Skip to main content

Social contagion


Read this article in today's New York Times: Is happiness catching?

James H Fowler and Nicholas A Christakis have published quite a few papers on social networking and how it affects the behaviour of people. A couple of papers describe the patterns in gain of weight and smoking habits of residents of a town Framingham during the period of 30 years. Their findings suggest that these changes do not occur randomly but in clusters or groups of people who are socially connected. I was not surprised to learn that smoking habits spread in this manner. But I had not thought the same way regarding some other parameters that they studied including "happiness". They report that unhappiness or happiness extends upto three degrees of separation, e.g. friends of one's friends' friends and this part of their work has been questioned by many in the same field. I would like to read some of their papers which have been published in high impact journals like NEJM and BMJ.

I find such research work which deals with social behaviour and psychology very exciting. Will see if I can get involved in any similar project sometime in future. But my current research work doesn't provide me with any expertise which will be required for this slightly distant field. :(

Comments

zilcogol said…
Lets see...
You say pschology and social behaviour interests you... well if it really does and you are any good at it... please tell me "what made me /why have i" commented on your last three posts?
13 September, 2009 20:55
Shazia said…
The first comment you wrote was in reply to my comment on Jammy's blog. And then may be you read some other recent posts on my blog and you either liked them or found them interesting, that made you write the other two comments. Am i right? Or do you have some ulterior motives? Tell me...
And yes, I still don't know whether you are a guy or a girl. :)
14 September, 2009 12:09
zilcogol said…
Interesting!

I am a guy.
I hope thats ok?
15 September, 2009 10:27
zilcogol said…
"IF" I have/had ulterior motives... You would not be the first one I would confide in.
15 September, 2009 13:30
dreamer said…
The thing about these researches though is that they are followed by other researches which contradict them
15 September, 2009 14:11
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A poem from childhood...

"Long legged Italy, kicked poor Sicily In the middle of Mediterranean Sea. Austria was Hungary Took a bit of Turkey Fried it in Japan Dipped it in Greece...." I remember only this much. This poem was my first attempt at learning the names of these countries and locating them on the map of the world. And I thought Austria and Australia were same. :-) It's time to confirm that I was wrong at that point of time, some twenty years back...
12 comments
Read more

I like 'Blue'

After working on my thesis (and doing some time-pass) whole night, I happened to peep out of the window and look at the striking shade of blue in the sky. I immediately looked around for my camera. It took some 90 seconds before I could click this photo and in that span of time the coloour of the sky changed a bit. Nevertheless, it is still very near to (but not exactly) the 'blue' which I like. I am neither very fond of a particular colour (except mauve and lilac) or hate a particular colour. I remember that as a child I didn't like 'yellow' at all. As I grew up, in my mind I started associating colours with different things. E.g. I like 'yellow' when it is a flower which I am looking at (and not Tata Nano or any other car). I would never wear a bright-yellow dress, but that doesn't mean I don't like the colour. Similarly, I love certain shades of 'blue' which look best in a sky or in a water body. Looking at any of my favourite colours (or...
5 comments
Read more

The stranger

Like every Mumbaikar, I had been praying for the monsoons to hit the city and provide some respite from the heat that was on a mission to burn us all. Now that the clouds had finally decided to fly in for their annual visit, they seemed to be as angry as the sun. This has been happening every year, leaving us with only two choices, to either drown in our own sweat or to let the ruthless downpour do its job. As the metro approached Andheri station, people started lining up at the door. With the coach nearly empty, I shifted to the corner seat next to the door. I was just two stops and 4 min away from my destination but that didn't stop me from grabbing my favorite seat the minute it got empty. That's how we have become, always running after something better and not appreciating what we already have. It was almost 9 PM. I climbed down the stairs of D N Nagar metro station, clutching my umbrella and feeling tempted to use it to push away the crowd. It didn't take long for...
7 comments
Read more