Emotional contagion
Emotional contagion is a psychological term that describes a form of emotional transmission.
General
The term was mentioned and analyzed by Max Scheler in 1913 , and has been used frequently since 1994, when it became known as the translation of the Hatfield book title Emotional contagion .
Emotional contamination is a natural, innate trait that occurs as a phenomenon in humans and higher animal species . In psychology , emotional contagion is when the feelings expressed by a person through facial expressions involuntarily trigger imitations in other people . This facial expression is primarily and very easily noticeable a change in the face . However, every movement also triggers involuntary imitation - for example, when observing people doing sports, similar muscles are stimulated in other people watching.
In more recent sociology , the transfer of knowledge and meaning is even mentioned as part of the phenomenon of emotional contamination. As a result, emotional contamination becomes a transmission path for knowledge and meaningful content and thus contributes to the development of a societal level of knowledge in a social system . It is assumed that emotional contagion was and is developmentally necessary in order to initially create a bond between parents and newborn children - simultaneously with innate empathy .
"Another important aspect of empathy in a developmental context is that it leads individuals to bond together, especially mothers to their toddlers"
Mirror neurons are suspected to be contributing elements .
Emotional contamination occurs in very different ways, which by no means have all been explored. As an example, it should be mentioned that, according to more recent findings, smells also trigger affective and unconscious reactions, for example the odor of fear triggers activity, specifically in “resources” in the brain that are typically (consciously) active in authentic empathy.
Emotional contagion from a developmental point of view
Emotional contagion occurs involuntarily between people of all ages, and feelings are transmitted from person to person without the influence of will (“infected”) and lead to an affective imitation.
The psychologist Hatfield sees the development of emotional contamination in two steps:
“Step 1: We imitate other people - when the other person smiles, we involuntarily smile back. Step 2: Our mood changes when we imitate others - when we smile, our mood is also more positive, when we "scowl" we feel worse. "
In general, Hatfield goes beyond purely psychological effects and does not rule out social effects: “Facial expressions seem to be the foundation of all emotional movement between people. Small children just a few hours old automatically imitate other people's [are wired] facial expressions. When we smile, the toddler smiles back. "
A similar description of an "infection" can be found in much earlier texts by some psychologists and philosophers at the beginning of the 20th century, e. B. with Max Scheler (see below under Sociology). Edith Stein set up a similar step model to Hatfield in 1916 and recognized sociological effects similar to those of Hatfield. At the same time, Theodor Lipps analyzed the phenomenon of compassion ( see also : empathy theory ). Despite the description of two completely different phenomena, the same word empathy or empathy was used for these on all sides . This confusion of terms due to the contradicting definition has only been resolved in recent years with the addition of newer terms. While Lipps used the word as a synonym for the later empathy term, determined empathy , the meaning of the term empathy used by Edith Stein and Scheler corresponds to the term that was defined as “emotional contagion” by Hatfield's definition of the term in 1994 and has since been correctly designated as such must become. In addition, many texts and authors of this time were religiously appropriated and reinterpreted, which makes scientific delimitation even more difficult.
The determined empathy that Lipps emanated from is a cognitively developing ability that requires strict adherence to personal boundaries, while emotional contagion happens involuntarily and means personal border crossing (“contagion”). The innate or natural empathy has so far been little researched ( see also : Arno Gruen ). Emotional contagion of any kind occurs spontaneously and can only be ended cognitively.
Since feelings and culturally determined reactions occur together, it is important to differentiate between the individual components. Related, but not synonymous with, emotional contagion include:
- Empathy or its opposite: narcissism or autism (here extreme and strictly cognitive preservation of mutual personal boundaries)
- Sympathy or (opposite) dislike (border crossing possible)
- Compassion or (opposite) schadenfreude (border crossing possible)
- Compassion or (opposite) indifference (border crossing possible)
- Enemy love or (opposite) revenge (border crossing inevitable)
In contrast to these affective or emotional impulses, which are related to feeling contagion, there is no word for opposing feeling contagion, which is why negative and positive feeling contagion are spoken of. Positive emotional contagion is e.g. B. those that are triggered by small children in caregivers (and vice versa), and shared joy and laughter and shared feelings z. B. at major music events. Negative emotional contagion is transmitted (among other things) by depressed people, there is a risk of “contagion” for others if it is not recognized in time and (cognitively) terminated.
Emotional contagion from a sociological point of view
The realization that very young children aged 10–12 months learn social behavior through emotional contamination, initially by copying (observing and being carried away) the behavior of their caregivers. This process is called social referencing . Similar learning processes continue to take place. According to the mass psychology of Gustave Le Bon , emotional contagion is a spontaneous and often epidemically growing affect exchange between people. In a mass situation or in a panic , people in the same emotional state would become irrational , hysterical and in need of leadership through feeling for one another in their collective social behavior .
From the beginning of sophistry until the 20th century, only negative emotional contagion, in the form of mass or " mob " movements, combined with acts of violence and panic, was perceived. From this, since Plato and Aristotle, the apparent necessity of a (reason-driven) elite has been legitimized, which has to regulate the independence of the “ masses ”. This canon of values was largely followed up into the 20th century. An example of this is Friedrich Nietzsche , who in On the Future of Our Educational Institutions (5th lecture, 1872) warned urgently against diving into the “level of the masses”, since every “genius” becomes a “half animal” here. Although the word was still unknown in Nietzsche's time, it is very clear that he sees negative emotional contagion by the " rabble " as a threat.
The importance of positive emotional contagion for a social system is largely denied in sociology to this day. As is the system theory of Niklas Luhmann free of emotion-related phenomena . The existence or meaning of empathy is negated there as well as the emotional contagion. On the other hand, Luhmann sees that double contingency creates an emergent order , which at least in part can also be called an emotional contagion with sociological impact.
In fact, recognizing the emotional contagion as a positive force means a break with the philosophical value system that has been dominated by “understanding” since Plato , especially in Europe. Moving away from this would mean negating the need for elites. Max Scheler used the same word "empathy" in his works that Lipps used. However, Lipps started from the later meaning of the term of (determined) empathy , while Scheler used this word to describe phenomena that Hatfield only called “emotional contagion” in 1994 and hereby named more clearly. Only recently have some of his texts been recognized in terms of their importance for a new set of values in sociology.
One typical example was Wolfhart Henkmann called summarizing that Max Scheler three axioms of " sociology of knowledge has defined":
“A social transfer of knowledge and meaningful content already takes place through“ emotional contamination ”and in the involuntary imitation of actions; Both can also be found in higher animal species. "
Henkmann emphasizes that emotional contagion not only transmits feelings, but also meaning and knowledge. Emotional contagion thus becomes an important transmission path for the general state of societal knowledge, through which a societal or group-specific consensus arises. Even Kevin Mulligan can see in the texts Scheler that emotional contagion far transmits more than just feelings, but also social community through "groundless confidence" to arise to strangers, which then of "groundless suspicion" is different. However, Mulligan used the terms common at Scheler's time:
“Many philosophers believe that one has to decide once and for all for one of the following views about the external perception: either the external perception is a kind of empathy, or a kind of conclusion, or a direct perception or a simulation. Scheler does not share this requirement, namely because a philosophy of external perception that does not belong to a social philosophy is condemned to a one-sided diet and thus to simplifications. According to Scheler, the direct perception of emotional feelings works through empathy on the sociological level of the community, in which there is baseless trust. But there is also an external perception that cannot do without conclusions and analogies. Such an external perception is to be found above all on the sociological level of society, in which baseless mistrust is the order of the day. Ultimately, Lipps' theory of external perception is "approximately correct" as empathy. "
The criticism of Plato's influence in history up to the modern philosophers and their legitimation of the existence of elites, the presumed different (pre-Platonic) value canon of Socrates and the change of the value system that Scheler with his expanded view of the emotional contagion through the transfer to social Systems introduced into sociology is the subject of several recent dissertations.
See also
Individual evidence
- ↑ Max Scheler: Essence and Forms of Sympathy. The “Phenomenology d. Feelings of sympathy " . 2nd Edition. F. Cohen, Bonn 1923, DNB 575987154 , p. 25th ff .
- ↑ Giacomo Rizzolatti , Corrado Sinigaglia: Empathy and Mirror Neurons: The Biological Basis of Compassion . Frankfurt a. M. Suhrkamp 2008, 229 pp. ISBN 3-518-26011-1 .
- ↑ Gregory Hickok: Why We Understand What Others Feel: The Myth of Mirror Neurons. Carl Hanser Verlag Munich 2015, 368 pages, ISBN 3-446-44326-6 .
- ^ Prehn-Kristensen A, Wiesner C, Bergmann TO, Wolff S, Jansen O, et al .: Induction of Empathy by the Smell of Anxiety . In: PLOS ONE . Vol. 4, No. 6 , 2009, doi : 10.1371 / journal.pone.0005987 (English).
- ↑ Max Scheler: On the phenomenology and theory of feelings of sympathy and of love and hate . Niemeyer, Halle a. S. 1913, DNB 361686927 , p. 26 : “Text = there is neither a feeling-intention here for the joy and suffering of the other, nor any participation in his experience. Rather, it is characteristic of the contagion that it only takes place between emotional states [...] "
- ^ Marianne Sawitzky: The Literacy of Investigative Practices and the Phenomenology of Edith Stein . Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht / Boston 2001, ISBN 0-7923-4759-5 (American English, limited preview in Google Book Search).