Increase happiness at work through social networks

Much has been said about social networks and how they may contribute to and detract from the healthy social development of people, and enhance or inhibit productivity in the workplace. There is some new evidence now that social networks make happiness contagious.

New research by James Fowler at The University of California shows that in a social network, happiness spreads among people up to three degrees removed from one another. Fowler say that taking control of your happiness can positively affect others, and that a chain reaction can occur. The research has also shown that sadness spreads in a social network, but not as quickly. The study, published in the British Medical Journal, used data from the Framington Heart Study of a network of more than 4,000 people.The research study shows that each happy friend increases your own chance of being happy by 9% whereas each unhappy friend decreases it by 7%.

Fowler and his associates are also looking at Facebook, which has more than 120 million active users. This study is examining who smiles in their profile and who doesn_ã_t and whether their connections also smile or not. Fowler says that _ã–we find smiling profiles cluster in  much the same ay as happiness does in the Framington Heart Study._㝠 Fowler argues that _ã–emotional states can be transferred directly from one individual to another by mimicry and emotional contagion,_㝠adding _ã–people can_ã_catch_ã_ emotional states they observe in others over time frames ranging from seconds to weeks.”

Read more about happiness, work and social networks – HERE