In an interesting article published yesterday, we noted a new study of 5,000 people that looked at their emotional states over 20 years.
The researchers found that while happiness may spread through a person’s social network of friends, neighbors and family (”contagious” may be too strong a word, since the effect is not really like a virus), sadness did not.
Using the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Index (a standard metric) that study participants completed, the researchers found that when an individual becomes happy, a friend living within a mile experiences a 25 percent increased chance of becoming happy. A co-resident spouse experiences an 8 percent increased chance, siblings living within one mile have a 14 percent increased chance, and for next door neighbors, 34 percent.
But the real surprise came with indirect relationships. Again, while an individual becoming happy increases his friend’s chances, a friend of that friend experiences a nearly 10 percent chance of increased happiness, and a friend of that friend has a 5.6 percent increased chance—a three-degree cascade. [...]
They also found that, contrary to what your parents taught you, popularity does lead to happiness. People in the center of their network clusters are the most likely people to become happy, odds that increase to the extent that the people surrounding them also have lots of friends. However, becoming happy does not help migrate a person from the network fringe to the center. Happiness spreads through the network without altering its structure.
This is a fascinating finding and would be interesting to see it replicated in modern times, and to our online social networks. Could a 2nd level online network connection experience greater levels of happiness because of your own happiness?
Since connections online are so less physically-based than our face-to-face connections, a characteristic the current study found important, it suggests that these findings may not replicate as robustly online.
Another interesting part of the study was how the researchers found the data — through handwritten administrative tracking sheets dating back to 1971 from the Framingham Heart Study that had previously been locked away.
Read the full article: Happiness Is Contagious
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Links to This Article
Catch Happyness From Your Friends « Balancenusa’s Weblog (12/7/2008)
One Comment to
“Happiness, But Not Sadness, Catches On”
This is interesting. I had a good friend during my first year of college who was always happy. She did bring me out of a lot of stressful and dark days. However, I have been around others who were “very happy” and they’ve actually annoyed me. Some people are so happy that they don’t know how to relate to those who are suffering, or to those who are needy or even depressed. If everything goes right in the lives of a happy person, why should they allow you to make them feel sad? Well…this is the type of attitude I’ve been exposed to once in my past.
I would think that a happy person, who is your friend or family member (that you like/love and respect), would have a stronger effect on you being happy than someone you don’t know that you’re around such as a co-worker or supervisor.
Just a thought.
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