Experts describe the phenomenon as “compassionate stress”
Stress, like yawning, can be contagious, DPA reported, citing the results of a German study.
Its authors from the Institute for Cognitive and Brain Science in Leipzig and their colleagues from the Dresden Institute of Technology have found that when a person observes another in a stressful situation, his body releases the stress hormone cortisol.
Experts describe the phenomenon as “compassionate stress”.
For the study, researchers subjected 151 people to stressors – various environmental factors that cause stress to the body, such as complex mental calculations or job interviews.
The test subjects were combined in pairs, either with a loved one or a stranger of the opposite sex, who watched them in “real life” through a one-way mirror or through a live video broadcast.
Overall, 26 percent of observers reported a “significant increase” in cortisol levels.
In particular, the increase was 40 percent when the test subject was a loved one compared to 10 percent for a stranger, and 30 percent in “real” observation versus 24 percent in “virtual” observation.
“This means that even television programs that show us other people’s suffering transmit this stress to us,” said Veronica Engert of the research team.
