Fig. 1.

Trial structure. Each trial started with a cue announcing whether the subsequent picture would be watched together with the friend (shared experience, as in this example trial) or alone (unshared experience). The picture, whose content could be emotionally positive (as in this example), emotionally negative or neutral, was then presented, followed by subjective emotion ratings of valence (very negative to very positive) and arousal (very low to very high). To ensure that participants were always aware of the experimental condition, small symbols for the shared (two rhombs) vs unshared (one rhomb) condition were also visible during picture viewing.