A study of the phenomenon of emotion contagion, or the communication of mood to others.

Just as laughter is infectious, so is depression. Based on groundbreaking research and clinical advances at his highly respected Center for Mood Disorders in Los Angeles, Dr. Ronald Podell offers support and reassurance for the millions of people who suffer in the shadow of a loved one's depression.

Picking up where The Tipping Point leaves off, respected journalist Lee Daniel Kravetz’s Strange Contagion is a provocative look at both the science and lived experience of social contagion. In 2009, tragedy struck the town of Palo Alto: A student from the local high school had died by suicide by stepping in front of an oncoming train. Grief-stricken, the community mourned what they thought was an isolated loss. Until, a few weeks later, it happened again. And again. And again. In six months, the high school lost five students to suicide at those train tracks. A recent transplant to the community and a new father himself, Lee Daniel Kravetz’s experience as a science journalist kicked in: what was causing this tragedy? More important, how was it possible that a suicide cluster could develop in a community of concerned, aware, hyper-vigilant adults? The answer? Social contagion. We all know that ideas, emotions, and actions are communicable—from mirroring someone’s posture to mimicking their speech patterns, we are all driven by unconscious motivations triggered by our environment. But when just the right physiological, psychological, and social factors come together, we get what Kravetz calls a "strange contagion:" a perfect storm of highly common social viruses that, combined, form a highly volatile condition. Strange Contagion is simultaneously a moving account of one community’s tragedy and a rigorous investigation of social phenomenon, as Kravetz draws on research and insights from experts worldwide to unlock the mystery of how ideas spread, why they take hold, and offer thoughts on our responsibility to one another as citizens of a globally and perpetually connected world.

Emotional mimicry has important social functions such as signalling affiliative intent and fostering rapport, and is considered one of the cornerstones of successful interactions. This multidisciplinary overview of research into emotional mimicry and empathy explores when, how and why emotional mimicry occurs.

Exploring the connections between technology, emotions, and behaviors is increasingly important as we spend more and more time online and in digital environments. Technology, Emotions, and Behavior explains the role of technology in the evolution of both emotions and behaviors, and their interaction with each other. It discusses emotion modeling, distraction, and contagion as related to digital narrative and virtual spaces. It examines issues of trust and technology, behaviors used by individuals who are cut off from technology, and how individuals use technology to cope after disasters such as Hurricane Sandy. Technology, Emotions and Behaviors ends by exploring the construct of empathy and perspective-taking through online videos and socially shared activities. Practitioners and researchers will find this text useful in their work. - Reviews the intersection between emotional contagion and emotional socialization theory in virtual interactions - Examines cross-cultural communicative feedback - Discusses the multi-dimensions of trust in technology - Covers "digilante" rhetoric and its emotional appeal - Devotes an entire section to cyberbullying

Tourism is facing a new paradigm that has been brought on by the introduction of experiences in the development, management, and promotion of tourism. Associating experiences to tourism destination and products allows tourists to relate to their vacations differently and helps to fuel a destination’s competitiveness and compliance with new needs and motivations that are being driven by the tourists. When properly design, managed, and developed, tourism experiences can contribute to the destination’s overall sustainability by maximining tourism’s positive impacts and fostering their spillover to local communities. Planning and Managing the Experience Economy in Tourism is an essential reference book that seeks to advance research on tourism experience as well as investigate how tourism experiences can create and increase tourism competitiveness. The book explores how the experience concept has evolved in the last decade, alongside the needs and motivations of consumers, and how it can be conceptualized, designed, managed, and implemented both at the tourism firm and destination levels. Delving further into concepts like creative tourism, destination attributes, and smart experiences, this book serves as a dynamic resource for travel agencies, tourism managers, tourism professionals, marketers, destination managers, government officials, policymakers, academicians, students, tourism officials, planners, and researchers.

Upper Saddle River, N.J. : Creative Homeowner,