The biology of empathy
It will surprise no one that being with a depressed person will put us in a mellower mood. Emotions are infectious — we tear (or at the very least, feel sad) when we watch the lead characters in a show go through tragedy; we recoil in fear as the monster just misses the protagonists’ hands by an inch.
Psychologist have coined the term ‘emotional contagion’ to describe how emotions can spread from one person to another without them being consciously aware. The world is full of mood triggers — an encounter with a chirpy waitress will lift you mood a little just like how seeing a smiling face will cause our facial muscles to mimic the smile ever so slightly.
Marital researchers took such emotional mimicry one step further and filmed couples having arguments. Levenson and Ruef (1992) tracked the physiological measures (cardiac, vascular, electrodermal, and somatic muscular) of the couples quarrelling as well as of observers watching the recording of the argument. They found that not only do the observers’ physiological measures follow that of the couple that they are observing, but that the more closely matched their physiological measures are, the more accurate their guess of the observed feelings. This effect is especially pronounced for negative emotions such as anger. Thus, forming the biological basis for empathy.
[Read more about emotional contagion and how humans relate to one another in 'Social Intelligence' by Daniel Coleman]
[...] smell of fear I’ve previously written about emotional contagion and how our bodies empathize by literally mimicking the other person’s bodily reactions. [...]
The smell of fear « What the Ambigramite learnt today said this on July 13, 2009 at 9:05 pm |