Happiness can ‘rub off’

Scientists have proved happiness really does rub off, proving that a person’s emotions depend on others with whom they are connected.

A report published on bmj.com today claims that cheerfulness depends on the levels experienced by those with whom a person is connected directly and indirectly – and requires close proximity to spread.

The authors claim that if you have a friend who becomes happy – and lives within a mile – it increases your likelihood of happiness by 25 per cent.

It was also discovered that if one member of a live-in couple becomes joyful, it increases the likelihood of their partner being happy by 8 per cent.

Those people who are surrounded by happy people are also likely to become cheerful in the future, the authors claim.

A person is 42 per cent more likely to be joyful if a friend who lives less than half a mile away is in high spirits, although the effect declines and becomes insignificant as distances increase.

“Changes in individual happiness can ripple through social networks and generate large scale structure in the network, giving rise to clusters of happy and unhappy individuals,” the authors claim.