In a rather recent two part study by Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler, our own happiness is affected by the people we are friends with, their friends, and their friends’ friends. Our level of happiness is affected by people we might not even know.

The first part of the study consisted of following  4,739 participants over a period of 20 years. They asked them to rate their level of happiness. Likewise, they also rated the happiness of their networks (neighbors, family, friends), their network’s networks and their network’s network’s networks. What was found? Happy people have happy networks. Additionally, your happiness can be increased by people whom you have never met.

The second part is conducted online where they pulled basically the same experiment but with college students on facebook and happiness was rated by smiling photos. The same results were found.

What should we take away from this? Surround yourself with happy people, tell those people to do the same and pass it down, and you will be a happier person.

More detailed