A 20 year study recently reported in Time Magazine shows that your Mood can be as contagious as an infectious disease. That’s right … you can “infect” people with your mood.
This phenomenon has been known in behavioral science for decades … a group of people will model the energy and attitude of the dominant member of that group. But this study shows this effect goes much further than just the people you are with at the moment…
Turns out your happiness (or any other mood) can influence the mood of people three degrees of separation away from you. These are people who don’t even know you and have had no contact with you … zero … and your moods can “infect” even them.
Here are a few more details …
From Time: “Harvard social scientist Dr. Nicholas Christakis and his political-science colleague James Fowler at the University of California at San Diego. The pair created a sensation with their announcement earlier this month of a 20-year study showing that emotions can pass among a network of people up to three degrees of separation away, so your joy may, to a larger extent than you realize, be determined by how cheerful your friends’ friends’ friends are, even if some of the people in this chain are total strangers to you.”
The author goes on to discuss the implications for wellness … I have a little different spin for you Leaders.
Have you ever been in an organization where one person’s attitude has turned the whole business around? This infectious characteristic of our Mood is part of the reason. Not only are you directly influencing the energy and attitude of the folks you meet with in person … you have the same influence over people two and three degrees of separation away.
Please take this to heart and remember, if you want people to have a positive attitude with a “let’s dig in and get this job done” mindset … it all starts with you. You can only reap what you sew.
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