A senior executive, Elizabeth, enters the trading floor radiating intense, negative emotion, quickly taking up residence in a centralized workstation and refusing to make eye contact with anyone. She occasionally sighs loudly and slams papers down. Based on the theory of emotional contagion, which employee is most likely to catch Elizabeth's negative emotion, leading to a drop in their own mood?

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Question restatement: A senior executive, Elizabeth, enters the trading floor with intense negative emotion, occupies a centralized workstation, avoids eye contact, sighs loudly, and slams papers. Based on emotional contagion theory, which employee is most likely to catch Elizabeth's negative emotion, leading to a drop in their own mood?

Option A: David, the team manager, who has the highest power and status on the trading floor. While power and status can influence social dynamics, emotional contagion is more strongly tied to cues such as proximity, emotional expression, and shared attention. Simply having high status does not guarantee greater susceptibility to catching emotions, especially if David actively regulates his own emotions or remains distant from Elizabeth’s negative cues.

Option B: Ben, who scored high on self-monitoring and adapts his behavior to control how he expresses emotions. High self-monitoring tends to help individuals regulate outward expressions and align them with social norms. This makes Ben less likely to absorb Elizabeth’s negative mood and more likely to mask or compartmentalize his own emotional response, reducing contagion risk.

Option C: Amelia, who is known for her low empathy and tendency to ignore nonverbal cues. Low empathy and ignoring nonverbal signals would likely reduce her sensitivity to Elizabeth’s emotional state, making Amelia less susceptible to emotional contagion compared with others who pick up nonverbal emotional cues.

Option D: Connor, who is usually highly stressed due to juggling a large workload and personal obligations. This description suggests Connor is already primed with elevated stress and may be more physiologically and attentively attuned to negative emotional cues in others. Such heightened sensitivity, combined with his own stress load, makes him more susceptible to absorbing Elizabeth’s negative emotion and experiencing a mood drop as a result.

Summary of reasoning across options: Emotional contagion typically operates through exposure to others’ emotional expressions, shared focal attention, and emotional resonance. Proximity to Elizabeth and the salience of her emotional cues increase contagion likelihood. Individuals who regulate emotions (Ben) or ignore cues (Amelia) are less susceptible. Those with high status (David) are not inherently more contagious unless they are also exposed and emotionally responsive. Connor’s combination of close exposure, ongoing stress, and potential emotional resonance with Elizabeth’s state creates a higher probability of mood transfer to him.

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