Emotion expression and cooperation under collective risks

The difficulties associated with solving Humanity’s major global challenges have increasingly led world leaders and everyday citizens to publicly adopt strong emotional responses, with either mixed or unknown impacts on others' actions. Here, we present two experiments showing that non-verbal emotional expressions in group interactions play a critical role in determining how individuals behave when contributing to public goods entailing future and uncertain returns. Participants' investments were not only shaped by emotional expressions but also enhanced by anger when compared with joy. Our results suggest that global coordination may benefit from interaction in which emotion expressions can be paramount. [Display omitted] •Role of emotion expression in collective risk dilemmas has been neglected•Participants engaged with group that expressed emotion reflecting high or low demand•Participants invested more when expressions reflected high demand•We show emotion expression can help solve risky collective societal dilemmas Social sciences; Psychology