The effects of mood and emotional contagion on aggression in small groups

Aggressive behavior in groups is an important issue in both individual and social levels. However, when the literature is reviewed, it is seen that there are very few experimental studies examining the aggression of the groups. Although studies have shown that groups seems more aggressive than individuals, it is noteworthy that the explanations for aggression in groups are insufficient. Therefore, in this study, it was aimed to investigate the issue of aggression in small groups consisting of two people and two experiments were carried out for this purpose. In these experiments, the ostracism paradigm was choosen to induce anger. In first experiment, the aggression of individuals and groups was compared. For this purpose, the individuals and groups either which were exposed to ostracism or groups which were are not exposed to aggression measurement scores. The findings of first experiment showed that individuals exposed to ostracism behave more aggressively compared to their counterparts. On the other hand, contrary to expectations, there was no significant difference between groups and individuals in terms of aggression. In second experiment, aggression of small groups was examined by including different mood compositions and emotional contagion variables. The findings of the second experiment showed that aggression scores of participants was the highest in the condition that was consisting one angry and one neutral. However, it was observed that emotional contagion has no significant effect on aggression in small groups. The findings of the study were discussed in the light of contemporary literature. The results imply that this study has important applications in various fields such as social, educational and clinical practioners.