Is bad company bad for your brain?

[Sandi]

Some time ago I quit going to support group meetings. Some were excelent sessions and uplifting but just as often I went away feeling slightly depressed for a short time afterwards. Never stopping to analyze it I assume it was because I don't like to be around negative people. Apparently that is a good thing because of recent neuroscientific breakthroughs in what science calls "Mirror Neurons." Kathy Sierra, a programmer and author with an interested in the brain has this to say about it.

It's what these neurons do that's amazing--they activate in the same way when you're watching someone else do something as they do when you're doing it yourself! This mirroring process/capability is thought to be behind our ability to empathize, but you can imagine the role these neurons have played in keeping us alive as a species. We learn from watching others. We learn from imitating (mirroring) others. The potential problem, though, is that these neurons go happily about their business of imitating others without our conscious intention.

This is just how the brain works, and results in "Emotional Contagion," and just like the flu (a physical biological contagion), good or bad emotional contagions are not just a fuzzy-feeling concept, but they represent real physical changes in the brain.

"...social scientific research has largely confirmed the thesis that affect, attitudes, beliefs and behaviour can indeed spread through populations as if they were somehow infectious. Simple exposure sometimes appears to be a sufficient condition for social transmission to occur. This is the social contagion thesis; that sociocultural phenomena can spread through, and leap between, populations more like outbreaks of measels or chicken pox than through a process of rational choice."

So these mimicking emotions, consciously or not, affect affect your brain and body in a measurable way.

"Furthermore, studies suggest that certain people's ability to see life through rose-colored glasses links to a heightened left-sided brain function. A scrutiny of brain activity indicates that individuals with natural positive dispositions have trumped up activity in the left prefrontal cortex compared with their more negative counterparts."

Which means that if you want to change, be around the kind of people that you would like to mimick. Kathy has a lot more facinating information, so read the whole article right here.

Note to Susan: The "list command" with this forum software is rather sucky in that you can't use the list command as a blockquote as it doesn't work without bullets. Hence the brown text instead.

[NightAngel]

Very interesting study ...

This is just how the brain works

but according to a research at Cambridge University:

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a total mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Fraeikng amzanig huh? 

* *

Michelle

[Bmore]

Hmm. I wonder if this could explain homophobia in part. People channeling outward reactions to something that's being inwardly triggered by someone's who gay being around them?

[madison]

I would extend that concept to even the media we absorb. While watching slasher films exclusively might not turn you into a slasher, it surely must have some affect on your attitude and personality. For me, being around active inspiring people or even reading/watching inspiring stories give me a big lift. Thanks for pointing out that article, will definitely give it a read.

And NightAngel, that is absolutley fascinating. Thanks for sharing that. I wonder if there is any correlation to that study and Noam Chomsky's theory of linguistics? What type of study was that, do you know?

[Bmore]

I would extend that concept to even the media we absorb. While watching slasher films exclusively might not turn you into a slasher, it surely must have some affect on your attitude and personality. For me, being around active inspiring people or even reading/watching inspiring stories give me a big lift. Thanks for pointing out that article, will definitely give it a read.

As an artist and someone whose had a lot of experience with ritual in various tableaus, media is the myth we tell ourselves and we end up becoming our stories. So what of the physical and metaphysical pornography of violence in media as you just pointed out? I think we open up doorways in ourselves and in the spiritual worlds for these things to enter into our lives personally and collectively (from another point of view that's why I won't watch certain paranormal stuff on tv,like Crowley once said to read the invocation is to do the invocation). These are all forms of spiritual pollution and social toxicity and do not function purely on the level of the physical mind and what we're discussing here. I think the long term results of this stuff is the cultural equivalent of a slow acting toxin, so by the time you've noticed there's something's wrong, the devil's already at your door. Little thread drift, oh well.

[NightAngel]

And NightAngel, that is absolutley fascinating. Thanks for sharing that. I wonder if there is any correlation to that study and Noam Chomsky's theory of linguistics? What type of study was that, do you know?

Sorry Madison I dont know what type of study was that, If it was a real study ... I found that on some other forum while ago so i can't tell you anything else about that except that it's really amazing how the brains works.

* *

Michelle

[madison]

NightAngel, thanks for getting back to me. Maybe I will do a little internet research and find some more info. That was as fascinating though not as disturbing as the brain exercises, where you recite a list of numbers or words and then say the first "thing" that comes to your mind. And the thing was predicted accurately.

A version of the "experiment" can be done here.

A "debunking" of the experiment can found here.

Though the jumbled letters with the first and last letter correct plays into something else.


River's Edge, I have always prescribed to the idea, that you should never call up what you can't put down. I will not go into detail here, but that is exactly how I became a prophet for Happy Guy and Hula Hoop Girl. Happy Guy being the living embodiment of consumerism.

Though I'm not sure how I feel with the slow acting toxin concept. If memes can be toxins then I could just as equally believe in growing immune to them over time. I'm simply not sure that a toxin analogy is accurate. But if an idea can be viral, then why not a toxic idea. Then I think of philosophies of hate, and I begin to reconsider.

I'm sorry but this is more heady a conversation than I'm really up for at this time.

[Debtv]

Here is proof that mom was right when she told you to watch out who you hung out with! lol LOL Proof of natural common sense.

Love
DebTV

[NightAngel]

Madison your experiment was great ... I answered with a ... let's say with a correct answer, don't want to spoil the experiment for others ... lol 

On ''debunking'' site I found also this one:

There was a similar "trick" I encountered in junior high--it was a littl simpler, and involved reading off a list of numbers (5, 55, 555, etc) and then quickly naming a vegetable. The "correct" answer was carrot, and in my experience, about 70% of people got it.

and my answer was correct again ... lol ... Thank you Madison!

* *

Michelle

[Chaunte]

Absolutely!  Bad company is bad for your brain!  I have observed this with my students since I became a teacher.

Chaunte

[tinkerbell]

Is bad company bad for your brain?

Of course!  not only a "no-no" for your brain but also for your reputation!

tinkerbell