Emotions are contagious, beware of viruses!

 Emotions are contagious, beware of viruses!

Emotions are contagious

We all know that laughter is contagious, but what about emotions? In 1990, Rizzolatti, an Italian professor of physiology, discovered mirror neurons. These are activated when we see someone else doing something. In fact, mirror neurons reproduce the same areas as when we perform the action. Mirror neurons are also active for emotions, allowing empathy and participating in "emotional contagion". In the presence of a person or group experiencing anger, distress or despair, the contagion virus can also be very virulent. So you can see why emotions are contagious and why it is best to stay away from negative people.

 

The influence of others on our emotions: emotional contagion

Constantly being around defeatist or negative people eventually affects us. Sometimes, it can even lead us to share their vision and their emotions.

"I thought everything was going well at home, I thought I was happy! After attending the producer meeting last week, I thought I must be living on another planet. Since then, I have been wondering if it is normal to be happy. Around me, everyone says that things are not going well.

It was with these words that Sylvain, a producer with a very optimistic nature, spoke when he called me less than a year ago.

Human beings are very impressionable. The advertising industry knows this, and so do salespeople. We often rely on the judgment of others to form "our own opinion. In short, constantly rubbing shoulders with the same defeatist, negative or victimized people will undoubtedly end up affecting us. We may even end up sharing their vision and emotions. The phenomenon of emotional contagion, whether in groups or during exposure to everyday stimuli, has been demonstrated repeatedly in social psychology experiments. Emotional contagion explains why emotions are contagious.

 

Negative talk in agriculture affects us

Over the past few years, we have been hearing a lot of negative, gloomy, even depressing talk in the agricultural media. And how does this affect us? Like Sylvain, by dint of talking about it, we end up believing it. Far be it from me to see everything as rosy and to think that there are no producers or production sectors experiencing great difficulties. As a psychologist, I am well positioned to understand and recognize human suffering.

However, I also know that certain intervention strategies are useless, even harmful in improving human conditions. Victimization, defeatism, non-accountability are all strategies that only make the situation worse. In all fields, sectors of activity or contexts of similar external conditions, there will always be people who do better than others. Why? Because they think, act and react differently.

 

Fostering positive leaders

But what about the rhetoric of some leaders, who are indeed the first to cry out loud that "agriculture is in trouble"? The fatalism of these unqualified and hopeless statements is far from commonplace. Many will say to themselves: "If he is discouraged and cannot make it, then I cannot. This is certainly not the way we help producers, attract new talent or future employees. This type of negative behavior in our leaders or stakeholders is not helpful or necessary. Many farmers and stakeholders are tired of this kind of talk. Our leaders need to understand the true meaning of leadership - to mobilize the troops, to seek solutions to problems, to create hope, and to focus on what is going well.

 

Acting within our zone of influence

As psychologists, our role is to look with the individual at the different areas of influence, i.e. those where he has power, those he can influence and those over which he has no power. As individuals, we must understand that our choices of reading, activities and discussions (in short, what we decide to focus on) greatly influence our emotions, our actions and ultimately our life results.

I invite you to make choices for the coming year. Choose the content of your discussions, your readings and what you think about. Because, by dint of looking for everything negative in your life, you will end up finding it. What if instead you decided to look at all that life has offered you, offers you and can still offer you? And for our leaders, as long as we are a virus, why not infect ourselves with optimism and hope?

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