Collective emotions shape organizations, communities, and societies, yet the traits that determine who drives them remain unknown. Conventional wisdom holds that stable, extraverted individuals act as emotional leaders, calming and coordinating the feelings of others. Here we challenge this view by analyzing a 30.5-month longitudinal dataset of daily emotions from 38 co-located professionals (733,534 records). Using Granger-causality network reconstruction, we find that emotionally unstable individuals -- those high in neuroticism (r = 0.478, p = 0.002) and low in conscientiousness (r = -0.512, p = 0.001) -- are the true "emotional super-spreaders," while extraversion shows no effect (r = 0.238, p = 0.150). This "Neuroticism Paradox" reveals that emotional volatility, not stability, drives contagion. Emotions propagate with a reproduction rate (R_0 = 15.58) comparable to measles, yet the system avoids collapse through high clustering (C = 0.705) that creates "emotional quarantine zones." Emotional variance increased 22.9% over time, contradicting homeostasis theories and revealing entropy-driven dynamics. We propose an Affective Epidemiology framework showing that collective emotions are governed by network position and volatility rather than personality stability -- transforming how we understand emotional leadership in human systems.

翻译：集体情感塑造着组织、社区与社会，然而决定谁在驱动这些情感的特质仍属未知。传统观点认为，情绪稳定、外向的个体扮演着情感领袖的角色，能够安抚并协调他人的感受。本文通过分析来自38位同地办公专业人士的30.5个月日常情绪纵向数据集（733,534条记录），对这一观点提出挑战。运用格兰杰因果网络重构方法，我们发现情绪不稳定的个体——即神经质程度高（r = 0.478, p = 0.002）且尽责性低（r = -0.512, p = 0.001）的个体——才是真正的“情感超级传播者”，而外向性则未显示显著影响（r = 0.238, p = 0.150）。这一“神经质悖论”揭示，驱动情感传染的是情绪波动性而非稳定性。情感传播的再生率（R_0 = 15.58）可与麻疹相匹敌，但系统通过高聚类系数（C = 0.705）形成的“情感隔离区”避免了崩溃。情绪方差随时间推移增加了22.9%，这与稳态理论相悖，揭示了熵驱动的动力学机制。我们提出一个情感流行病学框架，表明集体情感由网络位置与波动性主导，而非人格稳定性——这彻底改变了我们对人类系统中情感领导力的理解。