Three studies investigated the effects of two fundamental dimensions of social perception on emotional contagion (i.e., the transfer of emotions between people). Rooting our hypotheses in the Dual Perspective Model of Agency and Communion (Abele and Wojciszke in Adv Exp Soc Psychol 50:198–255, https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-800284-1.00004-7, 2014), we predicted that agency would strengthen the effects of communion on emotional contagion and emotional mimicry (a process often considered a key mechanism behind emotional contagion). To test this hypothesis, we exposed participants to happy, sad, and angry senders characterized by low vs. high communion and agency. Our results demonstrated that, as expected, the effects of the two dimensions on socially induced emotions were interactive. The strength and direction of these effects, however, were consistent with our predictions only when the senders expressed happiness. When the senders expressed sadness, we found no effects of agency or communion on participants’ emotional responses, whereas for anger a mixed pattern emerged. Overall, our results align with the notion that emotional contagion and mimicry are modulated not only by the senders’ traits but also by the social meaning of the expressed emotion.

三项研究调查了社会感知的两个基本维度对情绪传染（即人与人之间的情绪转移）的影响。在代理和交流的双重视角模型中建立我们的假设（Abele 和 Wojciszke in Adv Exp Soc Psychol 50:198-255, https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-800284-1.00004-7, 2014 )，我们预测代理会加强交流对情绪传染和情绪模仿的影响（这个过程通常被认为是情绪传染背后的关键机制）。为了验证这个假设，我们让参与者接触到快乐、悲伤和愤怒的发件人，这些发件人的特点是低与高的交流和代理。我们的结果表明，正如预期的那样，这两个维度对社会诱发情绪的影响是互动的。然而，这些影响的强度和方向，只有当发件人表示高兴时，才与我们的预测一致。当发送者表达悲伤时，我们发现代理或交流对参与者的情绪反应没有影响，而对于愤怒，出现了混合模式。总的来说，我们的结果与情绪传染和模仿不仅受发送者的特征而且还受所表达情绪的社会意义的调节的观点一致。