Emotional Contagion, or the Importance of Good Friends and Role Models

There’s a great article over at the fantastic science website Edge.org that once again gives credence to the importance of surrounding yourself with positive, like-minded people.

Some excerpts:

Our happiness is determined by a complex set of voluntary and involuntary factors, ranging from our genes to our health to our wealth. Alas, one determinant of our own happiness that has not received the attention it deserves is the happiness of others. Yet we know that emotions can spread over short periods of time from person to person, in a process known as “emotional contagion.” If someone smiles at you, it is instinctive to smile back. If your partner or roommate is depressed, it is common for you to become depressed.

We found that social networks have clusters of happy and unhappy people within them that reach out to three degrees of separation. A person’s happiness is related to the happiness of their friends, their friends’ friends, and their friends’ friends’ friends—that is, to people well beyond their social horizon. We found that happy people tend to be located in the center of their social networks and to be located in large clusters of other happy people. And we found that each additional happy friend increases a person’s probability of being happy by about 9%. For comparison, having an extra $5,000 in income (in 1984 dollars) increased the probability of being happy by about 2%.

This article deals with happiness, but the same probably applies equally well for other desirable character traits. And, quite likely, less desireable traits.

Decide what kind of human being you would like to become, then surround yourself with people who are like that.

Tags: lifestyle, psychology, self-improvement