快樂像流感一樣傳播

你的朋友快樂嗎?他們的朋友快樂嗎?新的研究表明:你的朋友以及你朋友的朋友會對你自己的滿意度產(chǎn)生重要的影響。

像流感爆發(fā)一樣，快樂(當然還有苦惱)能夠通過社交網(wǎng)絡(luò)進行傳播，并通過第三方對人產(chǎn)生影響。例如:一個朋友的朋友的快樂朋友能使個人的快樂幾率增加6%。

加利福尼亞圣地亞哥大學的政治學家詹姆士·福勒領(lǐng)導了這項新的研究，他說:“與實際收入增加相比，即使我們不認識的人以及我們從未見過的人對我們的情緒都有更大的影響。”

他和同事波士頓哈佛醫(yī)學院的尼古拉斯·克里斯塔基斯，通過分析參加一項幾十年臨床研究的5124人之間的5.3228萬個社會關(guān)系，得出了這個結(jié)論。

情感漣漪

作為弗萊明翰心臟病研究計劃的一部分，參試者必須向研究人員更新他們的社交和健康狀況，包括快樂感，它是通過一種標準心理調(diào)查表來衡量的。福勒和克里斯塔基斯曾用類似的方法證明了肥胖和吸煙如何通過同樣的社交網(wǎng)絡(luò)進行傳播。

他們發(fā)現(xiàn)，快樂比吸煙和肥胖更容易短距離傳播。一個隔壁的快樂鄰居能使你的個人快樂幾率平均增加34%，一個住在1英里(1.6公里)之內(nèi)的同胞兄弟或姐妹能增加14%，一個住在半英里內(nèi)的快樂朋友能增加42%。

這種效應(yīng)隨社交網(wǎng)絡(luò)的擴展而遞減，如朋友的快樂能使個人的快樂幾率平均增加15%，而朋友的朋友的快樂則只能使個人的快樂幾率增加10%。福勒和克里斯塔基斯發(fā)現(xiàn)，與肥胖和吸煙一樣，快樂經(jīng)過三個遞次以上的傳播就沒有了效應(yīng)。福勒由此推論，在超過三個遞次的接觸后，一種社交失調(diào)就會削弱傳播的力度，就像水波一樣。

“如果你往池塘中扔一個石子，會從落石處向外產(chǎn)生漣漪，”福勒說，“而我們研究的是，你有一把石子，你一下子就把它們?nèi)舆M了池塘。”

情緒的傳染

就快樂而言，憂郁的情緒會抑制它的傳播擴散。福勒和克里斯塔基斯發(fā)現(xiàn)，每次快樂的接觸可使一個人的快樂幾率平均增加9%，而每次不快樂的接觸能減少個人快樂幾率7%。快樂更容易擴散。去接近周圍快樂的人，而不是不快樂的人，將會增加個人的快樂。

荷蘭鹿特丹伊拉茲馬斯大學社會學家兼《幸福》雜志的編輯和世界幸福數(shù)據(jù)庫的館長魯特·維恩霍文也同意這種觀點。“快樂的人通常更具有包容性，他們對他們的孩子和狗更好，壽命也更長。”他說。

他稱這項研究是“極具創(chuàng)造性的”，可能會幫助人們改善他們的日常生活。“如果你想讓人們更快樂，你至少要知道快樂是如何傳播的。”

Happiness Spreads Like the Plague

by Ewen Callaway

Are your friends happy? What about their friends? These people， new research suggests， will have a profound impact on your own personal satisfaction.

Like an influenza outbreak， happiness - and misery too - spread through social networks， affecting people through three degrees of separation. For instance， a happy friend of a friend of a friend increases the chances of personal happiness by about 6%.

\"Even people we don't know and have never met have bigger effect on our mood than substantial increases in income.\" says James Fowler， a political scientist at the University of California， San Diego， who led the new study.

He and colleague Nicholas Christakis， of Boston's Harvard Medical School， made the connection by mining 53，228 social connections between 5124 people who took part in a decades-long clinical study.

Emotional ripples

As part of the Framingham Heart Study， participants updated researchers on their social contacts and health status， including happiness， as measured by a standard psychological questionnaire. Fowler and Christakis took a similar approach to document how obesity and cigarette smoking permeated through the same social network.

Even more than smoking and obesity， happiness spreads best at close distances， they found. A happy next-door neighbour ups the odds of person happiness by 34%， a sibling who lives within 1 mile (1.6 kilometres) by 14%， and a friend within half a mile by a whopping 42%.

The effect falls off through the network， with friends' happiness boosting the chances of personal happiness by an average of 15% and friends of friends by 10%. As with obesity and smoking， Fowler and Christakis detected no effect beyond three degrees of separation.Fowler theorises that beyond three connections， a kind of social dissonance saps the transmission of behaviour， almost like a wave.

\"If you drop one pebble in a pond， it will create ripples out from the pebble.\" he says. \"That's not what's happening here. You have a whole handful of pebbles and you're throwing them in the pond at once.\"

Contagious feeling

In the case of happiness， dour sentiments contain its infective spread. Fowler and Christakis found that each happy contact increases a person's odds of happiness by an average of 9%， while an unhappy contact decreases those odds by 7%. Happiness is more likely to spread. It's pleasurable to be near other happy individuals and not near other unhappy individuals.

Ruut Veenhoven， a sociologist at Erasmus University in Rotterdam， Netherlands， editor of the Journal of Happiness Studies， and curator of the World Database of Happiness agrees. \"Happy people are typically more involved， are nicer to their kids and their dog， and live longer.\" he says.

The study， which he describes as \"terribly creative\"， might even help people improve their daily lives. \"If you want to make people happier， you know at least how it spreads.\"

[譯自澳大利亞《新科學家》]