Conformity to Emotions

Definition

Conformity to Emotions is similar to Conformity to Group Norms. Just as we like to share opinions with the rest of the herd, we also tend to match our emotions to those expressed by others around us.

The concept is based on the work of Stanley Schater and Jerome Singer. Schater and Singer developed a theory of emotion known as the Two-Factor Theory of Emotion.

Their idea is that emotion comes from a combination of:

1. “arousal” (the feeling or stimulation in its raw state, unanalyzed and unlabeled)

2. the mind making sense of the situation the person is in.

Using these two factors, the person is able to describe what kind of emotion they are feeling, based on the observations they have made around them.

For example:

An event occurs which stimulates an unidentified feeling in a person. The person looks around to find reasons why they might be experiencing this feeling (clues, triggers, etc). The mind then uses that information to “explain” the feeling. Once the feeling is explained, they are able to identify it.

All this happens very quickly and we are not aware of the process taking place.

An implication that can be made from the work of Schater and Singer is that to some degree, we use our surroundings to interpret how we are feeling.

So, if we are feeling an emotion and we see that we are surrounded by happy people, we are more likely to interpret that we must be feeling happy too.

A further and much more powerful implication is that we use our surroundings to define how we are feeling. E.g. If we are surrounded by happy people, we will share their feelings and feel happy too. When we are surrounded by unhappy people, we will feel unhappy too. This is why we are attracted to positive people and wish to avoid negative people (because they make us feel bad). It is difficult, if not impossible, to disassociate ourselves from the feelings of the people around us.

Use in Marketing

Marketers have latched on to this concept by deliberately associating a particular emotion with their product. Their claim becomes that a certain emotion will be experienced when their product is used. In particular, they understand the importance of demonstrating that their product and services will make people feel happy and fulfilled.

For example, Coca Cola typically uses smiling, happy and enthusiastic people in its ad campaigns. The implication being that if you drink Coke, you will be happy too.

The power of this association is not simply that people drink Coke in the hope that it will make them feel happy, but that they actually come to associate the feeling of happiness with drinking Coke, and thus genuinely believe that they feel better because they are drinking Coke.

This is further encouraged by the fact that caffeine and sugar (in regular Coke) stimulates a certain physical reaction in the body. A person will experience these feelings and largely interpret them positively or negatively accordingly to what they are conditioned to believe by the advertising.

So, if you experience a certain “rush” from caffeine, are you going to interpret that as a “good” rush or a “bad” rush? If we had been conditioned to believe that drinking Coke makes people feel nervous, paranoid and edgy, then we would be more likely to interpret those feelings that way. By always showing happy people drinking Coke, the advertising however teaches us that the feelings are positive, happy and energetic, and so we feel happy.

However, the power of Conformity of Emotion is such, that even if we experienced no feelings or stimulation reaction at all to drinking Coke, we become so conditioned to associating a certain emotion with a product, we will still convince ourselves that we are feeling that emotion as a result of that product.

Such an example is found on Television on comedy shows. The show will include recorded laughter at appropriate points in the show, so that viewers will believe that even the lamest jokes are funny, because they can hear people laughing.

An implication that arises from here is whether we can to some extent “create” our emotions. While there is much evidence to suggest that we can control the kind of emotion reactions we have to situations or people, the idea that we can deliberately generate a genuine emotional arousal is a whole other topic that, while we won’t delve into here, is well worth looking into…