Research is proving that happiness is not really influenced by whether you’re employed, married or if your children are still living at home. Irrespective, life appears to be better after the age of 50 years. This was revealed in a phone survey which involved hundreds of thousands of Americans. They confirmed that life has a tendency to be less anxious, worrisome and happier once an individual surpasses the 50 years mark.
The general indicator used to measure well-being is the Global well-being measurement. The measure is a subjective measurement, which involves asking people how they consider their life to be in general. Arthur Stone from Stony Brook University in New York State says that it has been the standard measure in survey research. However, the questions do require “people to make a lot of judgments”. In reality, it is hard to derive a logical index. It is tough to choose who to ask and for people to compare their feelings over-time.
Stone decided to adopt an easier method to collect information. Fortunately, Stone had been involved as a senior scientist at Gallup Organisation, which is a company that conducts large telephone surveys in the United States. They do usually gather information related to consumer confidence in the economy, how well the president is performing his job. The question for the phone survey was tailored in a particular way to analyse the emotions that the people experienced the day before the survey. In 2008, the survey reached above 350,000 people in different regions across the United States.
The team was able to identify that global well-being dropped from the age of 20 to the age of 50. However, after the half-century mark the global well being measure steadily increased, this occurred simultaneously with enjoyment and happiness. Sadness is relatively stable across ages but the survey did reveal that even negative feeling tended to fall with age.
Moreover, anger does constantly decrease after the 20s and stress does reach its momentum at that same age group. However, stress falls slowly but does drop severely after the age of 50. Both men and women have a similar pattern. Yet, women are sadder at all ages and more stressed although women have a higher global well-being index than men at most ages. The study is available online at Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The survey seems to be very accurate according to Stone. If anyone above the age 50 would be involved in the survey, there are very few that would like to revert back to their 20s again.
Stone’s team considered various determinants that could influence the global well-being measurement. They consider variables such as people being unemployed or having children still at home. However, they had merely no association to the well-being measurement.
Laura Carstensen who is a life-span developmental psychologist at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California was not involved in the study. However, she says that older people are better at controlling their emotions. She also proclaimed that as we grow older we become more aware about what we should select and focus on.
Carstensen is fascinated about the research, as the study shows that phone survey, an inexpensive method, can practically yield the same result as asking people face-to-face. She considered that Stone was able to collect information effectively while joining it up with interesting literature on various emotions at different ages.
Richard Suzman who is the director of the Division of Behavioral and Social Research of the National Institute on Aging in Bethesda, Maryland says that the study can have global benefits. It could be possible to execute well-being surveys after medical treatments to understand whether interventions enhance the life of the patients. He also suggested that a well-being index could provide more than simply an economic measurement. It would be tantamount to our GDP measurement, as it would provide information of how well people are in different cities, and countries.
Source: Science Magazine
Tue, Jul 6, 2010
Health And Aging