They say that “everything sticks except beauty .” The human being is a social animal that is affected by the environment that surrounds it and what happens in it. Social science has shown that, as much as society promotes individualism, we are still people who live together and modify (voluntarily or involuntarily) their behavior and way of thinking for others.
When a person is sad, empathy makes us perceive that state of mind and affects our own even though there are no real reasons to be sad on our part. The same thing happens when we hear someone laugh heartily or get stressed out at being overwhelmed by circumstances and their obligations . Human beings are sponges that absorb part of what the world around us gives us.
These are some of the behaviors that, according to scientific studies, it is easier to spread to other people:
1. Happiness
It spreads like a plague up to a degree three of separation or influence , which means that if a person is happy it generates a chain reaction of well-being that affects their friends, the friends of their friends and the friends of the friends of their friends. friends. This radiant effect remains active for a year, according to scientists at Harvard University . According to the Index of the Center for Epidemiological Studies of Depression, when an individual declares himself happy, the chances that his neighbor will be infected increase by 34%, and by 23% if it is a friend who lives a kilometer and a half from distance.
2. Laughter
According to a team of researchers from University College and Imperial College London, hearing a laugh or a joyous exclamation – ” yuju! ” – triggers an immediate response in the premotor cerebral cortex that prepares the muscles of the face to draw a smile. and then, probably, to give a laugh. Of course, for this contagion to occur, the laughter heard must be authentic, because if it is forced it leaves the neurons indifferent . And when the ear is unable to distinguish between a real and a fake, the mind is not fooled either.
3. The feeling of cold
If there is someone next to you who is shivering, rest assured that you too will end up shivering with cold. This is what is deduced from a study by the University of Sussex , in the United Kingdom, where researchers showed that it is enough to watch videos of a person who is terrified for our body temperature to drop . On the other hand, the same does not happen with the heat: contemplating a fellow suffocated due to a high of the thermometer does not affect us in the least. Neil Harrison , co-author of the research, published in PLOS ONE , assures that the reason is that humans are social beings and that imitating others creates a physiological state that helps us understand how they feel and what their motivations are.
4. The emotions of the tweets
If you are a Twitter user (and who is not), you will be interested to know that in this social network positive feelings are more contagious than negative ones. Emilio Ferrara , from the University of Southern California, measured the emotional value of thousands of tweets and analyzed how the status of the platform’s users changed before and after reading them . The results revealed that 20% of tweeters were susceptible to contagion , with four times greater sensitivity towards positive messages than negative ones. The researchers postulate that this tendency to oscillation in global emotion could cause great changes that would affect the political and financial sphere.
5. Smoking cessation
For Nicholas Christakis , who collected data on 12,067 smokers over three decades, changing trends on social media led a significant number of users to quit smoking without having to agree with each other . This Harvard Medical professor observed that the more sociability and less isolation, the greater the options to quit smoking . By analyzing specific relationships, Christakis calculated that if your partner quits, the probability that you will follow their example increases by 67% . If it is a friend or a co-worker, the percentage drops to 36% and 34% , respectively.
6. Obesity
Although no one is aware that love handles are not transmitted by viruses or bacteria, it can be said that obesity is contagious. This was proven by scientists from Harvard and California Universities , whose research showed that the risk of obesity increases by 57% if you have friends who suffer from it, 71% if they are of the same sex as ours, and 40% if the plump is a brother. These data seem to support the idea that social factors outweigh genetic factors in the development of obesity.
7. Stress
Having someone around someone subjected to a permanent state of anxiety can be contagious, say scientists at the Max Planck Institute in Germany . This infection occurs in one in four people and is physiologically quantifiable, since it causes the release of cortisol, the stress hormone . When the affected is the couple, the possibility of contagion rises to 40%. The matter is serious, since stress is one of the greatest threats to health in today’s society , since permanent exposure to cortisol has a negative impact on the heart and blood vessels, weakens the immune system and produces important neurotoxic effects long term .
8. Loneliness
John T. Cacioppo of the University of Chicago has shown that isolation acts as a contagious disease that spreads mostly on the margins of a social group. The serious thing is that, before their relationships are completely extinguished, the lonely transmit their bad luck to the few friends they have left , which in the long run increases their chances of being alone. And, according to Cacioppo, “the social fabric tends to fray at the edges, like a thread that is loosened at the end of a crocheted sweater .”
9. Use solar energy
Living with more than one neighbor who has solar panels installed in their house considerably increases the probability of opting for that energy option . This is the conclusion reached by scientists from Yale and New York Universities , whose analyzes showed that a 10% rise in the number of photovoltaic panels in the neighborhood increases the probability that someone will order another panel by 54% new. If the facilities are visible from the street, the contagion rate is even higher.
10. Caries
An impetuous kiss can serve as a contagious agent for this oral condition . And is that the teeth are bitten by bacteria such as Streptococcus mutans and Aggregatibacter actinomycetemcomitans , which invade the mouth and gorge themselves on the remains of food , especially voracious when the teeth are full of sugar. Scientists at the University of Louisville showed that microbes can be easily transmitted from mother to child by checking with the spoon that the porridge is not too hot, for example.
