A smile or frown put in context: the evaluative implications of empathic and counter-empathic emotions

In social settings, emotion expressions can be a response to events befalling others. Expressed emotions are empathic when they are congruent (i.e. happiness for a positive event [happy-for-ness]; sadness for a negative event [sympathy]), and counter-empathic when they are incongruent with the event valence (i.e. happiness for a negative event [schadenfreude]; sadness for a positive event [glückschmerz]). In five studies, we assessed the evaluative consequences - perceived appropriateness of the emotion expression (Study 1), perceived morality, warmth, and competence of expressers (Studies 2 and 3), and the behavioural implications - inferred prosociality and willingness to interact with the expresser (Studies 4 and 5). Across studies, empathic expressions elicited more positive reactions than counter-empathic expressions. In addition, the studies revealed some differences within these categories. For counter-empathic expressions, schadenfreude generally elicited more negative evaluations and inferences than glückschmerz. For empathic expressions, happy-for-ness was in some cases evaluated more positively than sympathy, though this pattern was less consistent across studies. The findings also provided mixed evidence regarding the moderating roles of event magnitude and participant gender. The findings are discussed in terms of the social functional approach of emotions.