Flow effect and resonance effect: group emotional contagion in service failure encounters

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to explore the two effects (flow effect and resonance effect) during a group complaint based on the emotional contagion theory.

Design/methodology/approach

This study uses an experimental research design in which participants’ negative emotions dynamically change driven by group emotional interactions when they are experiencing a group complaint.

Findings

Flow effect and resonance effect can occur during the process of group emotional contagion. Specifically, when group customers’ negative emotional similarity is low in a group complaint, group emotional contagion leads to flow effect (i.e. negative emotions flow from customers with higher levels of negative emotions to those with lower levels of negative emotions). By contrast, when group customers’ negative emotional similarity is high in a group complaint, group emotional contagion leads to resonance effect (i.e. group customers’ negative emotions increase significantly).

Originality/value

Most of the previous research studies the process of emotional contagion from one with higher levels of emotional displays to the other with lower levels of emotional displays, which is named as the “flow effect” of emotional contagion. However, when two individuals with the same levels of negative emotional displays interact with each other, the flow effect of emotional contagion is very likely not to occur. It is interesting to find that both individuals’ negative emotions increase significantly during the process of emotional contagion. The authors propose the “resonance effect” of emotional contagion to explain this phenomenon.

Citation

Du, J., Yang, M. and Liu, J. (2019), "Flow effect and resonance effect: group emotional contagion in service failure encounters", Journal of Contemporary Marketing Science, Vol. 2 No. 3, pp. 217-232. https://doi.org/10.1108/JCMARS-01-2019-0010