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  • March 2021
  • Article
  • Psychological Science

The Crowd Emotion Amplification Effect

By: Amit Goldenberg, Erika Weisz, Timothy D. Sweeney, Mina Cikara and James Gross
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Abstract

How do people go about reading a room or taking the temperature of a crowd? When people catch a brief glimpse of an array of faces, they can only focus their attention on some of the faces. We propose that perceivers preferentially attend to faces exhibiting strong emotions, and that this generates a crowd emotion amplification effect—estimating a crowd’s average emotional response as more extreme than it is. Study 1 (N = 50) documents the crowd amplification effect. Study 2 (N = 50) replicates the effect even when we increase exposure time. Study 3 (N = 50) uses eye-tracking to show that attentional bias to emotional faces drives amplification. These findings have important implications for many domains in which individuals have to make snap judgments regarding a crowd’s emotionality, from public speaking to controlling crowds.

Keywords

Crowds; Social Cognition; Intergroup Dynamics; Emotions; Perception; Judgments; Analysis

Citation

Goldenberg, Amit, Erika Weisz, Timothy D. Sweeney, Mina Cikara, and James Gross. "The Crowd Emotion Amplification Effect." Psychological Science 32, no. 3 (March 2021): 437–450.
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About The Author

Amit Goldenberg

Negotiation, Organizations & Markets
→More Publications

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    • June 2023
    • Nature Human Behaviour

    Amplification of Emotion on Social Media

    By: Amit Goldenberg and Robb Willer
    • April 19, 2023
    • Scientific American (website)

    Extreme Views Are More Attractive Than Moderate Ones

    By: Amit Goldenberg
More from the Authors
  • Negative Expressions Are Shared More on Twitter for Public Figures Than for Ordinary Users By: Jonas P. Schöne, David Garcia, Brian Parkinson and Amit Goldenberg
  • Amplification of Emotion on Social Media By: Amit Goldenberg and Robb Willer
  • Extreme Views Are More Attractive Than Moderate Ones By: Amit Goldenberg
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