The Influence of Emotion Dynamics on Interpersonal Liking

The ability to predict others’ emotions is associated with social success. Is being easier to predict similarly beneficial for social connection? In two experiments we investigated whether the atypicality versus predictability of a target’s emotion fluctuations influence how much others like them. Participants (N = 1,220) completed a task in which they observed the emotional changes of a target person before predicting their next emotion. In the task, we manipulated emotional transition probabilities to systematically investigate how particular patterns of emotion dynamics affect participants’ prediction accuracy and ultimate liking of the target. In Study 1, we found that a target with normative emotion transition probabilities was more liked than a target with random emotion transitions, while a target with atypically-patterned emotions was least liked. In Study 2, we found that this effect was driven by the target’s frequency of positive emotions and volatility of valence, rather than the mere predictability of the transitions. These results inform what social cognitive processes underly interpersonal bonding or dysfunction.