facilitate the acquisition and development of new personal resources. Threatening and problematic environments, however, pose different processing requirements for the individual. In order to evaluate a threat and take action to cope with it effectively, the person may need to examine the situation in a careful and systematic manner. Such a task calls for the adoption of a more local, detail-oriented processing strategy. In various studies, threat has indeed been found to lead to a narrower scope of attention, while safety and positive affect have been found to broaden the scope of attention.

Recently, it has been suggested that it is not necessary to elicit a conscious appraisal of threat or safety, or a conscious state of negative or positive affect, in order to lead to cognitive tuning. Rather, Friedman and Förster (2010) have suggested that any cue which has come to be associated with safe or threatening situations could act as an implicit affective cue and influence cognitive breadth in a similar manner. This suggestion received support from studies examining the influence of cues associated with safety and danger, such as the enactment of approach and avoidance behaviors and exposure to certain colors, on cognitive breadth.

The present study set out to examine whether another form of threat and safety related cues – angularity and curvature, respectively – could also act as implicit affective cues and lead to cognitive tuning. Various studies indicate that angular shapes tend to be evaluated negatively, and are associated with threat. Curved shapes, on the other hand, tend to be evaluated more positively and are associated with safety. Therefore, it was hypothesized that exposure to curved shapes would broaden the scope of attention, while exposure to angular shapes would lead to attentional narrowing. These hypotheses were examined in a series of four experiments. The first examined the influence of curved versus angular stimuli on the scope of perceptual attention by assessing reaction times to global and local targets in composite stimuli. The next two experiments examined the influence of curved versus angular stimuli on performance in tasks calling for a broad (Experiment 2) or narrowed (Experiment 3) scope of perceptual attention. Experiment 4 addressed the influence of shape stimuli on conceptual breadth, by examining the broadness of categorization used by participants when judging the category-fit of unusual exemplars.

The findings of these experiments lend support to the hypothesis that curvature would lead to attentional broadening. Thus, in comparison with participants exposed to angular stimuli in Experiment 1, those who were exposed to curvature were quicker to respond to global configurations rather than local details in composite stimuli. In Experiment 2, participants who were exposed to curved stimuli exhibited better performance than those exposed to angular stimuli in a task requiring a broad scope of attention (the Gestalt Completion Task). In a proofreading task calling for more detail-oriented processing, however, participants who were exposed to curved stimuli exhibited slower performance than participants who were exposed to angular stimuli (Experiment 3). The findings of Experiment 4 indicate that the influence of curvature was not limited to perceptual attention, but extended to conceptual attention as well. In comparison to participants exposed to angular shapes in Experiment 4, those who were exposed to curved shapes tended to use broader and more inclusive categories when judging the category-fit of less typical and unusual exemplars.

Experiments 3 and 4 indicate that the effects at hand are the result of the broadening of attention caused by the curved shapes rather than the narrowing of attention caused by angular shapes or the combination of the two. Specifically, the broadening influence of curvature was observed not only in comparison to the effects of exposure to angularity, but in comparison to neutral conditions as well. In contrast, comparisons between angular and control conditions did not yield any evidence of attentional narrowing in participants who were exposed to angular stimuli.

The current research suggests that abstract visual cues of curvature can influence the scope of attention, and lead to the adoption of a more global processing style. These findings contribute to the growing literature examining the influence of implicit affective cues on cognitive tuning. The research also contributes to the emerging literature studying the connotative meanings of angularity and curvature and their influence on psychological functioning.

The research could also have practical implications for the design of work environments, specifically, those involving creativity related tasks. The research findings suggest that curved elements may have a beneficial influence on performance in tasks calling for a broad scope of perceptual and conceptual attention. However, designs featuring curved elements may be less recommended for tasks involving attention to small details, such as proofreading.

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Dr. Shlomo Cameo

The Role of Emotional Intelligence in Social Adaptation, Leadership Performance and Measures of Success among Israeli Naval Cadets

Abstract

Since the early 1990s, with the first published framework referring to emotional intelligence (EI) as a distinct construct (Salovey & Mayer, 1990; Salovey, Hsee, & Mayer, 1993), there has been an emergent understanding that processing emotional information and managing emotional dynamics intelligently play an essential role in the effective navigation of the social world. Since then, a large number of studies have suggested that EI plays a role in shaping behavior in different social contexts. More specifically, many studies indicate that EI is positively associated with success in the workplace, academic achievements, social adaptation, leadership abilities, and interpersonal interactions, and is negatively associated with antisocial behaviors. Along with this growing evidence, there also have emerged controversies about the validity of various models of EI and the proper way to measure it. The criticism of research on emotional intelligence has included (a) the use of self-report measures, which have been found to be weak predictors of aspects of the real world, (b) disregarding an overlap of emotional intelligence with other constructs (e.g., intelligence and personality), thus failing to isolate EI’s distinct contribution above and beyond such constructs, (c) ignoring the possibility of the moderating effect of contextual variables such as motivation, which may affect EI’s contribution to performance, and (d) conducting laboratory studies that do not reflect relevant aspects of real-life settings’ complexity, and thus lack ecological validity. The present study aimed to examine EI’s role in social adaptation, leadership performance, and measures of success, in a setting which avoids many of the problems mentioned above. The research was conducted in the Israeli Naval Academy, examining the EI of candidates and cadets aspiring to be officers in the Israeli Navy, during their screening and training stages. This arena provided the opportunity to explore the role of EI in a real-life setting while controlling for other constructs, i.e., personality and general intelligence, which were measured as part of the process. In addition, the participants were highly motivated to succeed, and their success in several aspects was assessed by various measures at the two stages. The study employed the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT) V2.0, considered the most reliable and valid EI ability test. Overall, this research arena provides an opportunity to overcome many of the weaknesses in some of the previous research, noted above. Data of 649 male participants, mean age 17.5 years through 21.5, candidates and cadets of the Israeli Naval Academy, were collected during an average period of three years, through two stages: a standard prescreening and screening process and the officers’ training course. Measuring EI was conducted along with the routine testing and did not affect any decisions regarding candidates and cadets. As the measure of EI, the official Hebrew translation of the MSCEIT was used. This, to the best of my knowledge, was the first time an EI test was used to assess Israeli naval candidates or cadets. Besides the MSCEIT, participants were administered a military test of general intelligence and a test of the five personality traits—tests routinely used by the Army in evaluating draftees for different positions in their military service. This enabled assessing the contribution of EI to the research variables, above and beyond the contributions of general intelligence and personality. Mayer and Salovey’s (1997) EI framework is considered to be the most theoretically sound one and which is likewise praised by many researchers for its advanced measuring tool, the MSCEIT. The present study is based on that framework and uses that measuring tool. According to Mayer and Salovey (1997), EI is comprised of four branches of mental abilities: (a) Perceiving emotions—the ability to perceive and identify emotions in oneself and in others; (b) Using emotions to facilitate thought—the ability to use emotions to focus attention and to think more rationally, logically, and creatively; (c) Understanding emotions—the ability to understand complex emotions; the emotional lexicon; and the way emotions combine, progress, and transition from one to another; and (d) Managing emotions—the ability to regulate moods and emotions in oneself and in other people. These four branches of mental abilities and overall EI are believed to affect individuals’ achievements and performance in varied domains, three of which are examined in this study. Based on this framework and previous research, it was hypothesized that overall EI and each of the four branches composing it, would be positively and significantly associated with candidates’ and cadets’ performance in three domains: social adaptation, leadership, and measures of success (Hypotheses 1-3). It was also hypothesized that EI would be significantly higher among screening-stage candidates who qualified for the course than those who were disqualified, and among training-course cadets who qualified as officers than those who did not (Hypotheses 4-5). In addition, it was hypothesized that EI would contribute positively and significantly to the variables under study, above and beyond the contribution of general intelligence and personality traits (Hypotheses 6-7). Hypotheses 1-3 were partially confirmed: the associations between overall EI and the each of its branches with social adaptation, leadership performance, and measures of success, showed some positive significant correlations, although these were mostly weak. For Hypotheses 4-5, contrary to expectations, no significant differences were found in EI mean scores, neither between qualified and disqualified candidates in the screening stage nor for cadets in the course. However, for Hypotheses 6-7, EI was found to contribute significantly to the prediction of social adaptation above and beyond general intelligence and personality traits but failed to predict leadership performance and measures of success. These results may be explained in reference to the involvement of two contextual factors, both associated with characteristics of the participants: their IQs and their motivation. The participants having initially been screened on their IQ scores, resulted in a limited variability, due to the restricted range of relatively high IQ scores in the sample. This lowers the predictive value of EI due to the resulting restricted association between the variables involved (Sackett & Yang, 2000). Further, as demonstrated by Côté and Miners (2006), EI has a lower predictive power regarding the performance of people with high IQ scores. The participants’ high motivation may also have contributed negatively to EI’s ability to predict the variables. As with IQ, the participants’ high motivation may have restricted the ability of EI to impact performance due to motivation serving as a potent compensatory factor enabling participants to invest their best efforts regardless of EI as an element of influence. This study’s population being both highly intelligent and highly motivated apparently impaired the attempt to identify the actual contribution of EI. Such being the case, the context in which EI is measured emerges as a salient factor when testing EI’s ability to predict different aspects of performance and success. Future research using a less restricted sample in a similar setting may further assess the interplay between EI, IQ and motivation in predicting the variables of interest.

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Dr. Mano Halhal

Can reactive emotions diminish the perceived social power of an angry person?

Abstract

An evolving line of research has found that expression of emotions is used by observers to appraise the social power of the person expressing the emotion. Research indicates that people who express anger tend to be perceived as having a higher degree of social power than those who express sadness. Recently research has found that the perceived social power of the person who expresses the emotion depends also, to some degree, on the response of the addressee of this expression, i.e., on the reactive emotion of the addressee. Specifically, when the initial expression is anger and the addressee of this anger responds with neutrality or anger, the angry person is perceived as less powerful than when the response to this anger is fear or sadness. Nevertheless, it appears that anger still leads to higher perceived social power irrespective of whether the reactive emotion shown by the addressee of this anger is anger or neutrality.

The effect of reactive emotions is explained by the fact that the emotional reaction of the addressee is an additional source of information about the social power of the first person. Thus, the emotional response is perceived as a confirmation or disconfirmation of the power of the first expresser, as reflected by the expression of anger. In other words, the expression of anger can be seen as a claim that the person is powerful, and the response to this anger as a counterclaim.

The main goal of the present research is to explore whether and under what conditions a reactive emotion to anger diminishes the perceived social power of the person expressing anger. To this end, the research examines the possibility that contempt, happiness, or both, as reactive emotions, have a more potent effect on the perceived social power of a person expressing anger than do anger and neutrality. This is because both emotions are expected to pose a greater challenge to the claim of high social power suggested by anger. The study compared the perceived power of a person expressing anger (associated with high social power) with that of a person expressing sadness (associated with low social power), as a function of reactive emotion. Thus, one research question was whether any of these reactive expressions of emotion in a dyadic exchange can negate the perceived power of a person expressing anger. A related goal of the present study was to assess the contribution of reactive emotions to the perception of social power by comparing its effect with a condition in which the addressee does not respond to the expression of anger by the first person. Previous research failed to answer this question. An assessment of the degree to which a certain reactive emotion affects the perceived social power requires adding such a condition as a benchmark.

Interactions involving expressions of emotions exchanged between the partners to the interaction are dynamic by nature, both because expressions are exchanged in the course of the interaction and because the expressions evolve and change over time. To assess the contribution of such dynamics to the interaction, the dynamic nature of the interaction was gradually introduced across the studies. This made it possible to assess in a controlled manner the contribution of the dynamic nature of the social interaction to the judgments in question, above and beyond the effect of the emotions exchanged between the people in the interaction. It also enabled the sets of studies to gradually approximate the interaction that may be witnessed by observers in real life.

Study 1 explored the perceived social power of a person expressing anger or sadness as a function of the reactive emotions of the addressees of these emotions. Still photos depicting the sequence of exchanged expressions, step by step, focusing on each expresser individually, were used to represent the interaction. Study 2 used the same approach, with videos of the expressions replacing still photos. Finally, Study 3 used videos showing both expressers in the interaction. In this study, the intensity of the expressions was reduced to better match expressions in real life interactions. All three studies also assessed the extent to which the effect of the reactive emotions on the perceived social power of the first expresser can be explained by such effect serving as perceived (dis)confirmation of the claim of social power suggested by the expressions of the first person.

Findings show, consistently across all three studies, that both the angry and the sad person were perceived as having a higher degree of social power when the response to these expressions was one of fear than when no reactive emotion was seen. As expected, the effect of fear was mediated by the perceived confirmation of social power.

Despite the fact that high-power reactive expressions were generally perceived as a disconfirmation of the anger expresser’s claimed social power, the effects of these emotions were inconsistent and even contradictory across the studies. In Study 2, happiness led to a decrease of perceived social power of the angry person compared to a situation in which no reactive emotion was seen. By contrast, happiness had the opposite effect in Study 3 in response to a sad expresser. Similarly, a reactive emotion of anger caused the sad person to seem to have a greater degree of social power than when no reactive emotion was seen. These effects were not mediated by perceived confirmation of social power. As noted above, the intensity of the emotions in Study 3 was reduced to better match real-life expressions of emotions. This suggests that the signal value of certain emotions depends, at least to some extent, in addition to the fact that they are witnessed as part of a social interaction, on their intensity and/or other factors associated with the context of their perception. Finally, to answer the main question of the present research, across the studies, the angry person was always seen to be more powerful socially than the sad person, even when each of these expressions was challenged by the reactive emotion of the addressee.

Overall, the research shows that the social signal value of expressions of emotion changes to some extent as a function of the emotional response of the addressee. The social signal value of emotions does not stand alone but must be understood in the fuller context of the interaction. The effect of reactive emotions was clearest when the prototypical expressions were shown as dynamic videos, in Study 3, because it allowed participants to see clearly and label the facial expressions, as reflected in the participants’ judgments. Finally, the findings also indicate that expressions of anger are a potent signal of social power. Even if the reaction of the addressee to the anger of the first person suggests that they reject the first person’s claim of power, observers still tend to see the angry person as having rather high power. When the targets of the anger responded with an expression that confirmed the high power, the angry person seemed more powerful. Overall, this suggests that observes tend not to ignore the meaning of claims of high social power suggested by expressions of anger. This is possibly because ignoring claims of high social power is potentially costlier than ignoring signals disconfirming it. In other words, ignoring the possibility that someone is socially powerful is more risky than accepting that they are powerful when in reality they are not.

Taken together, the three experiments show that the social signal value of expressions of emotion changes as a function of the emotional response of the addressee. Nevertheless, the degree of this change depends on the type of response. Thus, the social signal value of emotions does not stand alone but must be understood in the fuller context of the interaction.

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Dr. Michael Smoly

The influence of facial dominance on perceptions of helpfulness

Abstract

In recent years, research has shown that people’s facial appearance influences the way they are perceived and treated by others. The present research explores the role of facial dominance in helping behavior. Specifically, this study examines how the facial dominance of help seekers affects the perceived likelihood that they will ask for help and how the facial dominance of the prospective helpers affects the perceived likelihood that they will help. These questions are motivated by the idea that people often need to ask for the help of others. Occasionally, they may have minimal information about the prospective helper. In such a case, the help seeker needs to assess if a candidate to serve as the helper will be capable as well as willing to help. Likewise, a person in need for help may hesitate to ask for it. A perceiver watching this person may suspect that this person needs help but hesitates asking for it. What informs such a suspicion? One important cue that can provide an answer to these questions is expected to be the appearance of both the prospective helper and of the help seeker.

Appearance was already shown as a factor affecting helping behavior. In this context, it was found, for example, that attractive help seekers are more likely to receive help than unattractive ones. Likewise, baby-faced adult help seekers, characterized by typical morphological cues like thick lips and big eyes, elicit higher help intentions from potential helpers. Appearance was also found to determine who is more likely to be asked for help. In this context, it was found that help seekers are more inclined to ask for help from unattractive individuals than from attractive ones. Attempting to add to this line of research, as mentioned above, the present research focused on facial dominance as a factor determining perceived help-seeking and help-giving likelihood.

In four studies, participants were introduced to a help scenario and pictures of help-seekers and prospective helpers whose appearance varied on facial dominance. Participants were asked to evaluate the likelihood of asking for help and receiving it as a function of the protagonists' facial dominance.

Also, was assessed the prospective helpers' perceived reasons informing their intentions to help. Previous studies distinguished between altruistic intentions and ‘ulterior’ reasons for help. In line with this distinction, in the present research the altruistic motive was assessed by ratings of the perceived caring nature of the helper and the ulterior motive by ratings of perceived felt obligation to help.

Finally, perceived skill was also assessed since dominance is associated with competence and competent people may be seen as more effective helpers. Photographs of individuals varying on perceived dominance taken from The Chicago face data base (Ma, Correll, & Wittenbrink, 2015) served as stimuli in the studies.

Results suggest that submissive persons are seen as more likely to provide help since they are perceived to be more caring and helpful by character. Submissive individuals were perceived as feeling more obliged to help when asked by a dominant person, only in the context of a financial help. Participants also preferred to ask a submissive person for help when they needed it.

In sum, the impression that another person is a caring individual determines help seeking behaviors. This impression can be formed based on the potential helper's facial appearance. In this context, low facial dominance is associated with an increased perception of caring and helpfulness. Despite the fact that dominance is associated with competence and competent helpers are likely to be perceived as more effective helpers, this aspect does not seem to influence perceivers judgments and decision in relation to help. This suggests that help perception is more strongly related to affiliation motives than to power. This is in line with previous research that stresses the role of traits associated with affiliation as motivating help.

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Dr. Moshe Goren

The Perceived Social Power of a Prideful Person as a Function of the Reactive Emotions of the Addressee of the Pride

Abstract

Emotional expressions are an important source of social information since they contain information about the individual expressing them and the situation that brought them about. Recent research has found that expressions of emotions are used by observers to evaluate the social power of the person expressing these emotions. Social power is closely associated with factors such as dominance, ability, and social status. Considered together or in isolation, these factors can determine a person’s ability to influence and control others. Research has indicated, for example, that people who express anger are perceived as having a higher degree of social power than those who express sadness. However, the social perception of emotions is not determined uniquely by the type of emotion expressed but also by the context in which it is expressed. This is because the context often provides perceivers with additional relevant information on top of the information inherent in the emotion as a function of its type. One such important context is that of a social interaction, in which expressions of emotions are often exchanged between the parties involved in the interaction. Consistent with this claim, Hareli and David (2017) and Hareli et al. (2018) showed that the perceived social power of the person expressing an emotion first is determined not only by the emotion expressed but also by the response of the addressee of the expression: that is, the reactive emotion of the target. Specifically, the degree to which a person expressing a specific emotion is perceived as having high power is a combination of the degree to which the emotion expressed reflects high power and the type of emotion that the addressee of the initial emotion expresses in response. This effect of the emotions exchanged in the interaction is attributed to the fact that expressions of such emotions can be seen as claims on the part of the expressers regarding their relative social power. That is, the perceived effect of reactive emotions on the perceived social power of the person who was first to express the emotion is mediated by inferences of acceptance or rejection of the “claim” of having a specific degree of social power, as reflected by the reactive emotion of the addressee.

Similar to anger, pride is an emotion that signals high social power and related constructs such as high status, high rank, skills, and knowledge. Further, the high power associated with pride is grounded on different bases than the high power associated with anger. Specifically, anger is perceived as a signal of high social power because it signals an attempt to coerce and intimidate others. Pride, in contrast, signals high power based on abilities and knowledge. This is the case insofar as pride is perceived as authentic and not as hubristic. When pride is perceived to be hubristic, it is seen as reflecting the same basis of power as does anger. However, perceivers of expressions of pride as such cannot distinguish between these two facets of pride without additional information, such as that provided by the context. Based on these ideas, the primary goal of the present research was to examine how reactive emotions in response to expressions of pride affect the perceived power of the prideful person. It was assumed that, as in the case of expressions of anger, reactive emotions to pride, as a function of their type, would be perceived as acceptance or rejection of the claim inherent in pride, suggesting that the prideful person has high power. As a result, the perceived power of the prideful person would be adjusted accordingly. Furthermore, the present research tested the possibility that reactive emotions can also serve as contextual information in determining whether pride is authentic or hubristic. Since the social perception of emotions does not necessarily end with inferences about the expressers, it can also influence observers’ intended behaviors toward these expressers, such as the willingness of the observer to cooperate with the expresser in the future. This is because a person’s willingness to work with another person may be determined, in part, by the degree to which there are benefits to such cooperation. Accordingly, reactive emotions, via their effect on the perceived social power of the prideful person and the perceived authenticity of the signal inherent in pride, were also expected to determine the degree to which observers are willing to cooperate with the expresser of the emotions. In accordance with the main research hypotheses described above, three studies in the present research showed that the perceived social power of the prideful person was determined by the reactive emotions, which served as signals of acceptance or rejection of the social power claim inherent in pride. In all three studies, when pride was responded to with shame, the perceived power of the prideful person was higher than when pride was responded to with contempt. The effect of the reactive emotions on perceived power was mediated by the degree to which perceivers thought the addressees accepted the claim of power inherent in the expression of pride. In this context, shame was perceived as a signal of acceptance of the power claim and contempt as a signal of its rejection. In Study 2, the effect of reactive emotions to pride was compared to their effect when they served as responses to shame. This was done in order to assess the degree to which the reactive emotions contributed to the perceived power of a person even when that person does not signal high power, such as when showing pride. The results of Study 2 showed that the perceived social power of the shameful person was impacted by the reactive emotions in the same way that this occurred for the prideful person. The effect of the reactive emotions on perceived power was mediated by the degree to which perceivers thought the addressee accepted that the shameful person was powerful. These findings underline the important role that the combination of the emotions expressed in a social interaction has for perceivers. In Study 3, the effect of the reactive emotions to pride was compared to their effect when they served as responses to anger. This was done since anger, similar to pride, is a signal of high power. The mediation analysis conducted in this study found that, whereas shame increased the acceptance of power of both the prideful and the angry person, it did so to a larger degree for the angry person. In contrast, contempt reduced the acceptance of power of the prideful person but had no effect on the acceptance of power of the angry person. However, the results of an analysis of variance (ANOVA) indicated a somewhat different picture. Contempt reduced the perceived power of the angry person but not of the prideful person. Taken together, this suggests that the effect of contempt on perceived social power is not mediated by the acceptance of power in the case of anger. The results also suggest that the perceived power of the prideful person is more immune to the impact of contempt than the perceived power of the angry person. This conclusion stands in line with previous findings, which also suggested that pride is a stronger signal of social power than anger when they stand in the face of contradictory information. The assumption that reactive emotions may serve as a means of distinguishing between authentic and hubristic pride was not supported. Across all three studies, perceived authenticity and perceived arrogance were not correlated. The assumption was that these measures would reflect the degree to which the expression by the first emoter would be seen as authentic or hubristic. However, the perceived authenticity of the first expression, regardless of whether it was pride, shame, or anger, was not affected by the reactive emotions. In contrast, the perceived arrogance of the expressers of pride was consistently determined by the reactive emotions across the three studies. However, the direction of this effect was opposite to what was expected. Specifically, whereas the expression of shame was expected to reduce the perceived arrogance of the expresser of the initial emotion, it instead increased it. This suggests that when someone is perceived as causing another person to feel ashamed, this is considered arrogant. The effect of the reactive emotion of contempt on perceived arrogance was somewhat more complex. First, as revealed by the ANOVA, contempt made the prideful person seem more arrogant and to the same degree as shame when this expression was not responded to. However, in the mediation analysis, contempt reduced perceived arrogance relative to shame. Taken together, this reflects the possibility that a negative emotional response toward the expresser of pride increases perceived arrogance. In all three studies, as expected, observers’ intentions to cooperate with expressers of pride were indirectly determined by the reactive emotions. However, contrary to expectations, for the prideful person, this effect was mostly not mediated by perceived power but rather by perceived arrogance. Specifically, shame, by increasing perceived arrogance, lowered intentions to cooperate with the prideful person (Studies 1–3). In contrast, contempt, by decreasing perceived arrogance, increased intentions to cooperate with the prideful person (Studies 2 and 3 only). Only in Study 1 was the perceived power of the prideful person, which was decreased by contempt, linked to intentions to cooperate with the prideful person. Specifically, perceived power positively predicted intentions to cooperate with the prideful person. When the first emotion was either shame or pride, perceived power was the only factor that mediated the effect of the reactive emotions on willingness to cooperate with the first emoter. A reactive emotion of shame increased the willingness of the participants to cooperate with both the shameful and angry person, and contempt decreased it via its effect on perceived power in the case of the shameful person but not the angry one. Finally, the perceived authenticity of expressions of pride (Studies 1 and 2) and anger (Study 3) positively predicted intentions to cooperate with the first expresser. However, this effect was unrelated to the reactive emotions. This is more likely a reflection of the degree to which the expressions seem authentic. With the exception of the results of Study 1, the intentions to cooperate with the prideful person were mediated only by the perceived arrogance of the prideful person.

Overall, the present research contributes to the line of research studying how the social perception of emotions is affected by contextual factors: in this case, reactive emotions of the addressee of another’s emotions during a social interaction. This research, focused on judgments of social power. It will be important in future research to explore how other judgments that are drawn from emotional expressions such as affiliation or trustworthiness are affected by the emotional response of a person who is the addressee of the emotions of the target person.

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Dr. Assaf Gastfreund

The effect of vegetation near real-estate properties on perceived and actual property value comparing different construction levels

Abstract

In a 2016 study conducted by Hareli et al., it was found that the presence of palm trees near a real estate property increases its perceived value. However, this finding was limited to hypothetical judgments. It is unclear if and to what extent this effect also applies to the actual value of real houses and whether it varies across different types of houses. This study aims to fill these gaps by examining how palm trees, along with additional information about the residential environment, influence perception and evaluation of house value. Three experiments were conducted with participants from the USA and Europe, and the results were compared to those of the 2016 study.

The current experiments did not find any preference or advantage in perceived value for houses with palm trees, contrary to the previous study. One possible explanation for these contradictory findings is the Covid-19 epidemic that occurred between 2020 and 2022. During the epidemic, people's residential preferences changed due to factors such as economic uncertainty and fear of the disease.

During the Covid-19 period, the experiments did not show a preference for palm trees. However, real data on apartment sales demonstrated a preference for houses with palm trees. The pandemic may have influenced people's preferences due to an association of palm trees with potential disease risks. This could explain why the previous study's finding was not replicated in the present experiments.

The presence of palm trees affected actual house prices, unlike in the experiments. This may be because many of the houses were evaluated before the pandemic, so changes in preferences due to it did not have an effect yet. These findings suggest that the preference for houses with palm trees is not as simple as initially thought. The Covid-19 epidemic and its association with palm trees may have influenced people's preferences in laboratory experiments, but real transaction data showed a different pattern. Further research is needed to understand the complex relationship between environmental factors, human perceptions, and real estate valuations.

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Dr. Avraham Cohen

The effect of reactive emotions on social perceptions of affiliation and social power

Abstract

Emotions are fundamental to social interactions, serving as signals that convey an individual’s internal state, intentions, and evaluations of the surrounding social context. This research explores how reactive emotions shape judgments of affiliation and social power, focusing on dyadic interactions in which expressions of happiness elicit various emotional responses. Building on appraisal theories of emotion and frameworks of social perception, the study examines how observers interpret these exchanges, emphasizing the mediating roles of appropriateness, perceived differences in emotional competence (PDEC), and the quality of the relationship. The research focuses on four key reactive emotions: happiness, anger, disgust, and neutrality, aiming to elucidate how these reactions influence perceptions of social power and affiliation.

The study addresses an important gap in the literature by extending the focus beyond anger, which has been widely studied for its dominance-related signaling. Happiness, often viewed as a dual signal of warmth and competence, provides an opportunity to examine how reactive emotions confirm or challenge these signals. Additionally, the research highlights the complex interplay of reactive emotions with norms, relational emotion intelligence evaluations, and emotional appropriateness in shaping judgments of social interactions.

Three experiments were conducted to investigate these dynamics. Study 1 explored whether reactive emotions confirm or disconfirm the affiliative and power-related claims conveyed by expressions of happiness. Although participants recognized the signaling functions of reactive emotions, these signals did not straightforwardly influence judgments of affiliation or power. The findings suggest a suppression effect, in which opposing direct and indirect pathways mask the observable impacts of reactive emotions. Specifically, the emotional responses of Person B may signal additional, conflicting meanings that complicate how observers interpret Person A’s affiliative and power-related claims.

To build on these findings, Study 2 introduced measures of perceived closeness between expressers, and incorporated open-ended questions to capture nuanced interpersonal dynamics. The results of this study largely replicated the findings of Study 1, showing that participants recognized the signaling functions of reactive emotions. However, Study 2 did not find evidence of a suppression effect.

Study 3 expanded the scope of analysis by introducing three mediators: perceived relational quality, appropriateness, and PDEC. Appropriateness emerged as a critical lens through which observers evaluated Person B’s reactions. When reactive emotions were deemed inappropriate, participants were more likely to view Person A as affiliative, likely due to the contrast between Person A’s positive intent and Person B’s norm-violating response. For example, anger and disgust were often perceived as inappropriate reactions to happiness, amplifying the affiliative qualities of Person A. PDEC further clarified these dynamics. Inappropriate reactions reduced perceptions of Person B’s emotional competence, which in turn elevated Person A’s perceived affiliativeness. Together, appropriateness and PDEC demonstrated how compensatory mechanisms operate to influence social judgments when reactive emotions deviate from normative expectations.

This research makes several theoretical and practical contributions. First, it extends existing models of emotional signaling by highlighting the dual roles of reactive emotions in confirming or disconfirming affiliative and power-related claims. The findings underscore how norms and relational dynamics moderate these effects, offering insights into the complexities of emotional exchanges. Furthermore, this research sheds light on the role of emotional competence in shaping social perceptions. By introducing PDEC as a mediating factor, the study reveals how observers’ evaluations of emotional competence influence their judgments of both expressers in a dyadic interaction. Notably, when Person B’s reactions were deemed inappropriate, participants perceived Person B as less emotionally competent, which often enhanced perceptions of Person A’s affiliative intent and social standing. This finding underscores the importance of emotional competence as a key variable in the social perception of emotions.

Future research should also address the role of cultural and relational contexts. Cultural norms significantly shape perceptions of emotional appropriateness and competence, particularly in the case of anger. For example, expressions of anger may be viewed as inappropriate in cultures that prioritize group harmony, but as justified or even necessary in cultures that value personal autonomy. Investigating these variations across cultural and relational contexts would provide a more comprehensive understanding of how emotional exchanges operate within different social frameworks. Additionally, diversifying participant samples to include individuals from varied demographic and cultural backgrounds would enhance the generalizability of the findings.

By addressing these avenues, future studies can build on the theoretical and practical implications of this research. The findings emphasize the importance of emotional appropriateness and competence in shaping social perceptions, offering valuable insights into the role of emotions in interpersonal dynamics and social hierarchies. This work contributes to the broader understanding of how emotions function as social signals, highlighting their pivotal role in facilitating connection, reinforcing norms, and navigating the complexities of social interactions.

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