As a clinical psychologist for over 50 years, Dr. Bruce Hutchison has never witnessed the magnitude of negative “emotional contagion” sweeping the world today. Now, because he feels this contagion underlies the political turmoil of our times, he uses his expertise to help readers learn how to manage their emotional responses to a wide spectrum of contentious political and social issues in his timely book, Emotions Don’t Think: Emotional Contagion in a Time of Turmoil.
I had a chance to interview Dr. Hutchison to learn more - including excerpts from the book itself.
What makes emotional contagion toxic?
Emotional contagion itself is not toxic. Many positive emotions are connected through emotional contagion. It is the toxic emotions like cynicism, fear, hate, distrust, anger and others that are often contagious and lethal to others, and thereby toxic. It is important to be aware of these emotions when others express them so that you can decide whether to block them from being absorbed.
A brief excerpt from my book may help:
Emotional contagion is crucial in human relations and in society. It is evolutionary, relating to the way living things develop over millions of years. … A newborn baby cries to be fed because it’s the only way the baby knows how to get food from its mother. The baby is, in effect, using emotional contagion to communicate with its mother. It is evolutionary, pre-linguistic, and instinctual. The power of emotional contagion is that strong. Without it, human beings might not exist, as many babies may not survive. The mother to child bond is one of the strongest bonds humans have. Love does not have to be spoken; it is felt through contagion. It seeps through borders between people, finding its own way, especially through sound and touch.
….
When a baby is born, the power of emotional contagion comes forth naturally and almost immediately. It is contagious; we can feel it and sense it. The first communication comes from the helpless baby’s cries, the only way the baby can reach out. … The first instinctual communication conveys emotion. The only ways the communication of love occurs is through the contagion, that evolutionary force that enables communication where words are not yet possible. A cry itself is noticeable because of the sound, but it is the emotion that is contagious: the desperation, neediness, urgency, and helplessness that is conveyed in the crying. … There is no doubt that emotional contagion is the greatest emotional process humans can experience, with love being communicated through its power. This is the positive part of emotional contagion. If there were no emotional contagion, then love would not move between people. Emotional contagion gives love its magic.
…
Emotional contagion makes one vulnerable to the negative emotions of others. A
study indicated that people living with mildly depressed roommates were more likely to become depressed themselves over time. Emotional contagion of negative emotions can lead to personal distress when the recipient is infected with emotional pain. It could be debilitating, especially if one picks up sadness, anger, and, even hatred, cynicism, and pessimism, and is unable to add the “as if” quality…
I will add here that this “as if” quality provides the boundary which separates the two people emotionally, preventing negative emotional contagion from being overwhelming. We put ourselves into the other’s shoes “as if” we are that person. Some people omit that “as if” part and take on the other’s feelings and emotions.
How does toxic emotional contagion affect our society and relationships with each other?
Toxic emotional contagion has a strong effect on social and personal relationships. People express emotions in their voice when they speak, and this can be absorbed by others. It is easy to quickly absorb the emotion someone else expresses or exudes when they speak, particularly if they speak directly to us. It can also happen when a speaker such as a politician speaks to us, because they express or exude emotion in their voice. But emotion is invisible, and newspapers can’t print invisibility, they can just print and comment on the words spoken. So they may not really pick up why the speaker can have a significant impact on the audience, but that impact comes from emotion. It is part of charisma.
People absorb contagious toxic emotions, like suspicion, anger, hate, fear, depression and others when they hear someone else express them. So, the emotions spread like wildfire, and grow and magnify through contagion. And the emotions carry simple messages, with simple emotional words, like “X is bad,”
Or “A is the greatest” without any supporting evidence or logic.
Here is an excerpt from my book:
Some people seem to have an automatic absorption ability when it comes to absorbing others’ feelings and emotions. We see it in romantic relationships, in families, in friendships, in crowds. And we see it in politics, the media, and business situations. Many people can become automatically inflamed, especially if they feel challenged and feel a threat to their self-esteem, security, or reputation. Then the emotions tend to take over, taking charge of the decision-making. Instead, pause and hold that reaction and put the mind to work. There is probably a smarter way to do it.
The emotionality that flows in interpersonal discussion can overrule a more reasonable answer. A powerful, interpersonal flow from a dynamic person can produce automatic, impulsive thinking—especially when considerable movement is occurring. The contagion is more powerful when transmitted with little or no effort, with little sense of voluntary control. Crowds creating significant movement are situations which, by their nature, reward spontaneity and fast, intuitive, emotional thinking. Emotions become strong when people are physically close and catching feelings from each other. Crowds and parties are often places of emotional contagion, as psychological energy flows easily among people and most of us are not inoculated against it. This is why it is often best to avoid being around potentially inflammable situations that magnify emotions.
Why is it important to know the difference between thinking and feeling?
Thinking is rational and feeling is irrational. We need good thinking to solve problems and to understand what is truly going on in life and in the world and how it relates to us. We need to think straight to understand what someone is saying, how they are acting and how they are feeling. If thoughts are contagious, it seems to be because of the associated emotion like enthusiasm that is attached to the thought that makes it contagious. We can use our feelings to pick up their emotions and our thought to understand if that person’s emotions are normal for the situation. We think with our minds, like when we know facts and use our memory to recall important facts, important information and use it in our calculations. For example, if we are travelling, we may know that a town is 50 miles away and if we know the speed we are going and know whether the land is flat or whether we are in the mountains, and how the traffic is going we can estimate how the long it will take to go the 50 miles. That is all thinking. You can’t estimate this from your feelings and emotions. Just because you are feeling good doesn’t mean the trip will be faster. Your mood doesn’t tell you that. But your good mood could tell you something about how the drive will be, if your good mood affects your driving in one way or another, as it can for some people. If your passenger in the car talks about something, you may pick up feelings and emotions from them, and those emotions will affect you through emotional contagion, as other people’s emotions can affect your mood. You shouldn’t let yourself be in an argument while you are driving, because that may bring up bad feelings which could distract you while driving.
An excerpt from the book may help:
An emotion exists in the person’s body because it is visceral—internal but not in a specific place or body part. The emotion is alive, an important part of the person. It wants something, it needs an experience. It brings energy and represents life, your aliveness inside you. It is zestful; it feels an experience as it lives. An emotion moves, it vibrates, it stirs and has rhythm. It seems to want to say something, although it can’t. The emotion does not have an opinion, because that is the mind’s job, but it wants to pass on the simple message that it carries. The emotion does move along, not just shaking or vibrating, but moving forward. It is inside you, not necessarily attached, but not detached either. It is a part of the body, it belongs there. The emotion is a source of energy for the person and is semi-dependent on the mind. The mind, the executive, is in charge. The mind thinks. But for some people, it seems the emotion can take control. If it does, then we have emotion mind. But emotions don’t think, even though they try, and they are not our executive.
How can we find balance between acknowledge our emotions and letting them override our ability to make good decisions?
Ironically, acknowledging our emotions is a good start to preventing them from overriding our ability to make good decisions. Being aware of our and others’ emotions and feelings as they occur and the possibility of contagion occurring is a good start. It is also important to be aware that your emotions will often drive your actions, whereas the mind should intervene and decide whether the desired action is desirable, healthy and appropriate before the behavior commences.
Again, an excerpt may help:
Being aware that we have an inoculation against emotional and social contagion reassures us that we don’t have to absorb it. We can resist contagious emotions others express or emit. Awareness of negative emotional contagion is a start to blocking or resisting it. You can’t block what you don’t recognize. If you are aware of it and can identify it when it happens, you can learn to block it. It gives us the ability to stop catching emotions from others automatically. We can instruct ourselves with awareness on whether or not to catch and absorb emotions coming towards us when we notice it happening.
For example, if someone is too dramatic, we can stop getting drawn in. Don’t catch the emotion, just let it connect briefly. This can happen if the other person is overly emotional about a small thing, where the emotion seems too much for the situation as you would assess it if it happened to you. If strong feelings are expressed by someone in connection to a controversial topic that you haven’t thought through too much, then ask for more information about it; tell them that you are curious. You may not want to let yourself get too emotional right away. If you do, tell yourself that’s okay, just connect briefly, but don’t catch it or let it come on too strongly or immediately affect what you think about it. Buy yourself some time. Look around, distract yourself, ask questions, or think about something you enjoy. You are free to have your own opinion, but you need to make sure you think it through first. Tell them that. If you catch too many emotions about it right away, those emotions may try and think for you. Emotions don’t think.
About the author
Bruce Hutchison, Ph.D. writes the kind of book that is needed in the times of emotional turmoil that we live in. A retired clinical psychologist, Dr. Hutchison did his Ph.D. at the University of Ottawa, and practiced psychology in Manitoba, Alberta and Ontario. With over 50 years of experience, Dr. Hutchison has experienced and identified emotional contagion in many of his sessions with his clients, when emotions move and flow from client to therapist. He has appeared on TV and has travelled giving speeches and talks about various topics in bettering oneself. An award-winning psychologist, he is known throughout Canada. As a Canadian, he has been close enough and yet far enough away from the U.S. He can be a little more objective, and less infected by the emotional infection he says flows in the U.S. media and society, although similar turmoil occurs in Canada, as seen in Ottawa in early 2022.
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http://www.emotionsdontthink.com
Twitter: @bjhutch2
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About the book
Addresses the problems of the increase in rage and emotions in society and politics.
Writes about how negative emotional contagion runs rampant at a time of turmoil in politics.
Describes how emotions underlie the political turmoil in our times.
Includes five chapters on how to resist and overcome the effects of increased emotions and negative emotional contagion.
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