Have you ever noticed how contagious emotions can be?
Research shows that positive emotions are the most contagious and that laughter – in particular – spreads like wildfire. The fact is that laughter is both universal, and universally trusted.
As everybody knows – you can fake a smile, but not a laugh. 
In neurological terms, laughter represents the shortest distance between two people because it instantly interlocks limbic systems.* This immediate, involuntary reaction, as one researcher puts it, involves, “the most direct communication possible between people – brain to brain – with our intellect just going along for the ride – in what might be called a, ‘limbic lock.’ (1)
Funny that…
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*Photograph – Mr. and Mrs. Andrew Lyman, Polish tobacco farmers, near Windsor Locks, Connecticut, (LOC) – Delano, Jack, photographer.
1940 Sept. Persistent URL: hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ppmsc.00255
Call Number: LC-USF34- 041573-D
* Limbic system – http://biology.about.com/od/anatomy/a/aa042205a.htm
(1) Primal Leadership: realizing the power of emotional intelligence – By Daniel Goleman, Richard E. Boyatzis, Annie McKee p. pp 10,11 Harvard Business School Press, 2002
Related articles
- http://nrhatch.wordpress.com/2010/03/05/good-vibrations/
- Monkey See, Monkey Do, Monkey Laugh (psychologytoday.com)
- Laughter Has A Positive Impact On Vascular Function (medicalnewstoday.com)
- Laughter (mydivinereason.wordpress.com)
- Parents Stay Aware: Defiant Children Lack Emotional Maturity (psychologytoday.com)
- Laughter (victorychurch2943.wordpress.com)
- BONUS: Laughter (on Radiolab) (unclesmiley.wordpress.com)
Love it . . . but you knew that, didn’t you? 😀
Well – let’s say I guessed it!
Love it . . . but you knew that, didn’t you? 😀
Well – let’s say I guessed it!
I’m a big believer in this. Very true! Just like happiness, other emotions like sadness, anger, fear…etc can trigger similar reaction – but maybe not in the same intensity of the emotion. Just like when we see a genuinely sad person crying we feel a slight sadness and even at times might progress to crying with them. See how babies react to emotions on our faces. It’s in our genes!
I’m a big believer in this. Very true! Just like happiness, other emotions like sadness, anger, fear…etc can trigger similar reaction – but maybe not in the same intensity of the emotion. Just like when we see a genuinely sad person crying we feel a slight sadness and even at times might progress to crying with them. See how babies react to emotions on our faces. It’s in our genes!
So true – I think babies show what we probably still feel but no longer express. They say that elderly people with dementia are also very sensitive to the emotions of others – they’ve probably lost the filters we develop as adults. And I have to admit that I almost always cry at funerals – even when I don’t know the deceased very well – the sadness of the bereaved makes me cry, I think.
So true – I think babies show what we probably still feel but no longer express. They say that elderly people with dementia are also very sensitive to the emotions of others – they’ve probably lost the filters we develop as adults. And I have to admit that I almost always cry at funerals – even when I don’t know the deceased very well – the sadness of the bereaved makes me cry, I think.