A multimodal theory of affect diffusion

Abstract

There is broad consensus in the literature that affect diffuses through social networks (such that a person may "acquire" or "catch" an affective state from his or her social contacts). It is further assumed that affect diffusion primarily occurs as the result of people's tendencies to synchronize their affective actions (such as smiles and frowns). However, as we show, there is a lack of clarity in the literature about the substrate and scope of affect diffusion. One consequence of this is a difficulty in distinguishing between affect diffusion and several other affective influence phenomena that look similar but have very different consequences. There is also a growing body of evidence tha..