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Are you feeling blue? An American study suggests that being surrounded by happy friends and
neighbors could have more of an effect on your happiness than money. That is the finding of researchers
from Harvard University and the University of California at San Diego.
Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler studied the emotional health of more than four thousand seven
hundred people. They used information from the Framingham Heart Study. That study began sixty years
ago in the American community of Framingham, Massachusetts. It was started to learn more about the
risks of heart attack and stroke. For the new study, the researchers examined the emotions of the men
and women in the Framingham Heart Study. The information was gathered from 1983 to 2003.
The researchers found that friends of happy people had a greater chance of being happy themselves.
That means that happiness spreads, or has acontagiouseffect, among people. And, the smaller the
physical distance between friends, the larger the effect they had on each other's happiness. For example,
a person was twenty percent more likely to feel happy if his/her friend living within one and a half
kilometers was also happy. Having a happy neighbor who lived next door increased an individual's
chance of being happy by thirtyfour percent.The effects of friends' happiness lasted for up to a year.
Another finding was that people who worked together or were married did not have as much of an
effect on happiness levels as friends did. The researchers said this was often true among friends of the
same sex. A report on the findings was published this month in theBritishMedicalJournal.America's
National Institute on Aging helped to pay for the study. Some researchers who were not involved with
the study questioned its findings. They said the results could be disputed(争议) unless a separate study
showed similar findings.
1. What does this text mainly tell us?
A. How to live a happy life?
B. One's happiness influences others.
C. How to keep emotions healthy?
D. A scientific experiment.
2. From this text we know that ________.
A. Nicholas and James based their findings on the study of a medical research
B. Nicholas and James have been doing their research for more than twenty years
C. a person with a happy friend has more chance of feeling blue
D. a happy person is more likely to suffer from heart attack
3. The underlined word "contagious" in the third paragraph means ________.
A. contacting
B. embarrassing
C. spreading
D. frightening
4. According to this text, which of the following four persons may have a larger effect on Mrs. Smith's
happiness?
A. Mr. Green, Smith's former classmate.
B. Mr. Thomas, Smith's colleague.
C. A friend in another city.
D. A happy single lady next door.

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