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Intentional sadness contagion: Social bonding with neural decoupling.

Overview

Authors: Yanqiu Wei1,2, Jinglu Chen3, Siyuan Zhou4, Ying Chen5, Chao Kong2, Zihao Zhang2, Ping Hu2
ORCID iDs: Yanqiu Wei, Ping Hu
  1. Air Force Medical Center, Air Force Medical University, Beijing, China
  2. Department of Psychology, Renmin University of China, Beijing, China
  3. Turku PET Centre, Turku University Hospital and University of Turku, Turku, Finland
  4. Institute of Brain and Psychological Sciences, Sichuan Normal University, Chengdu, China
  5. School of Art Education, Hubei Institute of Fine Arts, Wuhan, China
Institutions: Renmin University of China (China); Air Force Medical University (China); University of Turku (Finland); Turku University Hospital (Finland); Turku PET Centre (Finland); Sichuan Normal University (China); Hubei Institute of Fine Arts (China)
Journal: Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience, volume 26, issue 4, pages 1867-1881
Dates: received 6 November 2025; accepted 6 April 2026; published online 19 May 2026; in print 2026
Type: Research article · Language: English
License: CC BY
Identifiers: DOI 10.3758/s13415-026-01444-y · PMID 42156615 · PMCID PMC13385017 · OpenAlex W7161734664
Open access: hybrid, a free copy (OpenAlex)
Status: code on request
Categories: human (organism), cognitive (subfield)
Methods: Connectivity, Statistics, Preprocessing, fMRI & imaging, Spectral & time-frequency
Keywords: Intentional emotional contagion, Story sharing, Social interaction, Interpersonal neural synchronization, Emotions as Social Information Model
MeSH: Brain*, Emotions*, Intention*, Interpersonal Relations*, Social Interaction*, Adult, Brain Mapping, Female, Humans, Male, Social Behavior, Spectroscopy, Near-Infrared, Young Adult (* major topic)
Topic: Action Observation and Synchronization (Social Psychology, Psychology), according to OpenAlex
Funding: National Social Science Fund of China (19ZDA021)
Citations: not cited yet (Europe PMC); 75 references in the paper

Abstract

Intentional emotional contagion, the conscious transmission of emotions between individuals, has unclear neurobehavioral mechanisms in naturalistic dyadic communications. Experiment 1 demonstrated that conscious engagement enhanced sad emotional contagion between strangers. Using the fNIRS pseudo-hyperscanning technique, Experiment 2 showed a behavioral-neural dissociation in intentional sadness contagion: Behavioral findings revealed increased interpersonal intimacy and listener altruism. Neurocognitive findings demonstrated reduced activation in the left frontopolar cortex, bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC), and angular/supramarginal gyri. While weaker interpersonal neural synchronization emerged between the speaker’s left frontopolar/dlPFC and listener’s right dlPFC. Mediation analysis indicated that intentional emotional contagion mediated emotional communication and self-other overlap, extending Emotions as Social Information Model. Findings suggest that intentional sadness contagion based on dyadic story sharing has an adaptive neurocognitive reorganization which facilitates prosocial behavior.

Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.3758/s13415-026-01444-y.

Reproduced under the paper's license (CC BY), from the paper cited above.

Code

The paper says that its authors' code is available on request: it was not published with the paper, so there is nothing to verify.

Code availability

All analyses were performed using MATLAB R2013b and R2022a with standard functions and toolboxes. All codes used are available upon reasonable request.

Reproduced under the paper's license (CC BY), from the paper cited above.

Tracing map

A tracing map links a paper to the code its authors published: this paper has none (its code is available on request), so it has no map.

Data

No dataset and no data link were found in the paper.

Data availability

Data are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Reproduced under the paper's license (CC BY), from the paper cited above.

Versions

The history of this record: each version stored by the harvester or made by a correction of its authors or of the maintainers of its code, and what changed in its facts. The texts of the paper (its abstract, its availability statements) are not part of it; versions that changed only those are not listed.

Version 2, 28 September 2026

  • Publisher: n/a → Springer Science+Business Media

Version 1, 28 September 2026: the first record

Recorded: type, language, journal, volume, issue, pages, dates, 7 authors, 5 keywords, 13 MeSH terms, 1 funder, 72 references.

Cite

This paper

Wei, Y., Chen, J., Zhou, S., Chen, Y., Kong, C., Zhang, Z., & Hu, P. (2026). Intentional sadness contagion: Social bonding with neural decoupling. Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience, 26(4), 1867-1881. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13415-026-01444-y

BibTeX

@article{wei2026intentional,
author = {Wei, Yanqiu and Chen, Jinglu and Zhou, Siyuan and Chen, Ying and Kong, Chao and Zhang, Zihao and Hu, Ping},
title = {{Intentional sadness contagion: Social bonding with neural decoupling}},
journal = {Cognitive, affective \& behavioral neuroscience},
year = {2026},
month = may,
volume = {26},
number = {4},
pages = {1867--1881},
publisher = {Springer Science+Business Media},
issn = {1530-7026},
doi = {10.3758/s13415-026-01444-y},
url = {https://doi.org/10.3758/s13415-026-01444-y},
pmid = {42156615},
pmcid = {PMC13385017}
}

RIS

TY - JOUR
AU - Wei, Yanqiu
AU - Chen, Jinglu
AU - Zhou, Siyuan
AU - Chen, Ying
AU - Kong, Chao
AU - Zhang, Zihao
AU - Hu, Ping
TI - Intentional sadness contagion: Social bonding with neural decoupling
T2 - Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience
J2 - Cogn Affect Behav Neurosci
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/05/19
VL - 26
IS - 4
SP - 1867
EP - 1881
SN - 1530-7026
PB - Springer Science+Business Media
DO - 10.3758/s13415-026-01444-y
UR - https://doi.org/10.3758/s13415-026-01444-y
LA - en
ER -

CSL-JSON

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