Research Shows the Dynamic Spread of Happiness in a Large Social Network

June 25, 2021 by

I am continuing this week’s focus on some of my favourite blog posts from the earlier days of Recovery Stories and our online community Wired In To Recovery. I first wrote this blog not long after the launch of our online recovery community.

‘Last week, the British Medical Journal published a very interesting article on the dynamic spread of happiness in a large social network. This high quality research involved a longitudinal analysis over 20 years of participants in a long-term health study in America (the Framingham Heart Study, see at end of Blog for further details].

The research involved 12,067 individuals who were connected to someone else in this population at some point between 1971 and 2003. Researchers measured happiness by a questionnaire and conducted a complicated statistical analysis of the relationships between people in this large social network.

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Psychiatry Must Stop Ignoring Trauma, with Dr. Bessel van der Kolk

February 4, 2015 by

Acclaimed psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk explores his field’s long, complex, and stubborn history with trauma. Dr. van der Kolk explains how psychiatry as a whole avoided progress, often misdiagnosing trauma as hysteria or, in the case of shell-shocked soldiers, malingering.

The experiences of abused women and children were more or less ignored for a century. They’re still being ignored in ways, he says.

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‘Addiction Treatment (By Itself) is Not Enough’ by Bill White

September 15, 2014 by

‘I have spent more than four decades providing, studying, promoting, and defending addiction treatment, but remain acutely aware of its limitations. As currently conceived and delivered, most addiction treatment programs facilitate detoxification, recovery initiation, and early recovery stabilization more effectively and more safely than ever achieved in history, but most fall woefully short in supporting the transition to recovery maintenance and the later stages of recovery, particularly for those who need it the most – those with the most severe and complex problems and the least recovery support within their natural environment.

Addiction treatment as a stand-alone intervention is an inadequate strategy for achieving long-term recovery for individuals and families characterized by high problem severity, complexity, and chronicity and low recovery capital.  In isolation, addiction treatment is equally inadequate as a national strategy to lower the social costs of alcohol and other drug-related problems.  Here’s why.

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Favourite Blogs: Research shows the dynamic spread of happiness in a large social network

February 8, 2014 by

2007_0116walpole0146Here’s one of my own blogs from WITR, written in January 2009, not long after the launch of the website.

‘Last week, the British Medical Journal published a very interesting article on the Dynamic spread of happiness in a large social network. This high quality research involved a longitudinal analysis over 20 years of participants in a long-term health study in America (the Framingham Heart Study, see at end of Blog for further details].

The research involved 12,067 individuals who were connected to someone else in this population at some point between 1971 and 2003. Researchers measured happiness by a questionnaire and conducted a complicated statistical analysis of the relationships between people in this large social network.

Read More ➔

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‘Consumerism: Dissatisfaction guarenteed’ By Phil Hanlon

February 4, 2014 by

I continue the excellent series of videos by Professor Phil Hanlon centred around ‘What’s next for the health of society’ from his Afternow website.

‘In this video Phil Hanlon explores in more depth what ‘modernity’ is and why it has created current levels of ‘dis-ease’ in the modern world.

Modernity has brought many benefits (including technological improvements, material comfort, modern medicine and health care etc), but the downside includes the ‘dis-eases’ rehearsed in the earlier videos. 

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‘New wave’ by Phil Hanlon

January 21, 2014 by

The second of a series of top-quality videos on the future of public health by Glasgow professor Phil Hanlon. Fascinating and bigger picture stuff from his Afternow website.

‘What’s next for the health of society?  In this introductory video Phil Hanlon highlights a number of daunting challenges for public health in the 21st Century.  He explains how what might be called the dominant mindset of the modern age can be characterised by its ability to understand, predict and control the natural world – an approach which was subsequently extended to the social world. 

In Public Health, this ability led to a number of  ‘waves’ of health improvement in the period since the Industrial Revolution, many of which remain with us and are important for health today, even though they peaked in effectiveness some time ago. 

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Research shows the dynamic spread of happiness in a large social network

June 9, 2013 by

2007_0116walpole0146Here’s one of my own blogs from WITR, written in January 2009, not long after the launch of the website.

‘Last week, the British Medical Journal published a very interesting article on the Dynamic spread of happiness in a large social network. This high quality research involved a longitudinal analysis over 20 years of participants in a long-term health study in America (the Framingham Heart Study, see at end of Blog for further details].

The research involved 12,067 individuals who were connected to someone else in this population at some point between 1971 and 2003. Researchers measured happiness by a questionnaire and conducted a complicated statistical analysis of the relationships between people in this large social network.

Read More ➔

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: , , , , , , ,