Emotional Contagion: Emotions Are Contagious

Emotional contagion is a phenomenon that occurs when a person or groups emotions and behaviours affect the emotions and behaviours of some other person or group. This can be negative or positive.

We often mimic or imitate the emotional expressions (smiles and frowns) of other people without even realizing it. Mimicry and copying the body language, voice or facial expressions of other people is natural among social creatures, due to 'mirror neurons’ in the cerebral cortex region of the brain.