Social Comparison, Affiliation, and Emotional Contagion under Threat

Abstract

This chapter is primarily concerned with the extent to whichsocial comparison processes influence a person's face-to-face affiliative behaviors and emotional reactions when faced with a novel, threatening situation. To provide some theoretical and historical background, the authors selectively review some of the classic work relevant to affiliation choices made in the face of acute threat. They focus on several central concepts presented by S. Schachter (1959) that extended social comparison theory to the domain of affiliation and emotion. Of particular interest will be what the authors believe to be erroneous conclusions regarding the part that desires for emotional comparison and cognitive clarity play in affiliation preferences under threat. Drawing heavily on their own work, the authors then consider recent studies that have gone beyond traditional fear and affiliate-choice paradigms to examine the extent to which social comparison principles account for how people actually affiliate with each other in acute, threat situations. Finally, they present a conceptual model of emotional contagion that considers Schachter's (1959) notion that socialcomparison processes also should influence the likelihood that people will "catch" the emotions of others.