Gaming Emotions in Social Interactions

One's own emotions may influence someone else's behavior in a social interaction. If one believes this, s/he has an incentive to game emotions-to strategically modify the expression of a current emotional state-in an attempt to influence her/his counterpart. In a series of three experiments, this article investigates the extent to which people (1) misrepresent a current emotional state, (2) willfully acknowledge their strategic actions, (3) choose to game emotions over non-emotional information, and (4) improve their financial wellbeing from emotion gaming