This is an article explaining that social circles affect various aspects of our health, emotions and decisions we make within our lives. There is a relation that we have studied in Chapter 1 of our course outline, in which it explains that society influences our personal relationships with loved ones, our personal behavior and mindset.
Nicholas Christakis, a medical sociologist at Harvard Medical School with the group of researchers have studied the network of several thousand friends, relatives and neighbors that has tracked risk factors in cardiovascular disease among residents of Framingham. They have noticed how happiness spreads within the network of happy people. If the following person becomes happy there are a lot of chances of affecting one’s happiness.Researchers found out that facial expressions affects the strength of the emotion that is felt. From a study of Framingham group, researchers observed how the social circle influence the obesity and smoking problem. For example, if one spouse quits smoking, there is a chance that the other spouse more likely to quit 67%.
In chapter 1 of our textbook, we have studied that society has a major impact on our individual being. Society shapes societal norms – the norms that are accepted in our circle of life. For example, the high school student can starve herself, if her friends are all skinny, and it is their norm, and to be their friends, she sacrifices the weight to be in the union. More or likely, if the good friends in one circle are smokers, to be fully in that circle, a non-smoker becomes a smoker. In this way, a non-smoker, sacrifices his/her own health.
A social circle of our friends, family, relatives and coworkers shape our lives. It is very important to be in the right circle, full of positive energy, as the energy is contagious. Our social circles shape our life style and the entire life. If your friends, are lazy, smokers and drug addicts, there is 75% probability you will become that way, if you don’t step out of that social circle.
