Emotional Contagion Susceptibility

What it measures

An eight-item scale measuring an individual's tendency to unconsciously or automatically adopt the emotions of others through non-verbal and expressive cues. Items tap responsiveness to others' positive states, sensitivity to low mood cues, vicarious emotional arousal, attentiveness to others' emotional changes, contagion from provocative expressions, general empathic concern, and social mood reactivity. Developed for service research examining how employee and customer emotions spread during service encounters.

Representative items

• I feel happy when someone is smiling at me.
• I can't help getting excited when watching touching scenarios.
• I am very keen to capture the emotional changes of other people.

Citation

Du, Jiangang, Xiucheng Fan, and Tianjun Feng (2011). Multiple emotional contagions in service encounters. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 39(3), 449–466.