Attention: The way to immunize against other people's moods

Of course we catch moods from other people; doing so is often a good lubricant of social interaction. Sometimes we want to catch moods—and sometimes we do not. For when we don't, there is a method of strengthening our emotional immune system which I will mention in a moment.

The contagion of moods is well-researched. For example, from "Emotional pandemic creates herds of bulls, bears" (St. Petersburg Times):

Peter Totterdell, a professor at the University of Sheffield in England, says, "If you put two people in a room facing each other, without talking to each other, their moods will converge, or more likely, the mood of the less expressive person will move toward the mood of the more expressive person."

But it turns out that for emotions to spread, two people don't have to be in the same room. They don't even have to know each other. Emotions can be transmitted through mass media and can extend far beyond their originators.

This emotional contagion can affect the financial landscape.

Studies show that in good times, when an optimistic mood pervades, speculative stocks do best, while in bad times investors' emotions push them to seek greater safety. And preliminary research suggests that the mood reflected in media coverage of the stock market after the closing bell tends to presage stock movement at the next morning's opening, even when you control for more tangible factors.

"Unquestionably," [Sigal] Barsade says, "people's moods are influencing large-scale systems."

I was happy to see that the antidote of which I was thinking as I read the article was eventually mentioned by the writer.

How, then, do you stop yourself from catching a bad bug?

Immunity is impossible, and probably not advisable, since some amount of emotional contagion is integral to social interaction ... . As Totterdell, the professor, says, "Emotions would serve no purpose if they didn't help us learn and be attuned to our environment."

But if you want more control, first know that to catch emotions from certain people, you need to be paying attention to those people, so choosing where you place your attention is key. ...

Once again the power of attention is affirmed. As a ardent advocate of the importance of attention (here's a past post on attention), I applaud this mention of its use. To whom are you paying attention?