Social Emotions and Their Influences

The common dimensional model of emotion has emphasized that emotional information is generally processed from two dimensions: valence (from negative to positive) and arousal (from low to high). Recently, several theories have proposed that emotions also vary along a sociality dimension, ranging from non-social emotions (i.e., basic biological drives) to social emotions (i.e., complex social interactions). Specifically, non-social emotions (e.g., fear) are derived from incentives or aversive emotions that have direct physiological relevance, whereas social emotions (e.g., guilt) are elicited within the context of social information processing or social cognition.

Multiple empirical studies have investigated the processing of non-social emotions and the influences of these emotions on other cognitive processes. However, questions regarding social emotion processes and their influences are still open. For example, little is known about psychological and neural mechanisms underlying different social emotions processes (e.g., guilt, shame, love, envy and pride), the development and individual differences of social emotions, or the influences of social emotions on social behaviors and decision-making. Therefore, this Research Topic aims to gain a deeper understanding of how different social emotions are processed among different populations and how these social emotions influence other cognitive processes.

We aim to have a collection of studies which extend the theoretical, technical and empirical knowledge about psychological and neural mechanisms underlying social emotions processes as well as the influences of these processes on other cognitive processes, in particular on social decision making. We encourage studies from different domains (e.g., emotion, behavioural economics and decision making), implemented by different techniques (e.g., behaviour, electrophysiology, neuroimaging and brain stimulations), among different populations (e.g., healthy adults, children and elderly, persons with psychological traits and personalities, and psychiatric patients). We welcome all types of works related to this research topic, including but being not limited to review articles, original research and opinions.