When we see the insurrection attempt in Washington DC today, January 6, 2021, and see the high amount of energy and the strong drive and motivation the insurrectionists are showing, we can see that the energy, drive and motivation come from inside the people. They come from their emotions. Emotions are very powerful when they come together with similar contagious emotions from other people and form a crowd of people. We see that the vast number of people behind this insurrection attempt all have similar inner motivation, to disrupt government. They likely have similar rebellious feelings and emotions which are appealing and attractive to absorb from others. These are contagious emotions. This shows the effect of emotional contagion. These emotions are contagious and have spread to many people. People with similar feelings spread and strengthen their feelings between them with numbers. Although this involved thousands of people, the much larger number of people who could be behind an insurrection (their numbers could be much greater, into the millions), could overpower any government and police force. This is very dangerous. And behind it would be emotion. Energy, drive and motivation come from emotion, the fuel that fires us. This shows why emotional contagion is the greatest force known to human beings. And it is dangerous. This shows us why we have to learn to curtail emotional contagion now.
