Is Happiness Contagious (New Research Says Yes)

What if our happiness influences the people around us? Could you imagine the positive changes we could have on others? A recent study suggested that not only does our jollity help others feel happiness, but this happiness also spreads to others. Explore the power of our joyful state.

James H Fowler, Nicholas A Christakis. Dynamic spread of happiness in a large social network: longitudinal analysis over 20 years in the Framingham Heart Study. British Medical Journal, December 4, 2008

Transcript

Welcome to the Happiness Podcast.

I'm Dr.

Robert Puff.

One of my favorite things to do is when I'm out and about is smile at people.

And the truth is it can really vary the types of responses I get.

I almost never get negative responses.

And a lot of times I get no response because they didn't even notice that I was smiling at them.

But sometimes,

Say half the time down to one out of 10,

I get a smile back.

And sometimes I get a really big smile back.

You can see that their day is different as mine is in that moment because we connected in the level where we're sharing our happiness.

And I've been doing this for years.

Sometimes people tease me about it.

Sometimes they think I'm a little silly.

But I still do it.

And I do it everywhere around the world,

Wherever I'm traveling,

Whether it's a big city or small town,

I like to smile at people.

And sometimes it even turns into a conversation like,

How's your day going?

What's going on?

We just connect for a little bit.

It may not be long.

It can just be a pause.

How's your day going?

I'm glad your day is going well.

Mine is too.

Now,

I know for sure doing this has a lot of positive effect on my life.

I mean,

Again,

I'm getting people throughout the day smiling at me,

Giving me big hellos back and it really does add to my day.

It makes it pleasant.

It makes it enjoyable.

And it's like I get these little bursts of joy throughout the day just by connecting with people.

And I will definitely be continuing it for the rest of my life.

It is something that's an important part of who I am and I like it.

But does it really make any difference in anyone else's life?

Well,

Actually,

I have some really good news.

There was a study done by researchers at Harvard Medical School and the University of California at San Diego.

And what they did is they looked at 5,

000 people for over 20 years to see if happiness is contagious.

And you know what?

It is.

It's quite contagious,

Actually.

But what I found even more interesting,

It's not only contagious to the person you are around,

It's contagious to who they're around and it's contagious to these people who they're around.

So it's three degrees of affecting people from your level of happiness.

So again,

Imagine I'm walking in New York City and I smile at someone and I get a smile back.

We connect.

We share happiness.

And that person will affect someone else and that other person will affect someone else.

It's amazing.

But not only that,

These happiness effects can last up to a year.

I think that's truly amazing.

And they also looked at sadness and looked to see if it also spread like happiness does.

And it doesn't.

Thank goodness.

So happiness is contagious.

Sadness is not.

If you're interested in the details of the study,

I have a link in the bio.

So feel free to check it out.

But I want to talk about what this means for us.

First,

I do want to present a little bit of a disclaimer.

I'm a six foot tall man.

And so when I smile at someone,

I'm not in any way worried about what type of response I'm going to get.

I'm just not.

But as a woman,

The response may not always be the same.

So you do have to use your skills,

Your social skills,

Realizing in this situation with this person,

I may not want to smile at them.

They may misinterpret it.

And then I'm left with a big mess.

I know this doesn't happen very often,

But it can.

So I would just be careful as a woman.

And it can even happen to me.

I remember once I was in Peru up in the Cusco area and there was a woman that I was polite to.

She was trying to sell something and I was very kind and smiling too.

And I swear she followed me through like five,

Six different stores.

My kids and I laugh about it to this day because she really wanted to sell me something and she thought I was a good buyer.

I wasn't interested,

But I was smiling.

And I think that may have given her the hopes that I was going to buy something.

Again,

It wasn't bothersome.

She just kept following me everywhere we went,

But it wasn't a big deal because again,

I'm a six foot tall man and I just don't get bothered by things like that.

But as a woman,

Some guy stalking you,

It could be a very uncomfortable situation.

So enough said.

Now let's get back to the good part of sharing our happiness.

Because as this study shows,

Our happiness is contagious.

How about we share it with the world and affect all the people around us?

Wouldn't that be great?

But let's start with the basics.

You may not believe this study.

We've become more skeptical of studies in recent years,

I think.

So let's do our own experiment.

Try reaching out with people through kindness,

Through happiness,

Through joy.

When you're feeling in a good mood,

Call up some friends,

Say,

How's it going?

And just share your joy and happiness with them and just be in a good mood around people.

When you're in a good mood and then see later,

Or perhaps even that day,

If they're not in a better mood and then even explore if possible,

If because they're in a better mood,

They went home and hung out with their family and put them in a better mood.

You could do the experiment just periodically when you're in a really good mood,

In a happy place,

Share that happiness with other people and then look to see if there are results that they change.

Of course you're going to find that they change.

This study makes a lot of sense.

And another way we can prove it is by when we're around someone who's in a really good mood,

Who seems happy,

Their happiness can feel very contagious.

I mean,

It's just so many good examples of this.

You go to a restaurant and maybe you had a rough time parking and you're irritated because someone was just rude.

And you sit down and you have this magnificent waitress who comes and is pleasant and is just amiable and affable and just marvelous.

And it's just incredibly difficult to stay in a grumpy mood when you're around someone like that.

It changes your affect.

I mean,

Not always,

But often,

And it really can make a difference.

So let's say that being happy can definitely affect the people around us.

And if we agree to that,

Then we say,

Okay,

We have this great,

Magnificent tool now of making people's lives better by our own happiness.

How do we use this tool?

Imagine it's like this.

You have in your pocket $500 and you're going to give $100 away to different people and you can give it away to anyone you want.

But the magic is every time you give them $100,

You should only have $400 left,

But instead you have five,

Six,

$700,

Sometimes even more than you gave away.

I mean,

What do you think you would do in that situation?

I don't know about you,

But I'd be giving that money away like crazy.

And our happiness is much like that.

When we give happiness away,

When we're in a good mood and share that with others,

It does,

I believe,

Make us happier.

The study didn't talk about that,

But I believe that's true,

But it definitely makes them happier and it doesn't make us less happy by giving them our happiness.

So even if we gave $100 away and we're left with $500,

But every time we give $100 away,

We were still left with $500.

I think we would all be giving a lot of money away.

And our happiness is like that.

It's contagious.

And not only that,

In this study,

It shows that not only we can give them $100 or happiness,

They go on and give money to the next person.

And then the next person,

It's three steps away from us that we're giving money and we're blessing all these different people,

But we're blessing them with our happiness.

Can you imagine if we all really believed this and did this,

What our world would be like?

It would be magnificent.

And if we do this,

Those who are listening to this today,

If we really started doing this,

Maybe we won't change the whole world,

But we'll definitely change our world and the people that we run in contact with and the people that they run in contact with and the people that those people run in contact with.

This is something that we could truly make a difference with.

Now,

We do need to work on our own happiness and that's what this happiness podcast is all about.

So we have to work on our own skills and making sure we're really giving away happiness.

And when we learn how to be happy and start sharing that with other people,

I do believe we can make a huge impact on our world,

The world that we interact with.

Again,

We may not change the whole world,

But we can change our world.

And it's a gift we can give to people in our lives.

And the truth of it is,

I think we all know that a lot of people are struggling.

They don't have much to be happy about.

What if we were the change in their life?

What if just our being with them,

Being happy around them,

Changed their lives?

I really think we can make a difference here,

A huge difference in the people in our lives.

Again,

We do have to work on our own selves to make sure we have something to give away.

We can't give away something we don't have.

But if we work on our own happiness and really get good at creating a happy life for ourselves,

Then I believe we can really make a difference,

Not in everyone's lives,

But in a lot of people's lives.

And the beautiful thing I like about this study is that we're not going to even see the effects it have on everyone that we do impact because of the second and third tier of people that we're going to impact through our own expression of our happiness.

We won't even see the impact that it has on those other people.

And yet it will.

What a beautiful world we could live in if we all really worked on doing this.

A lot of people are struggling.

Just saying hello,

How are you,

Connecting with them,

Caring,

Smiling at them,

Wishing them a good day.

There are so many ways we can express our happiness and share that with others and improve their lives.

Because for a lot of people,

Life is very difficult right now.

And we could be of help.

We could make the change.

We could be the difference.

But we do have to work on this.

We would have to make it a priority.

We have to perhaps even get out of our comfort zone because we may not share our happiness and our joys with others.

We may be fairly isolated because of all that's going on in our world.

But perhaps it's time to start reaching out to people when we're out and about.

The waiter that serves our food,

The person at the store behind the counter,

The person that cuts our hair,

All the people that we connect with and see throughout the day.

Even when we're driving.

I actually wave at people sometime when I drive.

I know I'm rather silly,

But I do get waves back sometime.

So there's many ways we can impact other people's lives.

And what we're learning today is that our happiness is contagious.

It can make other people's lives better,

Happier.

Isn't that just beautiful?

Now again,

I do want to end with a slight warning.

Of course,

When we do this,

We're going to get pushback every once in a while.

It's not very often and we just can't make a big deal of it.

I have smiled at people and they've yelled at me,

What are you smiling at?

What's the blank wrong with you?

You know,

It's one out of a thousand.

Who cares?

I move on and I just keep smiling.

I've had people when I wave at them,

Flip me off.

I have.

Not very often.

Maybe one out of a thousand,

10,

000.

I don't know.

It's very seldom,

But we can't let these bad experiences keep us from doing good things and being who we are.

Sharing our happiness with the world makes the world a better place.

We're not going to let one person or a few people ruin that for us or other people.

That would be silly.

So when we get on this journey,

Of course,

Once in a while,

It will not go well.

People will be in a good mood and no matter what we do say or experience,

Won't change that other person's affect and may even irritate them and make them worse.

So then we just leave.

We remove ourselves from those situations and we go on and share our joy with someone else.

It's fairly simple.

Just remove yourself.

But just one last thing to think about.

Obviously,

Our happiness affects other people,

But us being around happy people will affect us.

So if we are struggling,

If we're having a hard time,

Maybe it's time for us to start finding people that are happier,

That are more joyful and be with them far more often.

Make them part of our inner circle and find that with these people,

Yes,

We can help others,

But they can actually help us.

And that way our world can truly be a beautiful place externally where we're making other people happy,

But internally by being around people that are happy.

As I often say,

We can truly have beautiful lives.

And today we've learned our beautiful lives will impact others.

So let's do this.

Let's share our joy,

Our happiness with the world and see the beautiful impact,

The wonderful impact we're going to have on other people's lives and also on our lives.

Thank you for joining me on the Happiness Podcast.

Until next time,

Accept what is,

Love what is.

Reviews

Smiles & a hello definitely can make a day better. I smile a lot on my daily walk & when out shopping & usually get a smile back. Thank you.

A big smile to you!

Thank you 🙏