Happiness of pal’s pal’s pal makes you cheerful

California, December 5: You may not digest this easily! More than anybody else, people whom you do not even know may be instrumental in making you happy.

Researchers from Harvard Medical School and the University of California, San Diego found that happiness flows through social associations, right up to three degrees of severance.

Dr. Nicholas A. Christakis, a physician and social scientist at Harvard Medical School and a co- author said, "Your happiness depends not just on your choices and actions, but also on the choices and actions of people you don’t even know who are one, two and three degrees removed from you."

Thus your pal’s pal’s pal may be a bigger source of happiness than an acquaintance. Similarly, the next door neighbor may give you more joy than a relative living in the same house.

Christakis observed, "We show that your happiness depends not only on your friends and family but on whether your friends of friends are happy. There are clusters of happy and unhappy people in the network."

Christakis termed happiness as infectious. He said, "This is probably the analogy that’s seen in financial markets where there’s a sudden stampede of emotional states. There’s kind of an emotional quiet riot that occurs and takes on a life of its own, that people themselves may be unaware of."

The study was conducted on 4,739 people over a 20-year period from 1983 to 2003. It analyzed the person’s happiness vis-à-vis the happiness of various people associated with the individual like the partner, relations, near and dear friends, neighbors and colleagues. Computer models were used to examine 54,228 social ties.

The study found that a happy next-door neighbor, increased your chance of happiness by a good 34 percent. A pal living within a mile increased the probability of your being happy by 25 percent. Colleague’s happiness did not influence one’s happiness, while partners had a minimal impact in boosting cheerfulness.

The groundbreaking study, which is likely to change the way we look at social structures is to be published in The British Medical Journal