Have you ever been in a group of people who laughed?Or your mellowness may be completely ruined Eeyore in your group. It’s as if our emotions are in harmony, converging on high and low pitches. This is what most of us have noticed, at least occasionally.
Scientists have noticed that too.have a good body psychology research This, and much of it, ties experience to feelings of empathy and empathy. physiological and psychological symptoms. It can occur between strangers and over long distances.
So why are they able to catch each other’s moods?
social animals with emotions
of Emotional neuroscience: the basis of human and animal emotionsneuroscientist and psychobiologist Jaak Panksepp argue that the human brain evolved to support social behavior and social cohesion. For animals, being able to tune in to other people’s moods is a survival advantage.
so article of PsycheJack Andrews, a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, provided another possible reason for the contagious emotion. We speculate that one potential advantage of is that it uses other people’s reactions to social situations to help us determine the best emotional response to take.
This can be especially helpful when fear is in the throes of your emotions. I don’t want to be the only one in the group who doesn’t understand the fact that you need to hightail from a guy in a hockey mask brandishing a chainsaw.
dark side of emotions
Of course, it also has a dark side. Emotions such as depression and anger can also be contagious. If you spend any time on social media, you’ll find that there’s a lot of anger swirling around right now.You might even say we’re in the middle of an anger epidemic. Contagious anger is serious these days problem for individuals and society (but anger drives us crazy).
But even “catching” toxic emotions like anger can give you a survival advantage. If someone is angry with you and that person poses a threat, being able to stir up enough anger to defend yourself can even save your life.
Dr. Andrews, an adolescent mental health expert, points out that teens are more sensitive to emotions than adults. He says this may be because young people have trouble regulating their moods and are more susceptible to the influence of others, especially peers.
However, that’s not necessarily a bad thing.Andrews cites 2015 study They found that children who had happy friends had a lower risk of depression and were more likely to recover if they were already depressed. So it seems that only the good can outweigh the bad. Adults are the same. positive emotions such as laughter, Probability is high More contagious than negative.
It’s nice to know that in these days when negative emotions seem to be as prevalent as the novel coronavirus, spreading a little joy and laughter can help each other like a vaccine.