Psychologist Rijn Vogelaar (1969) felt a slight panic. As a market researcher, he was talking to a top client from a law firm, which paid him handsomely to find out what could be improved about their services. But the customer had nothing to complain about. It was a scenario that did not appear in the standardized questionnaires. To fill the hour differently, Vogelaar started by asking how the man came to be so satisfied. There turned out to be a moving story behind it, about how the office had saved him from bankruptcy seven years ago.
After the conversation, a light came on for Vogelaar. The client had already referred twenty new customers to the office; why are super enthusiastic people not the focus of market research? He wrote the book there, The Super Promoter (2009) about. It became – somewhat unexpectedly – an international bestseller and Vogelaar was allowed to travel the world to give lectures about his insights. In the meantime, he continued to do market research and more management books were published.
Only one thing continued to bother him: the lack of scientific research into enthusiasm. So in 2018, Vogelaar started a PhD program at the psychology faculty in Leiden. “I wanted to fundamentally investigate the emotion: what is it and why is it a separate emotion, different from, for example, hope and joy, with which it has similarities.”
He will receive his PhD at the end of May, while a new book about digital well-being at work was published last year. In his home office in the Oude Noorden in Rotterdam, where he also coaches top athletes, CEOs and artists who have ‘lost their fire’, he talks about his thesis, which starts with a Greek bathroom scene.
“Archimedes steps into the bath, which is too full and overflowing. At that moment he discovers the law of buoyancy, runs out naked and shouts, ‘Eureka’. This is often seen as a moment of inspiration or creativity, but this is enthusiasm in pure form: you have an idea and you immediately want to share it with everyone.”
Can you help people get their enthusiasm back?
“In a sense, you could say that enthusiasm is the opposite of listlessness, lethargy and indifference. Many people now suffer from this. Pressure, digital overload and a brain that is constantly on cause fatigue and poor sleep. These are all things that negatively affect enthusiasm. The question then is whether something is going on that means you can no longer feel enthusiasm. When was the last time you were really enthusiastic? Someone I coach answered: three years ago.”
Is enthusiasm an indicator of good mental health?
“Well, there’s something a bit manic about enthusiasm, isn’t it? Very enthusiastic people can be vulnerable to overstrain. Because they tackle a lot, get inspired by a lot of things. On the other hand, you feel it when you start to lose it. That’s a signal that things are going in the wrong direction. In that respect, it is the canary in the coal mine. But there is a golden middle, halfway between lethargy and hyperactivity.”
In your dissertation you write that your enthusiasm is not necessary fakebecause it then has the opposite effect.
“Yes, you see that with managers, but especially in education. The enthusiasm of the teacher in front of the class has the most influence on the vitality of students and whether they become inspired and interested by the material. But you also saw: when teachers pretend, students immediately sense it, and it is bad for the well-being of the teacher. He is completely exhausted in the evening.”
Enthusiasm is by definition an emotion that requires energy
Why is it so tiring?
“Pretending consumes a lot of energy. Enthusiasm is by definition an emotion that costs energy, especially compared to other positive emotions such as happiness or gratitude. This is because the function of enthusiasm, from an evolutionary perspective, is to get you moving. If that is intrinsic, then that is great and it happens naturally. But if it is imposed by yourself or your manager, you can quickly burn out.”
I suddenly think of Emile Ratelband.
“You can always boost yourself up, athletes do that all the time. Think of Jutta Leerdam who beats her chest just before the start. Positivity gurus like Emile Ratelband do that to the extreme: you boost yourself up and walk over hot coals. But that is temporary. The more important question is where your natural enthusiasm lies. What can you do all day and still come home energetic?”
Enthusiasm is often seen as something childish, you write.
“Children have it in its pure form. I often give the example of my son, who from one day to the next I was no longer allowed to give a hug in the schoolyard. Because somewhere between the ages of 5 and 8, the social environment starts to determine how you show your emotions and even how you experience them. We are getting more and more enthusiasm inhibitors in our lives. You are in secondary school and you get one failing grade – that is where all the attention is focused. And so more and more layers are added. You are still an enthusiastic child, but you have learned not to show that childishness everywhere. Because that is vulnerable and you can be judged for that or you will not be taken seriously.”
And this is how we lose enthusiasm?
“We hide it deeper. Because if there is something that you are super enthusiastic about, but you are afraid that people will think it is stupid, you don’t show it anymore. We lose our creativity if we no longer look for what is inside us and wants to get out. While it is those crazy ideas that make us human. I once gave poetry lessons at a secondary school. I thought that the gymnasium students would be the most interested, but many did not dare to recite their own poem. They were already too involved in it. straitjacket. Students at secondary vocational education felt much freer, they were not yet so stuck in the system.”
Enthusiasm has a bit of a dubious history, you write in your dissertation.
“The word comes from the Greek entheos; possessed by a deity. Socrates used the word for the enthusiasm of the poet, who was the mouthpiece of the gods. The Catholic Church initially adopted enthusiasm as something divine in the Middle Ages, but with the rise of other religions and sects, enthusiasm gained a reputation as dangerous because it moves people towards competing ideas. Immanuel Kant first drew enthusiasm from the religious domain and identified enthusiasm as a necessary catalyst to bring about change, using the French Revolution as an example. Although he also immediately said that it is a bit crazy, something you have to be careful of. And this is evident when enthusiasm during National Socialism is hijacked by Nazi Germany.”
Well-founded objections.
“Enthusiasm can indeed be abused. Ultimately, enthusiasm itself has no morality. It depends on the purpose for which it is used. Philosopher Coen Simon wrote the book Plea against enthusiasm. He states that the same mechanism of the German propaganda machine is now being deployed by advertising agencies and influencers. I also see that enthusiasm is often abused or imposed. YouTube determines which videos you see because the algorithm knows what makes you enthusiastic. As a result, even the evolutionary function of enthusiasm to get you going can be lost. Because after a cool guitar video you will be distracted by a cute cat video before you even pick up your guitar. This way you are kept in a dopamine loop, without taking action.”
What I did not expect is that the perceived enthusiasm is higher in collectivist countries
You yourself worked for a market research agency for a long time. Isn’t that the enemy when it comes to hijacking attention?
“It of course depends on what it is used for. We did research for the government and for Sire. Also for Heineken, by the way, but yes, I also like to drink a beer. There are always moral considerations.”
Is enthusiasm also culturally determined?
“I have done research in 51 different countries. What I did not expect is that the perceived enthusiasm is higher in collectivist countries. In my research I have been able to empirically demonstrate that contagiousness is a central element of enthusiasm. Probably in countries where social connectedness is stronger, enthusiasm is felt more, precisely because it is such a social emotion. While I expected that enthusiasm would be less suppressed in individualistic countries, because we are free in our expression. But as a public speaker, it is striking that in Southern European countries, but with especially Asian countries, people react much more enthusiastically. They move along. They sit on the edge of their seats and radiate that they are very interested. In India they really move their heads back and forth, at first I thought: they shook their heads no, but they are just very enthusiastic.”
How do you explain that big difference?
“Maybe the Calvinist nature? The cool climate? I haven’t researched that. But in the Netherlands, Germany and to a greater extent the Scandinavian countries, they look at you with a look: what are you actually coming to tell me? And they sit completely silent. While afterwards they tell you that they loved it.”
Is enthusiasm as a research area taken seriously?
“No. Actually only by marketers, but it goes much deeper. Unfortunately, enthusiasm has a bad name in the commercial world because it is noisy and fake enthusiasm is everywhere. Whereas if you take a step back, enthusiasm is a very essential part of who we are. However, we have to go inside more and not let the outside world tell us what we are enthusiastic about. With my dissertation I wanted to give enthusiasm a place within emotion science. Now I hope for more research into the origin, role in the workplace and relationship with health.”
