Code Red: Happiness Is Contagious

Head for the bunkers everyone! New research shows that happiness spreads through networks like badly controlled bird flu. If several of your friends are happy, chances are high you'll get infected too!

Logically you stand the biggest chance of being infected when a close friend is happy and the effect lessens the larger amount of people inbetween (if a friend nearby is happy you are 42% more likely to become happy too, a friends friend friend gives a 6% increase chance). However, it is still surprising that the happiness of a friend of a friend of a friend can statistically predict your own happiness. 

This study is great due to its large number of partipants (about 5000) and in that it followed these people to see how emotions changed over time. Aditionally is important because it makes predictions on effects of our extending networks these days due to internet like facebook, myspace & twitter.

 

The good news is that sadness spreads too but at a slightly lower rate, but I'm not surprised, because, how down can you get?

Again we are confronted with the fact that while we feel we are in control of our own life & happiness much of this is already set by the social context we live within, so remember to bail out of your knitting network if someone gets a child or promoted. And before you know it you'll tell your psychiatrist you need no more sessions because Brian's girlfriend's uncle won $500 in a lottery.

 

Lnk: Original BMJ article

Lnk: CNN article

Lnk: Social Capital Blog with a quite thorough analysis of the research