How Human Connection can Increase Happiness

It’s no question that as humans, social interaction with friends, family members and those we love brings us happiness.

Social interactions in all forms throughout each and every day can actually make us happy!

Strong and weak ties

From the interaction with the store clerk, to the phone call with your best friend, sociologist Mark Granovetter characterizes our daily contacts as either strong or weak ties. Strong ties being the bonds of friends, family and close co-workers, and weak ties involving people we only see on occasion.

In a study performed, the number of interactions people had day-to-day directly correlated with a sense of belonging and happiness. The more interaction with strong ties, the happier the individual felt at the end of the day. Interactions with weak ties predicted a person’s sense of belongingness, but only weakly predicted happiness.

The interactions we have with other people, weak or strong, influence both happiness and a sense of belonging. Of course, how you hear can have a huge impact on with who and how often you are interacting with others. Being able to communicate, hear clearly and understand those around you is directly linked to being happy and healthy!