轉載朋友的Email. 希望大家交多一個快樂的朋友! 為生活增加一點燃笑的種子!
（以下中譯節自Mr.6 Blog)
科學家證明，你每多交一個快樂的朋友，你的「快樂度」會增加9%！
科學家來到麻省的一個Framingham小鎮，找到這個鎮剛好一直都會對鎮民做一份「Framingham Heart Study」的年度問卷資料，這問卷已經以同樣的題目這樣進行了六十幾年，而這份問卷中剛好有幾題是和「快樂」有關的，譬如：「你現在很享受生活嗎？」「你現在很快樂嗎？」「你現在覺得和其他人一樣好嗎？」科學家抓緊這份難得的歷史資料，然後，來到這個鎮上，找來5000個鎮民，然後將這個鎮上5000人之間的「關係」畫出來，誰認識誰，和誰是家人、是鄰居、是同事、是同學……用社群圖表整個畫了出來（如上圖），然後，把那些「快樂」的程度，一一在圖上的每個人頭上標示出來，出現了驚人的結果──
上圖是這樣看的，黃色的點就是快樂的人，藍色的是不快樂的人，綠色則是介於中間，你會發現，黃色的許多都黏在一起，藍色的比較不會，而黃色的很少和藍色的直接連在一起！
上圖只是幾百個人而已，科學家統合5000人資料發現，快樂的人，周邊的人竟然都很快樂，而且周邊的人還會繼續「感染」到他們周邊的人，慢慢的向外遞減。他們計算下來，平均來看，每一個快樂的朋友，可以為自己的快樂度增加9%。兩個快樂朋友，今天就增加18%，三個快樂朋友，就是27%……以此類推。
還包括好多其他的數字，譬如，Ａ和Ｂ可能同時都和一個快樂的傢伙作朋友，但Ａ住得離那傢伙較遠，Ｂ住得較近，那Ａ竟然比Ｂ少掉了20%的快樂。但科學家也說，快樂的程度，好像又不完全是和住的距離有這麼絕對的關係！
有趣的是，科學家同時也做了「憂傷」的部份，而憂傷，似乎不像快樂會傳播出去。
這點有點詭異，所以，報導也提岀質疑，是否有可能是因為，快樂的人本來就比較容易去和快樂的人做朋友，而憂傷的不會，所以有這樣的「因」「果」倒置，產生
這樣神奇的結果？科學家說對這點的解釋有點牽強，他們說，一個快樂大笑的人不見得要站到房間正中央去大笑，他可以在角落對幾個人大笑，那幾個人可能就傳給
他們身邊的人，他們身邊的人也開始大笑，一個傳一個直到整個房間都在笑，所以如果說「快樂」會傳染是有道理的，而「憂傷」的人傾向比較安靜、獨自憂傷，所
以不會傳染也是應該的。這部份有點將快樂與憂傷到底是人格特質還是一時性的情緒搞混在一起，還待商榷。
英文的版本
A smile is infectious, as the saying goes, and now scientists have proven it. In spades. A study published today in British Medical Journal shows
that happiness acts like a blessed disease: it can spread from person
to person through social channels. On average, the study finds, every
happy friend increases your own chance of being happy by 9 percent.
James
Fowler of UC–San Diego and Nicholas Christakis of Harvard Medical
School were curious how emotions and other health factors might ripple
through social networks, a burgeoning field of research. So they mapped
the well-being of a group of nearly 5,000 interconnected people,
whether it be as blood relations, friends, neighbors, or coworkers.
They pulled 20 years of the happiness data from the Framingham Heart
Study, which has been tracking health stats on a group of Framingham,
Massachusetts residents and two generations of offspring since 1948.
Scientifically,
what defines such a subjective emotion as this? For the study
participants, it was whether they checked "yes" on these four survey
questions: "I felt hopeful about the future"; "I was happy"; "I enjoyed
life"; and "I felt that I was just as good as other people."
The
researchers found that, like the flu, happiness thrives in close
quarters. A happy friend who lives less than half a mile away is 20
percent more influential than one two miles away. But surprisingly, you
don't need direct contact to catch this disease—it can actually sprawl
over three degrees of separation. That means that the happiness level
of even your friend's friend's friend can influence your own..
The
authors hold that their conclusions aren't an artifact of the tendency
of people to cluster with similar folks. If at a party, for example,
the brooding person in the corner cheers up during a good conversation,
it's not that he suddenly joins the in-crowd laughing loudly in the
center of the room. Even staying where he is, his actions have a ripple
effect. "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, " say Fowler and
Christakis.
So,
on the flip side, does misery indeed love company? Thankfully, not as
much as happiness. Unhappiness spreads less in social networks—probably
because it's such a solitary pursuit.
字體：小 中 大
