Shared Emotions and Joint Action

In recent years, several minimalist accounts of joint action have been offered (e.g. Tollefsen Philosophy of the Social Sciences
35:75–97, 2005; Sebanz et al. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 31(6): 234–1246, 2006; Vesper et al. Neural Networks 23 (8/9): 998–1003, 2010), which seek to address some of the shortcomings of classical accounts. Minimalist accounts seek to reduce the cognitive
complexity demanded by classical accounts either by leaving out shared intentions or by characterizing them in a way that
does not demand common knowledge of complex, interconnected structures of intentions. Moreover, they propose models of the
actual factors facilitating online coordination of movements. The present proposal aims to enrich a minimalist framework by
showing how shared emotions can facilitate coordination without presupposing common knowledge of complex, interconnected structures
of intentions. Shared emotions are defined for the purposes of this paper as affective states that fulfill two minimal criteria:
(a) they are expressed (verbally or otherwise) by one person; and (b) the expression is perceived (consciously or unconsciously)
by another person. Various ways in which the fulfillment of (a) and (b) can lead to effects that function as coordinating
factors in joint action are distinguished and discussed.