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Aquatus1

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Emotional Contagion


aquatus1

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  There is a popular cartoon, by the name of Adventure Time, which featured an arc in which the reigning princess was deposed in an election by a waxy blonde con man.  As the arc continued, the newly elected king began to mimic, in certain ways, the image of the original princess, to the point that, in the final episode before he was deposed, he was proudly wearing her clothing.

  I found this arc to be very amusing because of the open display of what is known as Emotional Contagion.  Emotional contagion is a phenomena where a particular person (or group) influences the emotions of another person or group through the use of tactics designed to invoke the same feelings in the target group that the originators have.  In other words, the waxy usurper wanted to be the princess of the realm, and wanted others to view him as they viewed the princess, and therefore began dressing as the princess.  The purpose of the mimicry was to invoke the same feeling of respect the people felt for the princess towards the wax king.

  This is a surprisingly common behavior in humans, and like all behaviors, comes in varying degrees.  At a lower level, we are all familiar with the workplace advice of "Dress for the position you want, not the position you are in".  At a higher level, we get dictators referring to themselves as "Private Citizen #1".

  It is a rather basic emotion, really, one easily overridden, but (as it is largely instinctive), not easily disposed of.  It is, actually, something of a sign of weakness in many cultures, sometimes interpreted as a sign of insecurity or lack of original thought.  People are quick to point out that Melania Trump was wearing an outfit incredibly similar to that of Jacqueline Kennedy, and that Trump's inauguration cake was "plagiarized" from Obama's.  The typical defense to accusations of this type is also fairly well-known, and summed up in the old joke: "I'm not stealing their idea.  It's an homage.  Now, what are we homaging next?"

  The use of mimicry is not necessarily always the use of emotional contagion.  In the case of Trump, it may simply be that his team was completely unprepared for actually winning the election and had to rush things, and so simply went with the tactic of copying everything the previous administration did with their inauguration (Melania's case is a bit more difficult, as she has been raised in a world of fashion and modeling since she was 5, and mimicry has a far different meaning in her world).  It may well be that Trump is not intentionally trying to use the emotional contagion tactic, however, being that we know he is both familiar with and a common user of emotional tactics in general, it cannot be discounted that he is attempting it intentionally.

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