People turn to others for help and advice during hard times. Early psychologists suggested a ‘talking cure’ as a remedy for emotional turmoil (e.g., Freud, 1916–7/1963; Rogers, 1942). Likewise, folk psychology often sees heart-to-heart conversations as a win-win proposition that brings relief to the afflicted person and reinforces social bonds at the time of need. However, talking about problems does not always help (e.g., Rimé, 2009; Rimé, Mesquita, Boca, & Philppot, 1991; Rimé, Philippot, Boca, & Mesquita, 1992; Rose, 2002). In some cases, problem-talk can be a lose-lose proposition that drags both discussants into depression (Rose, 2002; Rose, Carlson, & Waller, 2007). This thesis examines co-rumination (Rose, 2002), a case of emotional sharing that hurts people instead of helping them, on three levels of analysis (individuals, dyads, and groups). At the individual level, I sketch the life course of co-rumination and replicate earlier findings of gender differences. Furthermore, online survey data (N = 464) links co-rumination with agreeableness and neuroticism. I also demonstrate that co-rumination can be assessed with a brief measure that is 66% shorter than the original. At the dyadic level, data from recorded conversations between romantic couples show that face-to-face co-rumination influences people’s real-time emotional trajectories in complex ways. Furthermore, observer-ratings of the conversations suggest that third-parties can detect co-rumination, even from silent videos. Finally, I study how people react to others’ negative mood and co-rumination in a real social context by longitudinally following two cohorts of students and modelling their interactions with social network analysis tools. These models show that co-rumination appears to elicit social rejection from others, implying a possible pathway to depression via loneliness imposed on the co-ruminators.

La quasi-totalité des expériences émotionnelles font l’objet d’un partage social, qui se met en place rapidement après leur survenue et se fait majoritairement à destination des proches. Si, indépendamment de leurs caractéristiques (âge, sexe, culture,...) et de celles de l’événement en question (valence émotionnelle, type d’émotion,…), les individus sont si enclins à parler de leurs émotions à autrui, ce serait notamment parce que cela peut les aider à gérer leurs états émotionnels. Verbaliser ses émotions permettrait en effet à l’individu de mobiliser son entourage lorsqu’il est sous le coup de l’émotion et peu en état de gérer seul son état émotionnel. Cette mobilisation de l’entourage social permettrait de combler à la fois les besoins socio-affectifs et les besoins cognitifs suscités par l’émotion, via la mise en place de stratégies intrapersonnelles et interpersonnelles de régulation émotionnelle. Qu’il s’agisse de stresseurs de la vie quotidienne ou de stresseurs de forte intensité et négatifs comme dans le cadre de la pathologie cancéreuse, lorsque les individus parlent de leurs expériences émotionnelles, ce serait notamment parce qu’ils éprouvent des difficultés à les gérer et cherchent auprès d’autrui une aide pour les réguler. Parler de ses émotions ne serait toutefois pas bénéfique pour tous dans la même mesure. L’efficacité de ces stratégies serait notamment déterminée par le style d’attachement et les attentes qui lui sont liées quant à la façon dont autrui peut nous aider à gérer nos états émotionnels. La contribution du partage social des émotions dans la régulation émotionnelle est donc au centre de cette thèse, et a été abordée au moyen de trois études. La première étude a permis de mieux cerner le rôle de la verbalisation émotionnelle dans la gestion des expériences émotionnelles à travers la création d’une échelle d’évaluation des motifs allégués de partage social (Article 1). Cet outil, qui permet d’identifier les stratégies intrapersonnelles et interpersonnelles instaurées via le partage social, a été utilisé dans une seconde étude, visant à tester l’hypothèse selon laquelle les patients atteints de cancer partagent socialement leurs états émotionnels dans le but de mettre en place des stratégies de gestion des émotions, qui contribueraient à pallier leurs difficultés de régulation émotionnelle et favoriseraient à terme leur ajustement à la maladie (Article 2). Enfin, l’objectif de la dernière étude était de déterminer si les stratégies initiées via le partage social médiatisent le lien entre le style d’attachement et les difficultés de régulation émotionnelle (Article 3). Nos résultats sont discutés, et des pistes de recherches ainsi que des pistes d’application dans le domaine de la santé sont proposées. / Nearly all emotional experiences are socially shared, rapidly after their occurrence and mainly with close relatives. If, whatever their characteristics (age, gender, culture,…) and those of the event (emotional valence, type of emotion,…), individuals are so prone to talk about their emotions with the others, it would particularly be because it can help them to manage their emotional states. Verbalizing one’s emotions would indeed permit the subject to catch his/her relatives’ interest when he/she is under the impact of the emotion and hardly able to manage his/her emotional state alone. This mobilization of the close circle would permit to fit not only the socio-affective needs but also the cognitive needs the emotion gives rise to, through the initiation of intrapersonal and interpersonal emotion regulation strategies. May it concern current life stressors or high intensity and negative stressors, as it is the case in cancer, when the individuals talk about their emotional experiences, it would notably be because they have difficulties in managing them and as a consequence seek help to the others in order to regulate these experiences. However, talking about one’s emotions would not be beneficial for everybody in the same way. The efficacy of those strategies would notably be determined by the attachment style and the expectancies it creates about the way the others can help us to manage our emotions. So, the contribution of the social sharing of emotions in the emotion regulation is at the heart of this thesis, and was investigated by three studies. The first study has permit to better understand the role of the emotional verbalization in the emotion regulation by creating an evaluation scale of the alleged motives for social sharing (Article 1). This scale, which permits to identify the intrapersonal and interpersonal emotion regulation strategies initiated through the social sharing, was used in a second study, whose goal was to test the hypothesis that the cancer patients socially share their emotional states in order to initiate emotion regulation strategies, which would contribute to diminish their difficulties in emotion regulation and, as a consequence, to ameliorate the way they face the disease (Article 2). Finally, the last study aimed at determining if the emotion regulation strategies initiated via the social sharing mediate the link between attachment style and difficulties in emotion regulation (Article 3). Our results are discussed and research perspectives and clinical applications are proposed.

Dans le cadre de ce travail de thèse nous nous attachons à articuler l'approche structurale des représentations sociales avec les champs des émotions et des rapports intergroupes. Ce travail se compose ainsi de deux axes de recherche. Le premier axe (n = 340) s'intéresse à l'impact de l'infirmation ou de la confirmation de cognitions centrales ou périphériques sur les émotions dans l'optique d'éclairer le rôle que pourraient jouer ces dernières dans le cadre de la dynamique représentationnelle. Les deux recherches réalisées à cette occasion nous amènent à considérer que le système périphérique serait générateur d'émotions et que celles-ci se situeraient alors au cœur du processus conduisant les individus à réagir à une modification de leur environnement immédiat. Le second axe (n = 920) se focalise sur les liens entre l'approche structurale et les rapports intergroupes. Il témoigne de l'importance de la fonction identitaire des représentation sociales en indiquant que le fait de partager ou non un élément central d'une représentation sociale agirait sur la manière dont les individus s'auto-catégorisent et catégorisent autrui comme membre du groupe. Finalement, au travers de la prise en compte de l'approche structurale, ce travail souligne l'intérêt d'une articulation entre la théorie des représentations sociales et des champs d'étude généralement appréhendés indépendamment de cette dernière. / Within the framework of this PhD thesis we attempt to articulate the structural approach of social representations with the fields of emotions and intergroup relations. Thus, this work gets organized around two main lines of research. The first part (n = 340) focuses on the impact of the invalidation or the confirmation of central or peripheral cognitions on emotions with the goal of enlightening the role that the latter might play within the representational dynamic. Both research conducted in this occasion bring us to consider that the peripheral system would generates emotions that would lie at the heart of the process leading people to react to changes in their immediate environment. The second part (n = 920) focuses on the links between the structural approach and intergroup relations. It highlights the importance of the social identity function of social representations by indicating that fact of sharing (or not) a central element of a social representation would influence the way people self-categorize and categorize others as members of the group. Finally, through the consideration of the structural approach, this work emphasizes the interest of establishing connections between the social representation theory and other fields of study that are generally considered as independant.

Sharing one’s emotions is the first step in taking care of one’s mental health and well-being. Teenagers struggle to open up and share their feelings, making them more vulnerable to mental health conditions extending into adulthood. Researchers and designers have been looking for new solutions to support users' health. One solution is wearables. These technologies need to be explored to better understand users’ needs and their behavioral changes to create a more beneficial user experience. One way to deal with emotions for teenagers is through conversation, however, it can be difficult to start these conversations. In this paper, the potential of a wearable as a tool for triggering communication about emotions is investigated. This study was based on a Research through Design (RtD) methodology and was carried out through a user-centered approach by using participatory design. The case study was conducted with a family of two parents and their two teenage children. By using the methods of cultural probes, interviews, and a co-design workshop, a concept named EmoWri was created. The concept consists of a prototype with a wristband connected to a mobile application. Qualitative data was collected from user tests, interviews, and a questionnaire and was thematically analyzed. The results show that wearables can be used to trigger sensitive conversations between parents and their teenage children. The results show that seven design qualities were considered to be important: visibility, accessibility, flexibility, expressiveness, actability, motivating, and aesthetic. The main contribution of this study is starting a discussion about designing wearables as a tool that focuses on improving the users’ mental well-being.

Cette thèse s’intéresse à la compréhension des mécanismes de partage d’émotions et de vécu affectif collectif en situation de consommation d’événement récréatif comme les festivals. L’émotion est étudiée d’un point de vue collectif et l’attention est focalisée sur les émotions positives, ce qui confère une double originalité à ce travail. Notre démarche relève d’un processus abductif articulé autour de phases successives d’immersions ethnographiques dans les rassemblements festifs des communautés glisse et psytrance et d’un recours à une littérature multidisciplinaire, significatif de notre inscription dans le courant de recherche de la théorie culturelle de la consommation (CCT).Il ressort que les transferts d’émotion sont centraux dans l’expérience de consommation événementielle. Les processus de partage d’émotion et de contagion émotionnelle sont omniprésents et contribuent à la création d’émotions collectives dont le vécu est recherché par le festivalier ou le spectateur. Ces dynamiques émotionnelles, qui sont en lien étroit avec la notion d’appartenance à la communauté, façonnent les logiques de consommation des festivaliers et influent sur leur rapport à l’expérience. L’ancrage socioculturel des dynamiques émotionnelles est aussi validé par nos résultats.Appréhender l’expérience par la dimension émotionnelle collective nous a permis de proposer une approche singulière de l’expérience et des cadres d’analyse spécifiques au contexte des festivals et des spectacles vivants. En outre, ce travail ouvre de nombreuses perspectives de recherche sur de nouvelles notions que notre analyse a permis de mettre à jour, comme celle de leader d’émotion, de style émotionnel et de densité émotionnelle. / This thesis focuses on the understanding of sharing emotions mechanisms and collective emotional experiences in recreational event consumption situation like festivals. The emotion is studied from a collective point of view and the attention is focused on positive emotions, giving this work a double originality. We adopted an abductive process that is articulated around successive phases of ethnographic immersions in festive gatherings of the action sport and the psytrance communities, and a use of multidisciplinary literature significant to to our registration in the Consumption Cultural Theory (CCT) research stream.Our results show that transfers of emotion are central in the event consumer experience. The process of emotional sharing and emotional contagion are ubiquitous and contribute to the creation of collective emotions that the experience is sought by the festival consumer or the event spectator. These emotional dynamics that are closely linked with the notion of belonging to the community, are shaping the consumption logics of the festival visitors, and are influencing their relation to the experience. The socio-cultural anchor of emotional dynamics is also confirmed by our results.Understanding the experience with the collective emotional dimension has allowed us to offer a unique approach to the experience and specific analytical frameworks to the context of festivals and live performances. In addition, this work opens many research perspectives on new concepts that our analysis was to update, such as emotional leader, emotional style and emotional density

Losing a close relative or friend is a traumatic event for anyone, especially for children and adolescents. This article investigates the motives and patterns of children’s and adolescents’ interpersonal online communication on bereavement platforms. A qualitative content analysis of two different youth bereavement platforms (n = 21 threads; 319 postings) illuminates how one common feature is the verbalization and illustration of missing support in the offline world. The substantial usage of social network platforms can be considered an extension of children’s and adolescents’ personal social environment. Furthermore, topics on bereavement platforms ultimately go beyond grief, as children and adolescents also include emotions such as hope, gratitude and cohesiveness. Communication within online bereavement communities thus enables a process known from offline communication as transformation from a lossoriented to restoration-oriented coping (Stroebe and Schut 2010, p. 277).