Why Feelings Are Contagious
Emotions — both good ones, like excitement and enthusiasm, and lousy ones, like sadness, fear, and anger — spread primarily because of a monkey-see, monkey-do phenomenon that's hardwired in human beings. During conversation, people tend to mirror other people's facial expressions, postures, body language, and speech rhythms without being consciously aware of it. As you talk to your companion, "the neurons in your brain are activated as if you were making the expressions that you are observing," says John T. Cacioppo, Ph.D., a professor of psychology and the director of the Center for Cognitive and Social Neuroscience at the University of Chicago. "This response sets up a cascade of events in your body — you might actually make the same expression yourself — which creates empathy for your companion and makes you more susceptible to catching their emotions."
All this happens "faster than Muhammad Ali could throw a punch," says Hatfield, who is also a professor of psychology at the University of Hawaii. In a study conducted at the University of Tübingen, in Germany, researchers showed people photos of happy or sad faces on a computer, then asked them questions to gauge their emotional responses. Subjects reported feeling the emotions they had been exposed to even when the pictures lasted only fractions of a second.
Recent research conducted at Oregon State University, in Corvallis, found that during conversation people tend to match their companions' word choices — using negatively charged words, such as hate and worthless, or positive words, such as love and happy — which, the researchers theorize, also causes moods to become contagious.
For the most part, this infectious phenomenon is useful, healthy, and adaptive. Catching other people's moods lets you pick up the nuances of their feelings and behavior, figure out what makes them tick, and gain valuable information about your circumstances. "It's fundamental to communication," Cacioppo says. "It allows people to share knowledge and develop cohesiveness as a group." It can help us accomplish more, too. Researchers at California State University in Long Beach found that when business leaders were in a good mood, members of their work groups experienced more positive moods and were more coordinated and productive than groups whose leaders were in a bad mood.
