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