Collective emotions

Victor Chung (PhD, LNC2), Pr Elisabeth Pacherie (Institut Jean Nicod) & Dr Rocco Mennella (Nanterre & LNC2)

With the help of G. Diez (Master student 2021-22).

Emotions are one of the driving forces of human societies. Individuals convey, communicate and co-regulate emotions, which contributes to the formation and maintenance of social relationships. Humans also experience similar emotions together, as evidenced by large- and small-scale communal events such as religious ceremonies, political protests and intimate get-togethers. In such cases, one usually refers to the collective emotion shared by the members of the group. Despite a rich theoretical literature, empirical evidence is lacking regarding the mechanisms involved in collective emotion. The aim of this project is to investigate the cognitive mechanisms underlying the emergence of collective emotions in human groups, as well as their consequences for social bonding and collective actions. We hypothesize that collective emotion results from the conjunction of inter-individual physiological synchronization and mutual emotional awareness. We will collect subjective reports of emotions and non-invasive physiological data (i.e. electrodermal and cardiac responses as well as facial muscle activity) within groups of individuals jointly exposed to neutral and emotional films and will evaluate the influence of physiological synchrony on output measures (subjective: self and other emotion evaluation, social bonding, objective: joint action, cooperation). 


Victor Chung presenting preliminary data at ESCAN2021 - access the video here

ESCAN2021_Chungetal.mp4

In situ study of collective emotional dynamics and empathy in theatre

Ondine Simonot-Bérenger  (PhD, LNC2 & IJN), Pr Jérome Pelletier (Institut Jean Nicod) & Victor Chung (PhD, LNC2)

With the help of A. Grit (Internship 2021) &  C. Destais (Research assistant 2021-22).

The aim of this fundamental research is to explore the functioning of some of the mechanisms of social cognition at work in the space-time of theatrical performances. The main hypothesis is that individual appreciation of a performance depends on collective emotional dynamics experienced by the people involved in the performance. The main objective is to verify this hypothesis by identifying these emotional dynamics. The secondary objective is to determine whether and how (a) the empathy experienced by the spectator towards the characters/actors in the play, and (b) the empathy experienced by the actors towards their characters, contribute to the individual appreciation of a performance and/or to these collective emotional dynamics. Our experimental methodology is based mainly on questionnaires, as well as on objective measurements (audio recordings) carried out under ecological conditions of real theatre performances; complementary measures of behaviour will also be used in perspective-taking tasks.

Social Reinforcement learning in Autism Spectrum Disorder

Dr Morgan Beaurenaut (post-doc, LNC2,MCU Nanterre LICAE), Dr Rocco Mennella(,MCU Nanterre LICAE & LNC2), Dr Kovarski (Hôpital Fondation Rothschild-CNRS, Université Paris) & Pr Delorme (Service de Psychiatrie de l’Enfant de l’Hôpital Robert Debré) 

With the help of A. Grit (Internship 2021) &  C. Destais (Research assistant 2021-22).

ASD is a complex condition, both in terms of the diversity of symptoms observed and its etiology. Early onset of social and emotional behavior is at the heart of clinical and scientific concerns. It has been proposed that a lack of social motivation may play a role in the emergence of atypical socio-emotional behaviors in individuals with ASD (Chevallier et al. 2012). According to this theory, social stimuli - such as the emotions expressed by others - would be less rewarding (or reinforcing) in ASDs. A lower sensitivity to the value of social signals may lead to an atypical functioning of learning mechanisms and explain the reduction of behavioral flexibility and adaptation to the social environment. Yet, several recent studies suggest that ASD show atypical processing (anticipation/wanting and liking) of both social and non-social rewards (e.g. Clements et al. 2018; Baumeister et al. 2020). Here, we aim at investigating whether ASD is associated with difficulties in goal-directed (GD) learning processes, and whether such difficulties would be particularly pronounced in response to socio-emotional stimuli. We aim at a) determining whether socio-emotional cues actually have a lower motivational value in ASDs and how this lower sensitivity impacts GD learning; b) testing whether this population presents specific difficulties for learning by social reinforcement compared to non-social reinforcements.