Did you know that happiness is contagious?
Harvard researchers spent 20 years following over 4,700 people to study the long-term effects of social networks. And we’re not talking about social networks like Facebook and Twitter either. (The study ended before many of those were even conceived.) These are the old fashioned social networks of friends and loved ones who we engage and socialize with.
Here are 5 key findings from the study:
- When we surround ourselves with many happy people from our network, we are more likely to become happy.
- Happiness comes not just from hanging out with the same happy people, but from happiness actually spreading.
- Someone who becomes happy increases the probability by 25% that a friend with 1.5 km will also become happy.
- If we’re happy, we have an 8% chance in making our spouse happy, a 14% chance making our siblings happy, and a 34% chance making our next-door neighbours happy
- If we become geographically separated from happy people, their happiness effect on us decays.
If you find that you’re often down or struggling with being happy, try hanging out with happy people. It might rub off on you. Then your happiness can rub off on someone else.