Part Two: Chapter 8, The Social Arts Summary and Analysis

Being able to control one's own emotions enables one to manage the emotions of others and thus to handle relationships. As children grow, they are taught which emotions to express and when to express them. This is what researcher Paul Ekman calls 'display rules'. He names three kinds: minimizing, exaggerating and substituting. In each kind, the display of emotion is dictated by empathy, such as being polite to an authority figure regardless of one's true feelings toward that figure.

Research by Swedish researcher Ulf Dimberg found that expressions of emotion are contagious with the transfer of mood coming from the more forcefully expressive person to others. Coordination of moods through physical means is the essence of feeling good about an encounter.

Charisma, that supreme display of rapport, combines four separate interpersonal...