警惕辦公室“二手壓力”的傳染

Professor Elaine Hatfield, a psychologist from the University of Hawaii, discovered that stress can be as contagious as a cold, and that "passive" or second-hand stress and anxiety can quickly spread around the workplace.

"People seem to be capable of mimicking others' facial, vocal, and postural expressions with stunning rapidity", Hatfield said.

"As a consequence, they are able to feel themselves into those other emotional lives to a surprising extent."

Prof. Hatfield's study found that we are effectively sponges, soaking up so-called emotional contagions emitted by those around us.

As we absorb other people's stress, we can begin to feel stressed too - and to focus on issues that might be troubling us.

And Professor Hatfield found that not only do we take on other people's negative thought patterns, we can also start to subconsciously take on their stressed out body language, causing us to hunch our shoulders and furrow our brows when we talk to them.

"In conversation, people automatically and continuously mimic and synchronise their movements with the facial expressions, voices, postures, movements, and instrumental behaviors of others", Professor Hatfield says.

In doing so, people can and do "feel themselves into" the emotional landscapes others are suffering.

"Some people are oblivious and therefore immune to the stress around them", she said.

"Women are more at risk because they tend to be more in tune to other people's feelings", Prof. Hatfield adds.據英國《每日郵報》11月8日報道，來自夏威夷大學的心理學教授伊蓮•哈特菲爾德發現，壓力會像感冒那樣傳染，“消極的”或是“二手的”壓力和焦慮會在工作場合迅速蔓延開來。

哈特菲爾德說：“人們似乎會以驚人的速度模仿他人的面部表情、聲音和姿勢。”

“因此，他們會覺得自己極大程度上融入了他人的情感生活。”

哈特菲爾德教授的研究發現，我們都像是高效的海綿，吸收了周圍人發出的所謂的感染性情緒。

當我們吸收了別人的壓力，我們自己也會開始感到緊張——並且會關注那些可能困擾我們的問題。

哈特菲爾德教授發現，我們不僅僅會接收他人消極的思維模式，還會開始下意識地接收他們緊張的肢體語言，這使得我們在與他們交談時也會聳起肩膀，皺着眉頭。

“在交談中，人們會自動地不斷模仿，並使自己和他人在面部表情、聲音、姿勢、動作和其他輔助性行爲上保持同步。”哈特菲爾德教授說。

這樣做，人們會感到自己融入了他人正在經歷的情感世界。

“有些人無視他們周圍的壓力，因此能夠免疫”，她說。

“女性更容易遭遇這種感染壓力的風險，因爲她們往往會更加顧及別人的感受”，哈特菲爾德教授補充道。