


For example, some individuals tend to feel relaxed regardless of what comes their way, while others are almost always anxious. Everyone experiences a range of emotions-anger, sadness, happiness-but people usually fall back pretty quickly to their emotional baseline. An intriguing new study, however, suggests the opposite: everyone seems to have a tangible impact, changing other people's feelings in consistent ways.įor years much of the research on personality and emotion has focused on a phenomenon known as trait affect-a person's habitual feeling state. There is no shortage of examples of people who have an undeniable influence on everyone around them, but the common wisdom has been that such individuals are rare.

Charismatic leaders such as Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., have been known to inspire entire nations, whereas so-called toxic individuals make life hell for anyone who comes close. ELVIS PRESLEY'S mere presence caused teenage girls to scream and faint by the dozens.
