Never alone 2.0: The social dimension of the emotional semantic congruency effect

It is well known that categorization of targets as ingroup or outgroup members affects human behaviours. However, little is known about whether this process affects the perception of emotions via the mood boosted by a minimal sense of belonging vs. loneliness. Here for the first time, we recast this problem by investigating the dependence of the emotional semantic congruency effect (ESC) in the social context. ESC is an effect observed in an Emotional Comparison Task (ECT) with pairs of facial expressions of emotions, in which the speed of response is faster for emotional (positive/negative) rather than neutral faces, regardless of response side, with an overall speed advantage for positive over negative emotions (emotion anisotropy). In four experiments we manipulated the social context in terms of sense of belonging vs. loneliness by combining presence/absence of Social Categorization (minimal group paradigm) and presence/absence of Intragroup/Intergroup Competition (the best individual/cumulative performance). Subjects performed the ECT individually though concurrently in groups of 8 participants. Results showed that Intergroup Competition speeded up overall responses, while Social Categorization per se enhanced the emotion anisotropy in favour of a happiness advantage. In ECT, Competition and Social Categorization independently affect two performance’s components both probes of participants’ mood state: arousal, relying on response speeds, and valence, relying on emotion anisotropy. In conclusion, belonging to a group, which creates significant social connections and dampens feeling of loneliness, enhances the quality of global experience.