广交朋友好升职

    你是否工作太忙，甚至连在同事的办公室门口稍作停留，闲聊几句或相约共赴午餐的时间都没有？或者你认为工作就是工作，一切公事公办？如果你这么想，就得要小心了：不在工作中努力结交朋友、培养友谊，或许就等于自毁前程。

    近期的一项研究发现，积极建立办公室友谊、工作任劳任怨并经常组织办公室活动的人们在接下来两年中获得升职的可能性要高出40%。“你在工作中付出多少，直接影响到你在工作中得到多少，”《幸福优势：推动事业成功的七大积极心理学原则》（The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology That Fuel Success and Performance at Work）的作者肖恩•阿克称。

    阿克在研究中根据人们为同事提供的此类社会支持的多少，将所有人平均分成4组。最上面的25%是利他主义者，提供的此类社会支持最多，最下面的25%提供的最少。利他主义者自述工作满意度显著较高，工作的投入感比最下面的25%高出了10倍。

    因此，不仅这些人缘好的人自身能受益，公司同样也会受益。“幸福感是现代经济社会中最大的竞争优势，”阿克表示。“如果能在工作中找到创造幸福感的方法，生产率会提高31%，销售额提高37%，人们也会认为你更有魅力，你的创意能力会提升3倍。”

    为增加社会支持，路易斯安那州一家大型医疗保健提供商Ochsner Health System与阿克合作实施了“10/5英尺”法。Ochsner在给1.1万名员工讲授了互相提供支持的重要性后，要求员工们在医院里每次与他人相距不到十英尺时须进行眼神接触并微笑，距离拉近到5英尺时互致问候。

    自那以来，Ochsner获得病人推荐的概率提高了5%，病人就诊量增加。病人总体满意度显著提升。阿克说：“我们只需要稍微做出一些调整，就能轻松改变人们的交往模式。”

    社会支持还能改善个人健康。社会支持度高的人们往往会长寿，就像定期锻炼的人一样，而社会支持度低带来的伤害不亚于高血压。阿克表示，2007年对1,648名哈佛学生的研究发现，社会支持是高压力期幸福度的最佳指征，关联度达到了0.71，高于吸烟和癌症0.37的关联度。

    这项对于社会支持效应的调查是积极心理行动的一部分，它“强调个人有能力改变自身幸福度以及其他相关的正面人生结果”。参与阿克一项研究的人们被要求每天通过一些做法，建立积极心理，比如给认识的某个人写一条积极的留言，或者写下三件过去三周内感恩的事情。个人的人生满意度——普遍认为这一指标能准确预测工作场所的生产率和幸福度——平均得分从培训前的22.96（满分35）提升到了4个月后的27.23。

    Are you too busy to stop by your colleague's office to chat or go to lunch? Or are you someone who keeps work relationships strictly business? Be warned: If you're not reaching out to make and nurture friendships at work, you're probably hurting your career.

    Recent research finds that people who initiate office friendships, pick up slack for their co-workers, and organize workplace social activities are 40% more likely to get a promotion in the subsequent two years. "How much you give at work directly affects how much you get at work," says Shawn Achor, author of The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology That Fuel Success and Performance at Work.

    In his research, Achor divides individuals into quartiles based on how much they provide this kind of social support to colleagues. Work altruists, the top 25%, give the most, while work isolators, the bottom 25%, provide the least. Work altruists report significantly higher job satisfaction and feel 10 times more engaged by work than people in the lowest quartile.

    So not only do these uber-connectors benefit from their behavior, the employer gains as well. "Happiness is the greatest competitive advantage in the modern economy," Achor says. "If you can find a way of creating happiness at work, you're 31% more productive, your sales are 37% higher, people perceive you as being more charismatic and you're three times more creative."

    To increase social support, Ochsner Health System, a large Louisiana health care provider that Achor works with, implemented an approach called the "10/5 Way." After educating 11,000 employees about the importance of offering support to each other, Ochsner asked employees to make eye contact and smile whenever they walk within 10 feet of another person in the hospital. If they pass within 5 feet, they say hello.

    Since then, Ochsner has seen a 5% increase in patients' likelihood to recommend the organization, greater unique patient visits, and a significant improvement in overall patient satisfaction. "We can change the social script very easily by making some small adjustments," Achor says.

    Social support also improves the health of individuals. People who receive high levels of social support are as likely to live longer as those who exercise regularly, and low social support does as much damage as high blood pressure. A 2007 study of 1,648 Harvard students found that social support was the best predictor of happiness in periods of high stress, with a correlation of .71, according to Achor. That's a stronger tie than the link between smoking and cancer, which is .37.

    Researchers investigating the effects of social support are part of the larger positive psychology movement, which stresses the ability of individuals to change their own level of happiness -- and related positive life outcomes. Participants in one of Achor's studies were asked to take daily steps to build positivity, such as writing a positive message to someone in their social network or writing down three things they were grateful for over the course of three weeks. Individuals' mean score on the life satisfaction scale -- a metric widely accepted to accurately predict productivity and happiness at work -- moved from 22.96 before the training (on a 35-point scale) to 27.23 four months later.