Researchers look at social networks in study on happiness

Researchers look at social networks in study
on happiness
(April 2009 Issue)

By Catherine Robertson Souter

Happiness can be defined so many ways: a hot cup of cocoa on a cold day, a big house, nice car and 2.5 kids. Aristotle believed that happiness was the direct result of ethical behavior, being the best person you can be.

Whatever happiness means, it is an individual thing, right? While the definition might be up to the individual, recent research shows that the spread of it is not.

According to a study published in the British Medical Journal in December, happiness is a contagion that can be traced throughout relationships - with family members, friends and even friends of friends. The researchers used data from the Framingham Heart Study to look at the relative happiness levels of 4,739 individuals, their personal connections with other study respondents and how those levels of happiness affected the others within their social network.

"We are interested in looking at the formation and operation of social networks," says Nicholas Christakis, M.D., Ph.D, MPH, a professor of medical sociology and health care policy at Harvard Medical School and co-author of the study. Previous studies Christakis has published include those on how neighborhoods, marriage, spousal illness and widowhood affect long-term health.

In this study, the team created a database of the Framingham study's respondents since 1983 (the study itself was first begun in 1948 and second and third levels of respondents added later). The researchers found a number of links within the group - family members, friends and neighbors who were also among the interviewees. Using a happiness questionnaire that was first administered in 1983, they were able to chart the relative level of self-reported happiness and create a diagram to show how happiness and relationships intersected.

"Think of this as an old fashioned American quilt," says Christakis, "with clusters of happy and unhappy people."

They found that people were 25 percent more likely to be happy if a friend who lives within one mile is also happy. A close friend, one who also listed that person as a friend, can increase chances of shared happiness by 63 percent. Happy, nearby siblings increase the chance by 14 percent and happy spouses by 8 percent.

Surprisingly, next door neighbors who are happy beat out spouses and siblings, increasing chances by 34 percent. The paper explains that friendships with the same sex have a stronger effect than those across sexes (which might explain why spousal joy is not as contagious) and the spread of happiness might "depend more on frequent social contact" rather than a strong emotional connection to that person.

Being around positive vibes will make one feel more cheerful. But the study goes on to show that even those who are not within our personal sphere of influence can affect our state of being. Friends of friends, or neighbors of friends or even the uncle of a neighbor of a friend, can affect our level of contentment.

"My happiness depends not just on my own actions and ideas," says Christakis. "But also on people with one, two and three degrees of separation."

Time and distance has a detrimental effect on the happiness influence and the effect is mostly nonexistent after the third level of separation. And co-workers did not seem to have the same effect. The study explains this anomaly by suggesting that the social context of the relationship could "moderate the flow of happiness from one person to another."

The researchers hope this way of looking at social networks of humans can influence the way public health policy is decided. For instance, working with a larger group on smoking cessation could have a more positive outcome than working with individuals one at a time. Physical health can affect happiness and, as this study shows, an individual's happiness can affect the group.

"It ripples through the network and affects everyone," says Christakis.

After all, as Aristotle said, happiness is the "meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence."