In your face

Repeatedly exposed to negative emotions, relationship professionals such as social workers, psychologists and psychoeducators are at high risk of experiencing "emotional contagion," an unconscious, automatic transmission of an emotion from one individual to another.

That contagion can lead to stress and distress, as "emotional issues are among the main factors leading to burnout and even depression," according to Pierrich Plusquellec, a professor at Université de Montréal's School of Psychoeducation.

But how best to know how strong this "emotional contagion" is, and hence, how high the risk to professionals who deal with it, day in day out? The answer is by using artificial intelligence, Plusquellec has found.

In a study published earlier this month in the journal Psychological Reports, Plusquellec with a master's student and the researcher and graduate of the University of Montreal Vincent Denault,  describe using AI software to automatically measure people's facial expressions while they watch clips from popular films.

What they found is that the more the participants react with their faces to the emotions shown in the film clips, the greater appears to be their risk of depression, and the less able they become to show compassion.

In all, 56 psychoeducation students took part, mostly women, recruited by master's student Kaylee Smart. In the laboratory, they watched a 30-minute video of film excerpts known to elicit both positive and negative emotions (such as joy, anger, fear, sadness, disgust or surprise)  or, in some cases, no emotion at all.

Those more likely to be "contaminated" by the emotions of others while watching the film clips were thought to be at greater risk of depression. The most predictive variable was overall reactivity to the film clips, regardless of the emotion conveyed.

The students' faces were filmed and analyzed by FACET (Facial Action Coding System) software, which uses AI. Before this new technique, a measurement tool called the Emotional Contagion Scale (ECC) relied on a self-administered questionnaire to produce its results.

"The problem (with ECC) is that if you're not aware of your own emotions, or if you don't have good introspection, you're going to answer incorrectly," said Plusquellec, whose other research interests include affective computing and non-verbal communication.

A previous study of his, involving 700 youth-protection workers, found that when emotions get the better of people in such "caring" professions, their work is negatively affected. While empathy allows them to recognize emotions, sympathy (i.e., feeling what the other person is feeling) didn't always allow them the distance to support the other person properly.