Teenagers catch moods and negative moods are more contagious
20 January 2021
Mental health and emotional wellbeing among young people could be better understood by findings in a recently-published paper from Oxford and Birmingham universities, which reveal that teenagers catch moods from friends and bad moods are more contagious than good ones.
The authors Dr Per Block, of Oxford’s Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science, and Dr Stephanie Burnett Heyes, of The University of Birmingham’s School of Psychology, hope the ground-breaking study could lead to improved understanding of emotional wellbeing.
Dr Block says, ‘Our study shows conclusively that individuals are affected by how others around them are feeling. Mood is contagious, and though both positive and negative moods are ‘caught’, bad moods are more potent.
‘We hope it is a step towards understanding why people fall into prolonged low states, the social factors that determine emotional wellbeing in adolescents, and, in the long run, how it may be possible to provide emotional support leading to improved mental health.’
The wide-ranging findings show mood goes both ways. While a teen ‘catches’ a low mood from a friend, the friend feels uplifted in the process. There was no evidence adolescents either avoid or seek contact with peers in a negative or positive frame of mind - suggesting mood does not determine popularity in the short term and socialising with someone in a low mood is a risk most are prepared to take.
The study found teenagers’ moods become more similar to people they spend time with, that a bad mood is more infectious than a good, and these individuals did not select others with whom to socialise simply to match the way they felt themselves.
Two groups of adolescents, 79 in total, aged 15 to 19-years-old participated in the study. Each group was on a short residential classical music performance tour.
Each young musician recorded daily moods and social interactions. The situation allowed the study to overcome the challenges of environment, dispersed social networks and timeframes, which limited previous studies.
Dr Block says, ‘What makes our study special is that, by having people in a group with few external influences, experiencing the same environment and spending their time together, we could see who interacted with whom and how that made others feel.
‘We saw, first, the interaction, and then how mood became more similar. As mood changes frequently and is influenced by various environmental factors that differ between individuals, many studies find collecting comprehensive data difficult. But because our participants were living together, we overcame that challenge too.’
The results were identical from both groups and partly contradict previous understanding. Earlier research suggested good mood is more contagious than bad, and that bad mood is associated with social withdrawal. This study showed no evidence that teens feeling low withdrew.
The research was conducted before social interaction was severely restricted by the coronavirus pandemic.
Dr Burnett Heyes says, ‘This study raises so many outstanding questions, especially in COVID-19 times, such as what do we lose when interaction is not face-to-face, and what is preserved? And finally, if everyone is struggling, is it too emotionally risky to connect with others and potentially ‘catch’ their low mood?’
Notes to Editors:
For more information and interview requests contact Emma Fabian, Media and Communications Officer Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science [email protected]
Published by the American Psychological Association, the study Sharing the Load: Contagion and Tolerance of Mood in Social Networks, gathered data using state-of-the-art statistical network methods, particularly Stochastic Actor-Orientated Models (SAOMs). Each participant rated their mood each day from 1 (not at all to very slightly) to 5 (very much or extremely) to indicate the intensity they experienced 12 mood states (cheerful, sad, enthusiastic, upset, calm, lonely, nervous, accepted, irritable, dissatisfied with self, inspired). The teenagers also reported their daily interactions listing the fellow tour musicians they spent most time with, in order.
Participants logged the amount of time the spent on social media. All model results are robust to self-reported daily frequency of social media use.
Adolescent study participants (N = 79) completed daily mood (n = 4,724) and social interaction (n = 1,775) ratings during residential performance tours of classical music lasting 5 to 7 days.
About the Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science
Societies and economies face unprecedented global demographic challenges, including radical shifts in age structures, global aging, rapid population growth in some areas but decline in others, substantial sudden flows of migrants and refugees, diverse families and fertility patterns and population-related environmental threats. The Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science (LCDS) was set up in 2019 to build an internationally recognized centre of demographic science that will disrupt, realign and raise the value of demography in science and society.
About the University of Oxford
Oxford has been placed number 1 in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings for the fifth year running, and at the heart of this success is our ground-breaking research and innovation. Oxford is world-famous for research excellence and home to some of the most talented people from across the globe. Our work helps the lives of millions, solving real-world problems through a huge network of partnerships and collaborations. The breadth and interdisciplinary nature of our research sparks imaginative and inventive insights and solutions.