20 Aug Fortunately, Good Moods Are Contagious But Depression Is Not

MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Edward Hill PhD student
Centre for Complexity Science
Member of the Warwick Infectious Disease Epidemiology Research Centre (WIDER)
at the University of Warwick

Medical Research: What is the background for this study?

Response: Depression is a major public health concern worldwide. We know social factors, such as living alone, can influence whether someone becomes depressed. We also know that social support (having people to talk to) is important for recovery from depression.

Our study is slightly different as we looked at the effect of being friends with people on whether you are likely to develop depression or recover from being depressed. To do this, we looked at over 2,000 adolescents in a network of US high school students to see how their mood influenced each other.

Medical Research: What are the main findings?

Response: Our study revealed that having mentally healthy friends can help someone recover from depression or even remain mentally healthy in the first place. But crucially, having depressed friends does not make you more likely to become depressed yourself. In other words, it is healthy mood that spreads through social networks but depression does not.

In particular, an individual with healthy mood having five or more friends with a healthy mood can halve their probability of developing depression over a six-to-12 month period, compared to those with no friends with healthy mood. Over a similar time period, a depressed individual having ten healthy-mood friends doubles their probability of recovering from depression compared to those who have just three such friends.

Medical Research: What should clinicians and patients take away from your report?

Response: A potential way to tackle depression among young people would be to simply encourage friendships.Having depressed friends does not put an individual at risk of getting depression themselves, but having healthy friends is both protective and curative. If every teenager had more friends it could go some way to providing them with a protective effect against mental health problems. This also supports the idea that depression should be a public health issue rather than an individual one and should be used to help counter the stigma attached to the condition.

Medical Research: What recommendations do you have for future research as a result of this study?

Response: In the context of mood, it is important to stress that we do not believe that the analogy with viral spreading is literally true, but rather that it emerges from the behaviour of a complex social system. Future work could therefore try to look in more detail at how different aspects of mood are influenced by friends to understand this phenomenon better.

Furthermore, our methods could be used in other areas of public-health importance, investigating if smoking or obesity spreads for example.

Citation:

Spreading of healthy mood in adolescent social networks

E. M. Hill, F. E. Griffiths, T. House

Published 19 August 2015. DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2015.1180

MedicalResearch.com is not a forum for the exchange of personal medical information, advice or the promotion of self-destructive behavior (e.g., eating disorders, suicide). While you may freely discuss your troubles, you should not look to the Website for information or advice on such topics. Instead, we recommend that you talk in person with a trusted medical professional.

The information on MedicalResearch.com is provided for educational purposes only, and is in no way intended to diagnose, cure, or treat any medical or other condition. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health and ask your doctor any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. In addition to all other limitations and disclaimers in this agreement, service provider and its third party providers disclaim any liability or loss in connection with the content provided on this website.

Edward Hill PhD student (2015). Fortunately, Good Moods Are Contagious But Depression Is Not 

Last Updated on August 21, 2015 by Marie Benz MD FAAD