Does happiness spread within organizations? Evidence from a field experiment in Norway

We report the results from a large field experiment that tests if happiness spreads within an organizational setting, as predicted by the emotional contagion hypothesis. Although some studies have supported this hypothesis, no well-powered randomized controlled trial has ever tested it in the field. In collaboration with the Norwegian Armed Forces, we randomly assign over 1,500 recruits to rooms during eight-week boot camps. Some recruits live with relatively happier peers while others live with relatively unhappier ones. We find no evidence of happiness convergence at the room level and reject even small contagion effects. We show that this result is not because happiness is overly stable and that peer effects do emerge for some attitudes in non-emotional domains. These results call for a reconsideration of the presumed ubiquity of happiness spillovers, with subsequent implications for well-being models and policies.