Stay away from the friend who treats you as an "emotional dustbin".
Stay away from the friend who treats you as an "emotional dustbin".
During the morning rush hour on the subway, A was squeezed against the door and managed to take out their phone with difficulty. The familiar avatar in the phone was piled up with unread red dots again - it was an old friend from their school days.
Recently, each message has been full - screen voice messages. From workplace conflicts to emotional crises, mixed with trivial details repeated many times. When A sent a hugging emoji in an attempt to end the conversation, the other party immediately replied with a string of "It's all over" and "I can't go on living". The finger hovering over the send button trembled slightly.
A seems to have become a one - sided emotional dustbin for their friend.
In 2012, Facebook conducted an experiment. They carried out an emotional manipulation experiment on 690,000 users: dividing the users into two groups. One group was pushed positive and pleasant content, while the other group was pushed negative and pessimistic content. The results showed that those users who were pushed more happy content were more likely to express positive emotions in their own posts; while the users who were pushed pessimistic content had significantly more negative emotions in their posts [1].
Emotions can spread like a virus, seeping into people's psychological world through the cold screen.
You may not be empathizing, but replicating emotions.
The contagiousness of emotions may be more powerful than we think.
The authors of Emotional Contagion, psychotherapists Elaine and Richard, unexpectedly found after a joint interview that Elaine was affected by Richard's anxiety. She even mistakenly thought that she was incompetent and failed to provide help at a crucial moment, ultimately leading to a "failed" therapy.
Even professionals can hardly avoid the influence of emotional resonance. So, how exactly does this "emotional contagion" occur?
Part of the answer lies in the brain.
Scientists have discovered that there is a special group of cells in our nervous system - mirror neurons. When we observe the emotions of others, these neurons will automatically simulate the other person's feelings, making us unconsciously infected.
A Swedish experiment monitored the facial expressions of college students and found that when they interacted with others, their facial expressions and emotions would unconsciously synchronize. This reaction is even unconscious, and our facial muscles and body postures are almost the same as those of others. This is not limited to facial expressions. Even our body postures and tones will change with the emotions of others [2].
Imagine that your friend has just had a fierce argument with their lover and comes to you full of grievances to pour out their heart. You patiently listen and comfort them with "Don't be too sad", but when you get home, the picture of their argument keeps playing in your mind, and you even start to feel inexplicably irritable.
This is not an accident, but the "psychological projection" at work. Your brain instinctively simulates their experience, making you feel as if you have personally experienced a relationship conflict.
This "imagined empathy" can not only deepen the connection between people but also become an emotional burden, making it impossible for you to detach from other people's problems and even inadvertently amplifying your own anxiety.
In the long run, the emotions of the listener will become more and more exhausted, while the friend may not really get help to solve the problem.
Maybe you are experiencing the re - enactment of trauma.
If mirror neurons make us unconsciously "repeat" other people's emotions, then conditioned reflexes allow the influence of emotions to play a role over a longer period of time.
If a child grows up in the anxiety and anger of their parents every day, they are more likely to be affected by the negative emotions of others when they grow up. The father's tiredness after work, the mother's silence in the kitchen, and the cold atmosphere at the dinner table will all make the child internalize anxiety invisibly, and even unconsciously repeat such an emotional pattern when they grow up [2].
Similarly, this re - enactment of trauma may manifest itself in various interpersonal relationships. When we repeatedly receive the negative energy of others, the brain may mistakenly think that this is a "daily task" that we should be responsible for.
For those who have long been regarded as emotional dustbins by their friends, their bodies will be like having a switch pressed: every time a new message pops up in the dialog box, their heart rate starts to accelerate; when they see long voice boxes or specific emojis, their stomachs tighten reflexively.
When the pain of others becomes the trigger point for our negative emotions, we may also fall into this endless emotional cycle.
Emotions are fluid. We receive them from friends and family and unconsciously spread them outward. The neural mechanisms of the brain, psychological resonance, and conditioned reflexes work together, making emotions rise and fall among people like tides.
Social media has created an era of "emotional overload".
Some people may feel it necessary to share their traumatic experiences with friends, family, colleagues, or acquaintances, but they do not fully understand the severity or intensity of what they are about to share. Or they think they are talking about something in a very calm manner, but actually show intense emotional reactions during the communication.
This situation is usually called "trauma dumping", which means pouring out deep - seated traumas or uneasiness to others without considering whether they are ready or able to bear it [4].
In the "always - online" field created by social media, trauma dumping shows stronger and more destructive spread.
The negative emotions between friends are no longer restricted by physical space. Think about it. When you wake up, what you see is the other person's late - night emo private message; there is no need to consider the other person's expression and feelings when dumping emotional garbage; the emotions and stories that originally needed days of brewing are simplified into fragmented catharsis such as long voice messages and texts.
Catherine Maslach's research on "emotional fatigue" also reveals that people who are in a state of "carrying" others' emotions for a long time are prone to feeling emotionally exhausted and experiencing increased psychological stress [5].
In addition, in modern society, the high emotionality of social media makes trauma dumping more likely to occur. This unfiltered leakage of emotions has penetrated into the digital space and become a part of our lives.
Do you feel inexplicably depressed while scrolling through social platforms? Maybe it's because you have absorbed the negative emotions of the online public.
The original intention of trauma dumping may be to seek warmth and resonance, but under the spread of social media, it may trigger an emotional fire that burns others.
Who is more likely to create an "emotional whirlpool"?
We often hear the evaluation that "someone's emotions are very contagious".
Those people with violent emotional fluctuations who always arouse others' resonance seem to have a kind of "emotional contagiousness". Whether it's attracting attention at a party or invisibly driving the atmosphere of the whole team at work. Who exactly are the people creating these emotional whirlpools?
In Emotional Contagion, the researchers point out that people with high contagiousness usually have three key characteristics: strong emotional perception, explicit expressiveness, and a low sensitivity barrier. This combination enables their emotions to almost "spread" to everyone around them. These people often have a strong desire for self - expression and long to attract others' attention and recognition through explicit emotional expressions [2].
Occasionally, there are such friends who always complain about all the shortcomings of their partners. From "he/she leaves socks everywhere" to "not caring at all about anniversaries", they even copy and paste the same story in different group chats. This high - frequency and high - intensity emotional output essentially aims to obtain continuous emotional recognition through others' empathy for their own experiences.
Based on the degree of emotional influence, psychologist Verbeck divides people into four types: charismatic, empathetic, generous, and indifferent. Each type of person plays a different role in the process of emotional transmission and reception, and their "output" and "input" of energy also have their own characteristics [3].
Charismatic: They are both "transmitters" and "receivers" of emotions. They have rich and changeable emotions, sometimes happy, sometimes angry, and sometimes in deep thought. Charismatic people are easily influenced by the emotions of others, and at the same time, they can also drive the emotional changes of others. For example, a friend with a natural aura can always spread positive emotions in the circle of friends, even making people can't help but laugh out or be infected by their nervous emotions.
Empathetic: This type of person is very sensitive to the emotions of others and often easily empathizes. Compared with the changeable emotions of the charismatic type, empathetic people more often find their own images in the emotions of others and are quickly infected by others' emotions. For example, when a friend tells her troubles, an empathetic person will immediately feel a heavy resonance, and their emotions will also be affected accordingly.
Generous: People of this type usually have stable emotions and are not easily influenced by external emotional fluctuations. They are not very prominent in the group and do not easily show strong emotional reactions, so their emotions will not have a great impact on others. Generous people can maintain a certain degree of emotional neutrality to some extent. They neither actively infect others nor are easily driven by the emotional fluctuations of others.
Indifferent: Indifferent people are like "insulators" of emotions. They hardly respond to external emotional signals. Especially when others' emotions fluctuate violently, indifferent people seem to be more focused on their own inner world. Such people may seem a bit cold in social situations, but in fact, they are not lacking in emotions. They are just better at self - regulation and have a stronger ability to resist external emotional interference.
Different personalities have different emotional influences in the group. Charismatic and empathetic people are more sensitive in the process of emotional contagion due to their own characteristics, while generous and indifferent people maintain relatively independent emotions.
In these emotional whirlpools, no one is completely a bystander. We become transmitters of emotions and lose ourselves in the emotional fluctuations of others.
In conclusion
Martin Seligman, the father of positive psychology, once said, "In the face of negative emotions, if you don't have a strong mind to digest them, then silently distancing yourself and blocking them is the best choice."
We are always pursuing warm relationships, but often forget that care needs a measure. Establishing relationship boundaries is not coldness, but a sober kind of gentleness.
When a good friend cries about marriage problems again, you can replace "Don't be sad, it will get better" with "Do you think it would be helpful to talk to a marriage counselor?" When facing an old classmate who continuously dumps negative emotions, try to change "I completely understand how you feel" to "Then what do you think would make it better?" When you are running out of energy, being honest and saying "I'm a bit tired now. Can we talk tomorrow morning?" is often better for the relationship than forcing yourself to stay up late.
On those days full of confusion and pain, I believe that most people are still willing to accompany their friends. It's just that I hope that the next time before listening to others' stories, you first ask yourself whether you will be hurt.
If so, bravely say "no" to the other person's negative energy - while spreading warmth, don't forget to warm your own palms.
Kramer， A. D. I.， Guillory， J. E.， & Hancock， J. T. (2014). Experimental evidence of massive-scale emotional contagion through social networks. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences， 111(24)， 8788-8790.
Hatfield， E.， Cacioppo， J. T.， & Rapson， R. L. (1993). The emotional contagion. Cambridge University Press.
Verbeke， W. (1997). Individual differences in emotional contagion of salespersons: Its effect on performance and burnout. Psychology & Marketing， 14(6)， 617–636
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-02-trauma-dumping-social-media-distress.html
Maslach， C. A. (2003). The truth about burnout: How organizations cause personal stress and what to do about it. Jossey-Bass.