Emotional Contagion in the time of turmoil

Emotional contagion is rampant now at this time of turmoil in society. People express emotions in their comments, articles and opinions and they are contagious. Emotional contagion is a phenomenon where people catch feelings and emotions from each other, because they are contagious. They are contagious because they feel good, are appealing, and attractive, and automatically attract people to react to them immediately without thinking. People then react immediately with their own emotions. Emotions are flowing from person to person and group to group. The appeal of emotions placed subtly in various writings of viewpoints and perspectives is strong. It is more appealing than intellectual writings with systematic reasoning and critical thinking. Emotional contagion then takes over. The appeal of emotions has been dominating political dialogue especially in the U.S. Maybe now with the election over things will go back to normal.

People think they react to the words being spoken but in fact they are reacting more to the emotions being expressed than to the verbal content of a statement. Because emotions run high at this time, there seems to be little actual dialogue where people actually listen to the statements being made. Some people easily feel challenged by verbal statements. But in fact in the current climate of turmoil they react more to the emotional effects of being challenged than to the verbal statement being made. How else to explain the vitriol being expressed. Why not just disagree? We are just different people. It just takes calm thinking, systematic reasoning and an easy going thinking approach to slow down the effect of emotional contagion, so it doesn’t impact you as strongly as it seems to when there is turmoil. Turmoil just breeds confusion and divisiveness.