The more stronly connected we are with someone emotionally, the greater the mutual force. Our most potent exchange occur with those people with who, we spend the greatest amount of time day in and day out, years after years, particularly those we care about the most

Nourishing relationships have a beneficial impact on our health, while toxic ones can act like slow poison in our bodies

Wearing a headphones blocks us feom contact with other, it acts as an excuse to avoid connection with others

A survey of American workers found during their vacation 34% check in with their office so much that they come back as stressed or more sothan they were when they left

We catch strong emotions much as we do a rhinovirus, and so can come down with the emotional equivalent of a cold

By evening the net balance of feelings we have exchanged largely determines what kind of day- good or bad- we feel we’ve had

The low road lets us immediately feel with someone else, high road can think about what we feel

Our world may be filled with mood triggers that we fail to notice

Our neural airing transmits our every minor mood onto the muscles of our face, making our feelings instantly visible

Emotion read much into a person’s gaze. Most people sense this intuitively, and so folk wisdom advises us to check if someone “looks us in the eye” as a gauge whether he might be lying

Liars pay most attention to their choice of words, censoring what they say, and less to their choice of facial expression

Our partner will make a larger emotional shift to converge with the other: the partner who has less power

Rapport feels good, generating the harmonious glow of being simpatico, a sense of friendliness where each person feels the other’s warmth, understanding, and genuiness

The ability to get synch as we did when we were babies serves us theough life, guiding us in every social interaction

Synchrony works best when it is spontaneous, not constructed from ulterior motives such as ingratiation or any other conscious intention

Mirror neurons reflect back an action we observe in someone else, making us mimic that action or have the impulse to do so

Laughter may be the shortest distance between two brains, an unstoppable infectious spread that builds an isntant social bond

In the absence of a power hierarchy, the persom with the most emotionally expressive face will set the shared tone

Just hearing about someone lending a helping hand can have a unique impact, inducing a warm sense of uplift

When someone sees an act of kindness, it typically stirs in them the impulse to perform one, too

When we focus on ourselves, our world contracts as our problems and preoccupations look large. But when we focus in others, our world expands

When we see someone else suffering, it make us instantly feel with them

People give to charities in part because of the pleasure they get from imagining either the relief of those they benefit or their own relief from alleviating their sympathetic distress

The more saddened people were by the plight of a displaced oprhan, the more likely they were to donate money or even offer the child temporary place to live, regardless of how much social distance they felt

Much decision making goes on within moments of meeting someone for the first time.

As we alter our perceptions, we can change our emotions

Even just naming emotions we feel can calm the amygdala

Even though we can stop talking, we cannot stop sending signals (our tone, fleeting expression) about what we feel

Intentionally paying more attention to someone may be the best way to encourage the emergence if rapport

Artfully expressive people are viewed by others as confidnet and likable and in general make favorable impression

Empathy alone matters little if we fail to act

Microexpression reveal how a person truly feels at the moment

If being treated as an It (object) unnerves us so, then those who always regard others as such are particularly disturbing

Narcissists, though bored by routine, flourish when they are facing a difficult challenge

Productive narcissists combine a justified self confidence with openness to criticism, at least to criticism that comes from confidants

Employees who themselves gain ego inflation from belonging will bend the truth willingly, in exchange for the rosy feelings of group self adulation

Many narcissists attract people because the self confidence they exude can lend them a charismatic aura

For the Machiavellian, the ends justify the means, no matter what human oain he may cause. They prefers to see things clearly, all the better to exploit them. They are generally poorer af empathic attunement fhan others

A psychopath’s consistent irresponsibility begets no remorse, only indifference fo the emotional pain others may suffer

When it comes to empathy, psychopaths have none, they have difficulty recognizinf fear pr sadness in people’s faces or in their voices

Some criminal psychopaths make a point of reading self help books to better learn how to manipulate their targets

Pride is a social emotion because it encourages us to do what others will laud, while the shame and guikt keeo us in line by serving as internal punishments for social misdemeanors

For borcherds, Communication is purely functional, find out what you need from someone and forget the small talk, let alone telling them what you are feeling or finding out how they are doing

Having kindsight demands these basic skills: distinguising oneself from others, understanding that someone else can think differently from oneself and perceive situations from another perspective, and realizing that their aims may not be in one’s iwn best interest

The more nurturing the mother, the ore quick witted, confident, and darless the pup will become: the less nurturing she is, the slower to learn and more overwhelmed by threats the pup will be

When parents act with empathy and are responsive to a child’s needs, they build a basic sense of security

The secret lies not in avoiding life’s inevitable frustrations and upsets but in learning to recover from them. The faster the recovery, the greater the child’s capacity for joyfulness

Animals who had more nurturing in their upbringing will view strange place as an opportunity. They will explore it more freely and be more outgoing

The goal for parenting should not be achieving a brittle positive psychology, clinging to a state of perpetual joy in one’s children, but rather teaching a child how to return on her own to a state of contenment, whatever may happen

If youngsters are exposed to stresses they learn to handle, this mastery becomes imprinted in their neural circuitry, leaving them more resilient when facing stress as adults

Children whi are well nurtured and feel their caretakers empathize with them become secure in their attachments, neither overly clinging nor pushing away. But those whose parents negoect their feelings and who feel ignored become avoidsnt, as though they have given up hope of achieving a caring connection. And children whose parents are akbivalent, unprediactably flipping from rage to tenderness, become anxious and insecure

When the penis gets hard, the brain goes soft

Scientists have found that the scent if a man’s perspiratiin can have remarkable effects on women’s emotions, brightening their moods, relaxing them, and raising their levels of the luteinizing reproductive hormones fhst being in ovulation

The more a couple can be apart, the more they can be together

Extremely high levels of testosterone, make men mire likely to treat another person as merely sexual object. It also makes them troubling maritsl partners

Ideally, both partners should be able to switch fluidly from one role to the other, providing solace or haven, or receiving it, as needed

The more a person felt his or her partner ti be a dependable “home base”, the more willing they were to pursue life’s opportunities with confidence

Secure people are more likely than others to be actively caring in their relationships, whether as mothers helping their children, romatic partners offering emotional support, etc

Workers who feel unfairly criticized, or whose boss will not listen to their problems, have a rate of coronary heart disease 30% higher than those who feel treated fairly

Of all sorts of stress, the worst by far was when someone was the target of harsh criticism and was helpless ro do anything about it

Dropping unrewarding social ties may be a preemptive move to manage our own emotional states for the better

When a woman held her husband’s hand, she felt far less anxiety than when she faced the shock alone

Women with close friend and confidante are more likely to escape any new physical impairments or loss of vitality

Even with dying people, insensitive messages from doctors can sometimes engender more emotional suffering than the illness itself

The greater anxiety we feel , the more impaired is fhe brain’s cognitive efficiency

Compliments and irritation works together in pursuing the highest level of effieciency

Simply acknowledging another’s point of view defuses the toxicity

Supportive connections prevent crime

As we get more money, we adapt our expectstions upward, and so we aspire to ever more lofty and expensive pleasures, a treadmill that never ends, even for billionaires