The research on contagion underscores the fact that we use multiple means to gain information about others' emotional states: Conscious analytic skills can help us figure out what makes other people "tick". But if we pay careful attention to the emotions we experience in the company of others, we may well gain an extra edge into "feeling ourselves" into the emotional states of others. Both provide invaluable information. In fact there is evidence that both what we think and what we feel may provide valuable, and different, information about others. In one study, for example, Hatfield and her colleagues2 found that people's conscious assessments of what others "must be" feeling were heavily influenced by what the others said. People's own emotions, however, were more influenced by the others' non-verbal clues as to what they were really feeling. http://www.elainehatfield.com/ch50.pdf www.peoplewho.org