Children
Psychologist Elaine Hatfield theorizes emotional contagions as a two-step process: Step 1: We imitate people, if someone smiles at you, you smile back. Step 2: Changes in mood through faking it. If you smile you feel happy, if you frown you feel bad. Mimicry seems to be one foundation of emotional movement between people. Hour old infants will mimic a person's facial expressions such as smiling.
Martin E.P.Seligman, Ph.D., uses synchrony games to build children's learning that "your actions matter and can control outcomes". When a baby bangs on a table the adult bangs on the table, replicating the action. This is one way emotional learning can be validated by an adult.
Read more about this topic: Emotional Contagion
Famous quotes containing the word children:
“The children despise their parents until the age of 40, when they suddenly become just like them—thus preserving the system.”
—Quentin Crewe (20th century)
“One has to have run a household before one can know the price of rice and firewood, and one has to have raised children before one can understand a parent’s love.”
—Chinese proverb.
“Why can’t the English teach their children how to speak?”
—Alan Jay Lerner (1918–1986)