Friday, December 5th, 2008

Smiling In Groups

If you're happy, you make your friends happier, and that makes their friends happier, according to new research published this week in the British Medical Journal. Using data from the wide-ranging Framingham Heart Study, researchers mapped the flow of happiness through social networks and found that happiness can spread up to three layers deep through a network -- while sadness was less likely to spread. We'll talk with one of the researchers behind the study.

Guests

James Fowler
Associate Professor of Political Science
University of California, San Diego
San Diego, California

Related Links

• Washington Post: Happiness Can Spread Among People Like a Contagion, Study Indicates
• WebMD: Happiness Is Contagious
• NPR: Happiness: It Really Is Contagious

Segment produced by:Molly Ashford

Friday, December 5th, 2008

• Climate Update
• Physics for Future Presidents
• Smiling In Groups
• The Superorganism

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