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 that action synchrony is unlikely to be the only, or indeed the most important, pathway for affect diffusion. This paper has 2 key aims: (a) to craft a formal definition of affect diffusion that does justice to the core of the phenomenon while distinguishing it from other phenomena with which it is frequently confounded and (b) to advance a theory of the mechanisms of affect diffusion. This theory, which we call the multimodal theory of affect diffusion, identifies 3 parallel multimodal mechanisms that may act as routes for affect diffusion. It also provides a basis for novel predictions about the conditions under which affect is most likely to diffuse.