Cooperation, kindness is contagious

SAN DIEGO, March 9 (UPI) -- Cooperative behavior is contagious and spreads from person to person to person -- just like negative behavior, U.S. researchers found.

James Fowler of the University of California, San Diego, and Nicholas Christakis of the Harvard Medical School, co-authors of the book "Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives," said acts of kindness, generosity and cooperation spread just as easily as bad behavior.

When people benefit from kindness they "pay it forward" by helping others who were not originally involved and this creates a cascade of cooperation that influences dozens more in a social network, the researchers said.

In their current study, Fowler and Christakis show that when one person gives money to help others in a "public-goods game," where people have the opportunity to cooperate with each other, the recipients are more likely to give their own money away to other people in future games.

This creates a domino effect in which one person's generosity spreads first to three people and then to the nine people, etc., the study said.

The study, published in the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, also found uncooperative behavior spread in a similar fashion.