Many of us, perhaps at some point have experienced the sensation of feeling the same way the people around us feel when we share with them, and they may infect us with their positive or negative states, so we have to be very aware.

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This occurs due to emotional contagion, which is defined as the phenomenon of having one person's emotions and related behaviors trigger similar emotions and behaviors in other people [1].

This concept was first presented by Elaine Hatfield, John Cacioppo and Richard Rapson, who explained that the phenomenon occurs in two steps, the first involves a synchronization with the other person related to the behavioral part, and then emotional convergence occurs. For example, when a person smiles at us, most often this behavior is replicated and makes us feel happy.

Another very well-known experiment related to this topic was conducted in 2012 by Facebook, which was the subject of much criticism, for having used without any notification account data of some of its users and manipulating their emotional state for their study, which basically consisted of one part of the users only seeing content rated as positive while the other half saw the opposite. It was concluded that emotional contagion does exist and that it does not necessarily occur in person but can also occur digitally. The results showed that when people were motivated by positive publications, they published similar content, while the other half of the people also did the same with negative content.

Now, this leads us to think about what kind of people we surround ourselves with, and what they transmit to us. We should surround ourselves with positive people with whom we feel at ease, fun people with good humor who transmit good emotions.

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It is inevitable to go through not so good moments, and to share them with friends for example, now what is important is to identify if it is something punctual, that can be supported by listening to it, accompanying it and looking for the good side of the situation in spite of everything. If on the contrary, that person wants to talk and share problems all the time, that person looks for the bad side of everything and in spite of your help, he/she closes himself/herself in his/her thoughts, refusing to change his/her attitude, we should think about what that person brings to us.

Another thing is to reflect on how we influence those around us, and if we should change our attitude towards people or situations as this can alienate us from many friendships. Certainly, friends are there in good times and bad but we cannot spend all our time without bringing positive things to their lives because in the long run they will decide for their emotional well being.

So far for now, thanks for reading!

Reference

1. Wikipedia.com emotional contagion