Chapter 2 - An Interpersonal Approach to Emotion in Social Decision Making: The Emotions as Social Information Model
Section snippets
Concerns with Past Research and Aims of the Present Article
The chapter—and much of the research reviewed in it—is motivated by three key concerns about the dominant research focus. The first concern is the prevailing focus on intrapersonal effects. We contend that the role of emotion in social decision making cannot be fully understood by merely considering the decision maker's own emotions. We don't just feel our emotions; we also express them in social interaction. This means that other people may observe our emotions, and may be influenced by them.
The Structure and (Perceived) Nature of Social Decision Making
People live in and depend on groups, and much of the human brain capacity is devoted to managing the social environment. In fact, it has been argued that the human brain evolved into its current size and form precisely because of the need to manage social interdependencies where decisions and choices of the parties involved influence not only their own but also the other party's material and nonmaterial outcomes (Barton and Dunbar, 1997, Kelley et al., 2003). Examples of such social decision
Sense-Making and the Signaling Functions of Discrete Emotions
The rational decision-making approach that has long dominated theorizing and research on social decision making rests on the premise that individuals have full and accurate knowledge about their own and their interdependent partner's goals, needs, and desires. However, such complete information is unlikely to exist in most social decision-making situations. Most of these situations are “fuzzy,” in the sense that participants do not have full and accurate insight into the structure of the social
The EASI Model
The EASI model is grounded in the two basic assumptions outlined above: that individuals use other's emotions to make sense of fuzzy situations; and that the interpersonal effects of emotions are shaped by the cooperative or competitive nature of the situation. The model posits that interpersonal emotional influence occurs via inferential processes and/or affective reactions (Van Kleef, 2008, Van Kleef, 2009). In the following sections, we specify what these processes entail, when they are
The Interpersonal Effects of Emotions in Cooperative Situations
In this section, we review pertinent research on the interpersonal effects of emotions in predominantly cooperative settings. The section is organized in terms of the main social signals that are conveyed by the four classes of emotions summarized in Table 2.1. We examine the extant empirical evidence for each of the propositions that can be derived from the table. It is worth noting in advance that although some of the theoretical propositions in Table 2.1 refer to “moving away” tendencies,
The Interpersonal Effects of Emotions in Competitive Situations
In this section, we review research on the interpersonal effects of emotions in competitive situations. Like the preceding section on cooperative situations, our discussion is organized in terms of the four classes of emotions summarized in Table 2.1 and their associated social signals and behavioral responses. We will again see a trend for research to ignore the perceiver's option to “move away.” However, in contrast to the preceding section, some findings do speak to this tendency, if only
Theoretical Implications
The EASI model and the related empirical evidence shed new light on the role of emotion in social decision making and in social life more generally. Below we discuss several implications of the model for theorizing about the social functions of emotions, the role of the social context, the evolution of emotion, and the study of discrete emotions.
Avenues for Future Research
Before closing we want to highlight four areas that, we believe, offer especially promising avenues for future research: the role of emotional intelligence, the relationship of the emotion with the situation at hand, the issue of mixed emotions, and the neglected option of “leaving the field.”
Conclusion
Emotions play an important role in shaping the social decisions people make in everyday life. Motivated by three key concerns with past research—its focus on intrapersonal rather than interpersonal effects, its focus on positive and negative mood rather than discrete emotions, and its neglect of the social context within which social decisions are made—we advanced the EASI model. The model is grounded in two fundamental assumptions, namely (a) that individuals use interdependent others'
Acknowledgment
This chapter was supported by a research grant from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO 451-05-010) awarded to Gerben A. Van Kleef and a grant by the Van der Gaag Foundation of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences awarded to Carsten K.W. De Dreu.
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