If you have encountered a friend who started the day cheerful and then turned grumpy, you know the power of contagious emotions. It’s easy to find yourself feeling down when you’re around someone who is also feeling low. But the good news is that the opposite is also true. Your friend’s cheerful demeanor could help lift your spirits when you’re feeling sad.
Psychologists suggest that when people interact, they often mimic each other without even realizing it. This can include body language, speech patterns, and facial expressions, especially when interacting with people they know and care about.
These processes often involve effective communication and mutual understanding. One way we understand others’ emotions is by simulating those emotions in our own minds. The result is that we can “infect” each other with our emotions.
But who wins in these emotional interactions? Whether you succumb to someone else’s sadness or they catch your happiness may come down to their and your expressiveness and level of receptivity.
Emotional expressiveness and suggestibility vary from person to person. Those who laugh a lot when they’re happy are more likely to infect their friends with their happiness. Similarly, friends who are suggestive and mimic facial expressions are more likely to catch your smile and start feeling happier.
Facial expressions are not the only way to convey emotion. For example, fear has an odor, and there is evidence that smelling the sweat of an anxious person can trigger activity in parts of the brain involved in empathy and emotional processing.
And emotions can also be contagious through social media. People exposed to more negative posts are more likely to post negative content themselves.
When encountering emotions that differ from your own, your experience may depend on your investment in that person. When we care about someone, we are more likely to mirror their emotions. On the other hand, encountering conflicting emotions from strangers may be more difficult to handle.
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