Shared experiences are amplified
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Shared experiences amplify people's emotions and perceptions. A study had participants taste chocolate either alone or with a confederate who was also eating it. Participants rated the chocolate as more pleasant and flavorful when eating it together versus alone, even though the chocolate was identical. When eating bitter chocolate together, participants rated it as tasting worse. This shows shared experiences enhance positive and negative emotions, supporting the idea that how we imagine others experience events impacts our own experience.
Shared experiences are amplified
- 1. Shared experiences are amplified Sharing experiences enhances our emotions for better and worse
- 2. Participants in this study were asked to taste chocolate and review the pleasantness of their experience In one condition they tasted the chocolate while another ‘participant’ (actually a stooge) was in the same room looking at a piece of art
- 3. Please will you study this art work And please will you taste this chocolate
- 4. How much do you like the chocolate? How would you rate its flavour?
- 5. In a second condition, participants tasted the chocolate at the same time as the other ‘participant’ (again a stooge)
- 6. Yum! I wonder if she’s enjoying this as much as me…? Please both taste this chocolate
- 7. How much do you like the chocolate? How would you rate its flavour?
- 8. Participants liked the chocolate significantly more when they tasted it at the same time as another person than when another person was present but engaged in a different activity They also rated it as more flavourful even though it was identical to that tried in condition one
- 9. The psychologists ran the study again with bitter tasting chocolate to rule out the possibility that shared experiences are merely more enjoyable (as opposed to amplified) They found that participants reported the chocolate as tasting worse in the shared condition, supporting the hypothesis that shared experiences are amplified
- 10. Conclusions 1. Sharing experiences enhances our emotions and perception of these experiences – for better and worse 2. How we imagine other people are experiencing the same events as us affects our own experience of them
- 11. Reference Shared Experiences Are Amplified Journal of Psychological Science (December 2014) vol. 25 no. 12 2209-2216 Erica J. Boothby, Margaret S. Clark and John A. Bargh