The Contagious Nature of Sadness in Social Networks

Sadness is contagious, so isolating oneself can help mitigate its spread.

### The Contagion of Sadness: Understanding Emotional Influence in Social Networks
* 😔 "Being friends with depressed people can make you **depressed**," highlighting the **reverse effect of social relationships on mental health**.
* 📊 A 1999 meta-analysis of 36 studies confirmed that **depression is more contagious than positive emotions**, suggesting a bias in our brains towards **negativity**.
* 🔗 Hill et al. proposed a social contagion model in 2010, indicating that **negative experiences accumulate and transfer between individuals** through interactions.
* 👫 A 2017 study showed that couples are **significantly likely to share anxiety and depression**, with one partner's mental state **influencing the other's**.
* 📉 Interestingly, a 2021 study found that couples often **overestimate each other's depression levels**, which may **amplify their own feelings of sadness**.
* 🐭 In 2018, a rodent model demonstrated that **exposure to depressive behaviors** in one group led to **similar behaviors in another group** within **five weeks**.
* 🌐 Overall, while social networks can **protect against sadness**, they can also **facilitate its spread**, making it essential to be **mindful of the emotional states of those around us**.
* 💡 If you're feeling sad and want to act selflessly, it may be best to **distance yourself from others**; conversely, engaging with others might **lessen your sadness** but could **spread it to them**.

if you are sad and you want to act selflessly [Music] good afternoon friends I hope your day is going well if it's not this video may be helpful in this video we're going to discuss how sadness is contagious but before we do please subscribe to the

channel if you're not already like the video and comment on the video to help the channel now let's get started to introduce the subject to you you probably heard before that being in large social networks and having fruitful close relationships with friends is protective against depression

but you probably never heard of the reverse directional effect which is that being friends with depressed people can make you depressed the reason you probably never heard of this is actually because it's a poorly studied phenomenon we'll begin with the meta-analysis from 1999 this meta-analysis of 36 studies

found that depression appeared to be contagious and not only so but more contagious than positive emotion this supported some landmark 2001 papers which posited that our brains are biased towards negative rather than positive things in general and that negative things are dominant over positive things

in our brains maybe because of the contagiousness of negativity such that when one negative and one positive are combined together of the same weight we usually have a negative result finally in 2010 Hill et al proposed an infectious disease model of communicable

mood states in humans a social contagion model a model that showed how feelings and affect could be contagious across humans using network theory the model originally posited that experiences with others that are for example negative are cumulative such that they eventually affect the other person whatever quality

one person's encountering from another person eventually gets transferred according to the number of interactions and the depth of interactions that they have later on this theory was built upon further showing that depressed people actually sought out other depressed people and then made each other depressed in 2014 this framework was

further developed with a longitudinal study that showed that the vulnerability to depression also appeared contagious across people vulnerability to depression regards something in relation to psychological resilience and sort of the opposite of neuroticism and so on it's a psychological model but the point

is that people become increasingly vulnerable to altered states as they hang out with more vulnerable people as well next in a 2017 cross-sectional study it was confirmed that not only do couples seem to share health circumstances and other circumstances in life but couples appear to be much more

likely to be anxious together or depressed together in fact in this study it seemed that having a partner who was either anxious or depressed increased the other person's likelihood of being either one of them by several times now this is really interesting because an uncited study from 2021 shows that it

seems that in couples the couples are not that really empathetic of the other person's feelings they have a personal bias such that if one person in the couple is depressed they assume the other person is also depressed and they magnify that effect so they'll be likely

to think the other person is more depressed than they are even if the other person is not depressed although being in a couple does seem to increase the likelihood of the other person being depressed in the first place so maybe it's a rational way of thinking and

finally to get us completely up to date in 2018 a rodent model of contagious depression was created in which a standard model of depression in rodents was used a group of rodents developed that depressive phenotype and then other rodents were put in with these rodents

and developed the same phenotype within five weeks unfortunately that takes us to sort of the limit of what's known about the contagiousness of sadness it's a very poorly researched field the mechanisms are not very well understood maybe some of you could research it

yourselves if you have funding or the ability in school but what takeaways could we take from what we learned already well first we know that social networks are generally protective they're generally protective against sadness but sadness is especially contagious more than other emotions and

can spread through networks very quickly third if you ever notice a depressed or negative person seems attracted to you and you don't know them already this may tell you more about yourself than them usually people that have negative emotions or affect will be attracted to others who emit the same kind of emotion

and finally and practically if you are sad and you want to act selflessly keep yourself away from other people and if you're sad and want to act selfishly and empower yourself meet other people and interact with them you'll spread your sadness on them but you'll end up with

slightly less sadness it's certainly contagious anyway friends I hope you learned something from this video and I look forward to seeing you again tomorrow morning [Music] you

Catching Depression

Leo and Longevity

Strong social networks protect against depression.

A 1999 meta-analysis showed depression is contagious, more so than positive emotions.

Brains are biased towards negativity; negative emotions dominate over positive ones.

A 2010 model showed feelings are contagious, accumulating through interactions.

Depressed people seek out others, increasing mutual depression.

Vulnerability to depression is contagious.

Couples tend to share anxiety and depression.

Couples may overestimate each other's depression.

A 2018 rodent study showed contagious depression.

Social networks generally protect against sadness, but sadness is highly contagious.

Depressed people may be attracted to those with similar emotions.

To act selflessly while sad, avoid others; to act selfishly, interact with others.