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AGING MAY HEIGHTEN A PERSON'S WELL-BEING RATHER THAN LESSEN IT
Older Adults Found to be Happier Regardless of Gender,
Marital Status, Education, Stress, Personality and Physical Health
WASHINGTON - Getting older usually signifies more aches, pains,
memory problems and other age-related discomforts. One might also expect
that a person's happiness would also decline. Not so, say psychologists
who have found in a recent study appearing in the American Psychological
Association's November issue of the Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology that as people get older, they become happier not sadder.
Psychologist Daniel K. Mroczek, Ph.D., of Fordham University and
Fulbright Scholar Christian M. Kolarz, B.S., of the University of Warsaw
in Poland examined the responses of 2,727 men and women aged 25 to 74
years old to a survey to find out how much a person's age, gender,
marital status, education, stress, health and personality (levels of
extraversion, introversion and neuroticism) affected their well-being.
Dr. Mroczek and Mr. Kolarz found that "the older the person was, the
more he or she reported positive emotions like cheerfulness, life
satisfaction and overall happiness within the past 30 days. And
surprisingly, the younger participants reported more negative emotions,
like feeling sad, nervous, hopeless or worthless. We found that age
still had an affect even when the other factors (gender, marital status,
education, stress, health or personality) were taken into account as
possible influences."
"Older men (especially those who are married) reported being the
happiest and having the least amount of negative emotions," said the
authors, "and older women also reported more positive emotions than
their younger counterparts. But the women showed no age difference in
their reporting of negative emotions."
"Those that were measured as the happiest were not only older and
male, but were also married and more extroverted," said Dr. Mroczek. "We
have seen this before in other research on age and well-being which
found that relationships played a major role in determining the extent
to which people gain greater regulation over their emotions as they age.
It is possible that men are able to learn how to minimize negative
emotions in their marriages."
"From our research," said the authors," we have seen that older
adults regulate their emotions more effectively than younger or
middle-aged adults. We can propose that older individuals seem to be
able to know, through their years of experience, what kinds of external
events increase or decrease their positive and negative emotions.
Therefore, they achieve a better 'emotional balance' by selecting people
and situations that will minimize negative and maximize positive
emotions."
This study was funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur
Foundation Research Network on Successful Midlife Development and was
part of a large national survey that the MacArthur Midlife Research
Network conducted to better understand issues affecting adults in their
middle years, especially issues concerning health and well-being.
Article: "The Effect Of Age on Positive and Negative Affect: A
Developmental Perspective on Happiness," by Daniel K. Mroczek, Ph.D.,
Fordham University and Christian M. Kolarz, B.S., University of Warsaw,
in Poland, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol.75, No. 5.
(Full Text available from the APA Public Affairs Office before
November 11 and http://www.apa.org/journals/jpsp thereafter)
Daniel K. Mroczek, Ph.D. can be reached at (718) 817-3796 or
[email protected]
The American Psychological Association (APA), in Washington, DC is
the largest scientific and professional organization representing
psychology in the United States and is the world's largest association
of psychologists. APA's membership includes more than 155,000
researchers, educators, clinicians, consultants and students. Through
its divisions in 50 subfields of psychology and affiliations with 58
state, territorial and Canadian provincial associations, APA works to
advance psychology as a science, as a profession and as a means of
promoting human welfare.
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