As the colder weather is approaching we have more to worry about than catching the flu from our friends… catching their bad attitude. Edward Hill, a graduate from the University of Warwick in Coventry, England is part of a research team that studied how teens’ moods affect others. This group collected data from about 3,000 US teens. This study was strictly observational because there was no experiment or manipulation. Through a number of years, teens were asked about their mental state and their friends at the time. These answers were then run through computer screening which tested for 3 different areas of study. The first model looked for signs that prove the number of friends who were depressed affected a teen’s risk for depression, the second look for evidence proving the number of friends who were not depressed affected that risk. And the third trial was a control trial which studied if their friends mood had nothing to do with a teen’s risk of depression.
In the end of this study there no was evidence proving that the number of depressed friends affects a teens risk of depression. I believe this trial was unsuccessful for many reasons. First off, there is no way that the evidence resulting from this trial could be viewed as strong because this trial was entirely anecdotal observations. The collection of data took place through small surveys over the phone with large amount of people. This allows for people to give researchers inaccurate information because they think it is more socially correct (courtesy bias). The researchers can never be sure that the information they are receiving is completely correct. Another important factor in this experiment is correlation does not equal causation. This experiment limits itself to only 3 possible outcomes that are evaluated through computers. There are so many possible third variables and reverse causations that are available in this trial. There is no manipulation in the study which would allow for the correlation of your friends depression to link with your own depression. This also creates a huge window for the possibility of chance.
I would conclude this study to be a null hypothesis because there is no change and they fail to reject the alternative hypothesis. This experiment neither proved something wrong, nor proved it right. Because depression is a serious mental illness, if the experimenter truly wanted to asses the mental effects a friends depression has on themselves, they should conduct lab trials. If i were to create my own study, I would create a study group of about 20 people. I would surround 10 of the people with someone who is depressed and the other half would be the control. I would use medical equipment to study the brain activity after spending time with someone who is depressed in contrast to the person surrounded by people who are not depressed. This would allow me to manipulate the study and create tangible evidence.
Just the title of this post was very interesting to me. I am lucky to have a lot of good friends that I truly view as my brothers. However, there have been people along the way, that were unique people, to put it nicely. I remember having to have lunch with this one kid everyday during one semester during high school(not by choice but because we had the same free period) and I always was just irritated every time I walked out of the cafeteria. Even though this is just anecdotal, I really do believe that you are the average of the people you surround yourself with. Even though this is a small article example of how friends can affect your life, I thought they did an excellent job in explaining that your friend choice can have a much bigger impact than what you do on Friday and Saturday nights.
Hi Gwyneth,
I was interested in this post because I believe that the people who surround you can greatly influence not only your emotions, but other factors of your life such as physical health, dietary decisions, and lifestyle choice. I find that when I’m around a friend who eats healthy, I will also eat healthier. When I’m around a friend who wants to order pizza at 12 a.m., I will be on board with her. But this is just a personal anecdote about how I believe others surrounding you have the ability to alter your mental and physical health and decisions. When I’m around friends or family who either have depression or are feeling depressed that day, it tends to bring my mood down along with them. It’s difficult to be upbeat when those surrounding you have negative feelings. I think your idea for an experiment testing this hypothesis would work well and should be performed. Reverse causation is also very likely to be a cause of depressed people being around depressed friends. Instead of people around you making you feel depressed, reverse causation would mean depressed people hang around friends who are similarly depressed, which sometimes can be the case, especially in High school and college. Your post is very interesting! There’s a lot more exploration to be done in this area.
-Claire