If growing old is not fun, why in surveys of welfare out that older people are happier than young people? The latest research about happiness, asking people about their lives as a whole, their work, family, social activities and other aspects have begun to show some interesting patterns.
The new data released by the National Statistics Office UK (ONS) show that most people have to be happier than younger people are. However, if you look at the ONS data more closely, we can see even more interesting patterns.
Between 20 and 40/50 years, people get a lower score on the scales to measure happiness as a whole. However, once past the Ecuador, the trend is reversed and the average happiness is increasing until it goes down again once past the 70.
This pattern of age in the UK is similar to those obtained in other countries that enjoy a high level of income, while in other regions the curve does not manifest itself in the same way. In rich countries it is visible in general assessments about the level of satisfaction in life and (to increase during middle age) through reports on recent worries or stress.
There is also in some specific areas of life: the level of satisfaction and work pressure, are respectively lower and higher levels during the Ecuador of our life. This U – shaped curve is very similar in men and women, although the diagram shows that women tend to have more concerns than men do.
Proportion of respondents who said they had experienced a high level of concern during the previous day, based on data from the Gallup-Health ways survey Wellbeing Steptoe, Deaton and Stone, The Lancet
Surveys of this kind give us means from different people results, so we cannot generalize and think that is common to everyone. Longitudinal studies on happiness throughout life have not yet been carried out and investigations have failed to determine that a variable, age, have a causal relationship with the other, happiness.
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It seems likely that the age contribute in some way in the positive or negative feelings, but the number of years since the birth may not be a direct influence. Hence we have to look for other factors possibly causal, that may change with age.
Happiness and environment
It is obvious that happiness is greatly influenced by external factors and many studies have identified several factors that can contribute to the relationship between happiness and age. When adults reach middle age, often made with extra work and family responsibilities may be affected by job insecurity and uncertainty about the future, as well as childcare and commitments to older relatives. Conflicts between assigned roles can become too much and the income can be increasingly adjusted to cover all needs.
Studies have found that people need to have some influence on what happens to them and what they do to avoid trouble. They are unhappy when they are only a puppet in the hands of other people and other circumstances while want to be able to take reins to reduce pressure and improve their way of enjoying life. However, the ability to influence your environment may be affected half of life by conflicts of interest with other people and the roles we have assigned each. You can I feel trapped in your situation.
This is what, along with other aspects of a person’s environment can abate happiness in middle age. So what is it that improvement next? This is partly because people go to other stages of life where the need of time and money, uncertainty and other negative aspects are becoming less. When children have grown up, work and other activities are stabilized and people who require our care have died the average happiness of people increases.
However, feelings are not only influenced by what happens to you: also depend on your way of interpreting the world. People respond differently to many aspects of their environment, in part because of mental filters as depicted below.
With regard to the phrase number three of the table, comparisons “up” (against alternatives that are supposed to be better than your situation) feed unhappiness. While it is true that sometimes-think how things could be worse, (making comparisons “down”) can lead to more positive thoughts.
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Mental comparisons typically include other people, such as the number one example of the table. During the twenty comparisons with others “up” they are normal: compared with the neighbor or with the bodies of celebrities. However, older less need for effort leads to more comparisons “down”. As people pass middle age, they begin to look back and make comparisons “down” that can improve your happiness.
Mental adjustment processes are particularly important to understand why happiness increases in subsequent years. Biological and psychological studies have shown how responses to stimuli are lower after several repetitions. This means that the unfavorable conditions become more optimistic views over time.
For those who are new stimuli, cognition (what you think) and affection (how you feel) they tend to be closely related. However, after a period of adaptation can be separated again: you may be aware of what happens, but your feelings happen to be neutralized.
As certain characteristics and events in your life become increasingly familiar, they tend to generate less intense emotions, which may contribute to a gradual increase in happiness over the years. The combination of these types of factors, changes in what life brings and changes in how to interpret these events, can give us an explanation of the U-shaped pattern for happiness in relation to age.
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