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than neutral messages, and those messages have a greater impact on attitudes, butonly for readers who are sports fans. For other readers, the sports metaphorsbackfired, attenuating interest and considerably reducing persuasion. 71Fortunately, we don’t have to depend on metaphors of any kind to establish empathywith an audience. A smile often will do. People tend to mirror each other. In fact, thereare “dedicated ‘mirror neurons’ in the brain.” 72Smiling at someone will prompt them tosmile back, that is unless they have concluded that our smile is insincere or our motivesare questionable. 73“We are probably not able consciously to mimic others very effectively; the process issimply too complex and too fast.” 74Trying to mimic others probably makes us lookphony. 75But when we mimic the facial expressions of another person, flexing ourmuscles into characteristic emotional expressions actually produces the effects on theautonomic nervous system that accompany the emotion. “Thus, facial expressionsseem[] to be capable of generating appropriate [autonomic nervous system] arousal.” 76In that way and others, “people do in fact catch one another’s emotions….” 77Theprocess has been called “emotional contagion.” 7871 Id. at 191.72 Cuddy, supra note 36 at 52.73 Id.74 E. Hatfield, R.L. Rapson, and Y-C.L. Le, “Emotional Contagion and Empathy,” in Jean Decety & WilliamIckes, The Social Neuroscience of Empathy 19, 21 (2011).75 Id.76 Id. at 23.77 Id. at 25.78 Id. at 19.35