Sitting next to a jolly cubicle mate does not mean you’ll catch the bliss bug. The study found no relation between the happiness of coworkers. This suggests, the authors write, “that the social context might moderate the flow of happiness from one person to another”—meaning that the office environment may not be fertile ground for gleefulness to grow.

The researchers didn’t investigate why your downstairs neighbor may influence your mental state more than your sister three hours away. And because it was conducted in one New England town, the results may not translate to other communities, wrote Peter Sainsbury, the director of the Division of Population Health in the Central Sydney Area Health Service, in an editorial accompanying the study. “Perhaps Framingham [Massachusetts] was unique in some way,” he surmised. “Don’t drop your unhappy friends yet.”

Why the study matters
The discovery adds to a growing body of research that proves social networks are powerful predictors of behavior. Two recent studies found that you’re more likely to be obese or a smoker if those close to you are. The authors of the BMJ study note that those findings could have significant implications on how we approach public health. Better care for people who are ill, for example, may end up making lots of people—some of them strangers—healthier or happier.

The results are also fuel for scientists studying the importance of positive states. By understanding the conditions in which happiness spreads, they argue, we may be able to foster well-being, rather than trying to restore it once it has been lost.

“Traditionally, we’ve waited until something goes wrong and then we’ve tried to fix it,” says Helliwell. “We ought to be thinking of how to improve people’s well-being, because the things that make people happy transmit positively to their neighbors.”

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