In The Transmission of Affect, Teresa Brennan "deals with the belief that the emotions and engergies of one person or group can be absorbed by or can enter directly into another". Brennan uses the example of walking into a room and feeling the atmosphere, i.e. feeling tension if two people had been arguing before you came in. I was more interested in Brennan's discussion on transmission in groups though. Brennan goes through a brief history on the topic before offering her own views on it and in later chapters, the implications of the notion of the transmission of affect ("My affect, if it comes across to you, alters your anatomical makeup for good or ill" (Brennan 74)). Brennan discusses the idea of entrainment or "the concrete mechanisms of transmission" (Brennan 68). The notion of images and sound affecting you and tying you to a crowd was somewhat familiar to me; the idea that pheromones can affect you in the same way was wholly different. It gave me a whole new outlook on the expression "smelling fear" since, apparently, you literally can smell fear.
I wish there had been more on the topic of crowd violence with specific examples. It's always seemed obvious to me that being part of a crowd lended itself some anonymity, thus allowing people to do things they normally wouldn't. I know that I often get caught up in the crowd during a sports event, whether I'm at the event live or watching it on TV with other people. Sometimes there's a weird situation where I'm caught up in the action that I'm seeing on TV while I remain oblivious to the fact that everyone else in the room is pretty bored. Situations like that support the idea that images are powerful in terms of entrainment but it also supports the idea of "feeling" the atmosphere since the only way I noticed my peers' change in mood was through an odd, somewhat intangible feeling.
It's a pretty curious thing, especially in the context of distant relations via text. I say this because I've recently taken the habit of watching online game matches, and the primary vehicle for the audience, that isn't at the location to begin with, is text via a chatroom. Yet while it's just text, the way it scrolls, the words, everything about it creates a kind of excitement for those getting into it in the same way watching a sporting event on a TV does. And of course, these are done with almost total anonymity so this often goes to extremes.
ReplyDeleteAn interesting idea about the anonymity of affect is the nature of chat roulette.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwnCJbf7SD8
Watch that video to understand the rest of what I am going to say. It seems as though the the distant and anonymous nature of chat roulette eliminates the transmission of affect. No one seems to be affected by anyone else, they are simply in pursuit of something that is attractive. I wonder what that says about affect in terms of needing a more tangible median.. maybe the internet doesn't suffice? Rather than responding to the complex nature of interaction, emotion, and affect we discuss so heavily in rhetoric, people are simply responding to biological cues (and arguably personal taste) that indicate what is physically attractive.
This entire idea of entrainment is really fascinating to me in the way that people become "aligned." There's something really interesting about the way people take on each other's attitudes and form one in unison. This seems to explain groupthink a lot. I remember studying the psychology of groups when I was in high school and I though it was so weird how people would totally abandon their individuality, even if it meant abandoning their beliefs and morals just to be part of a group. What is weirder is that people abandon these fundamentals about themselves subconsciously - they don't even realize it sometimes. I think Brennan's theory of olfaction really helps to explain this phenomenon. But as for people that are not immediately together, her ideas about images and sounds seem to help explain it. While rhythm helps to unite word and affect, images and sounds that are rhythmic could possibly have the same internal effects on a person's biochemistry that influences their affect. So if a bunch of people are seeing the same image, hearing the same sounds, but aren't necessarily together, in each other's presence, they may still become part of a group - maybe, this suggests that there is a similar, kind of default way we react of are affected by things, which may help explain group psychology.
ReplyDeleteHey ERic, I wrote in my blog how i went to my greatgrandmother's funeral when I was like 6 years old. I didn't know my great grandmother at all, but when my mom broken down into tears, so did it. I spent that day sad because those around me were sad. That's an example of what you discussed about Brennan in your first paragraph.
ReplyDeleteTo comment on your second paragraph, I normally get really involved when I watch sports at home, especially basketball games. I've noticed though, that television networks do a lot to create a group mind for individuals watching at home. When your watching a basketball game and the clip comes up of the star player making a comment about his team. He uses the pronouns of "you" and "we" to make viewers feel connected. If you notice, you normally become much more excited and cheer even louder when the game resumes, though you're still at home in your living room.