In the last modules we started to explore the contagion effect the, of resonant and dissonant leaders. How do they inspire people? How do they engage the hope, mindfulnes and compassion? We started to talk about the neuroscience of it. In this module, I would like to specifically focus on how does emotional contagion transfer between two people and among a group of people? We all know how this operates. You know, you've been to a wedding or a party and you're dancing, having a great time and you just want the night to go on forever. And then there are times in which you're at a meeting and people are complaining and you're just saying oh God, I can't wait to get out of here. These are two cases of emotional contagion, one positive and one negative. Every time you look at the wave in a stadium. Or a flash mob video on YouTube. You're seeing the effect of emotional contagion. We've known this phenomena for hundreds if not thousands of years. It is the basis of very often social collective action. Certainly 1994, three notable psychologists, Hatfield, Cacioppo, and Rapson published a book called Emotional Contagion. Which is still a classic in the field. Since then, a lot of the folks that use Emonet, the listserv that Neal Ashkanasy organized for emotions researchers, exchange a lot of references of recent and very insightful research about emotional contagion. But when it all comes down to it, it is the process that we started to talk about in the very last module, about the neurological exchange between people. I talked about the difference between what happens when you activate the default mode network which opens people up to possibilities and others. And the task positive network coming out of Tony Jack's research. Well, in this case what we're talking about is that people can pick up others emotions. They do it through a process of behavioral mimicry, watching someone else and then getting caught up in it. I had mentioned in the last module the impact of mirror neurons on mimicking actions of others. And we also have the work of Batson and Dolcetti and other neuroscientists on these hemodynamic sympathetic systems. Where actually, you start to tune in to the emotions of others. Doo-doo-doo-doo, doo-doo-doo-doo. Is this the stuff of Star Trek's Betazoid Impasse? Am I really talking about mental telepathy? Yes, I am! And, does it mean if you wear an aluminum foil cap you could block other people or other intelligence agencies from reading your emotions? No everyone knows it has to be a lead cap, not aluminum foil. But, joking aside, this basic process of tuning into each others emotions happens, as I started to allude and describe in the last module, at very fast speeds. As a matter of fact, because it's happening very often in not just less than a second, but in milliseconds, that it's happening predominantly unconsciously. And it's happening as we said, very fast because of the effect of these von Economo or spindle cell neurons. Well, one of the things about this exchange of emotions that often catches us unawares, is that it doesn't, it doesn't really matter whether or not we're consciously aware of the emotion we're having. I mean, take for example, you know, you have a fight with your spouse, or your partner, or roommate before you go to work or school. And, you know, you're driving or taking a bus or a train, and you get to work or, or a class or lab at school. And and you walk in and you say, wait a minute, I don't want that other thing to bother me. So, you put on a happy face and you walk in and say, good morning, good morning, good morning. What you don't realize is what's preceding you is a bow wave of negative emotion. Because what people are picking up as you're walking by is not the smile on your face. They're picking up these negative emotions that you're still fuming about inside. And to make things worse, because you have a smile on your face, they are confused. So people are saying to themselves, huh, I, I feel lousy and yet I shouldn't feel lousy. This very, very fast and very deep transmission of emotion is a basic human process, and we call that emotional contagion. Now, an interesting twist on this is that there is an extension of what others of us have called social contagion that picks up more on the behavior. Certainly of several notable professors. Christakis and Fowler have done a number of key studies using the Framingham studies in which they have shown that if you start to change your behavior, somebody that you know has a huge percentage chance of either stopping smoking cigarettes or gaining weight or whatever the change or behavior is. What they also showed is that they know somebody that they have, that your behavior change has an in fact an impact on one of their friends or parts of their social network. Even if you don't know the person, and they even show going out to, I, I, I think they've often talked about 15 to 17% increase in likelihood of a behavior change, three relationships out. Now this type of social contagion often happens through observation, and as I said, social mimicry or copying other people's behavior. But the fact is emotional contagion happens all the time. I mean, you could be sitting in a meeting, all of a sudden one person folds their arms, and other people start to fold their arms. One person starts to yawn and other people yawn. The interesting twist about this, when we talk about leadership, is that when we're in a position of influence or authority, we're in a leadership position or, we're in a helping position, like a teacher or a doctor or a nurse, other people are watching us a little more carefully than we're watching them. And one of the dilemmas is we end up being more infectious. In a sense, we become a more powerful spreader, or agent of our own feelings. In the next class one or so modules later, we will be talking about why emotional intelligence is so important. This is a classic example of why. If you're not aware of your own emotions, if you're not mindful of what's going on inside, even at the unconscious level, how can you be somewhat in control? How can you creatively and effectively use that information to be more thoughtful in your impact on other people? So emotional contagion is a very, very fundamental process in the notion of building better relationships, of rebuilding the relationships, and more effective leadership.♪ [MUSIC] ♪ [MUSIC]
