Come on, get happy -- scientists tell you how
Among the many wise things said by President Abraham Lincoln is this take on happiness: A person will be just about as happy as he makes up his mind to be.
That sentiment is somewhat controversial among psychologists and other scientists. Some experts believe that long-term happiness is essentially unchangeable, thanks to one’s genes and personality. (One study has pegged DNA as the source of 44% to 52% of one’s happiness.) Many economists and other experts believe, like Lincoln, that people can take steps to become more -- or less -- happy.
A study published online Monday by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences provides evidence that the latter group is right.
Researchers from Australia, the Netherlands and Germany scoured data from thousands of German adults who were tracked for a quarter-century, from 1984 to 2008. Each year, they answered questions about their families, their careers, their health, their social activities and their “life satisfaction.”
Based on all this data, the researchers concluded that these things (in no particular order) contribute to happiness:
- Having an emotionally stable spouse
- Prioritizing altruistic goals like “helping other people” and “being involved in social and political activities”
- Prioritizing family (and, for women, having a spouse who prioritizes family goals is an added bonus)
- Having an active social life
- Regular exercise
And these things detract from happiness:
- Having a neurotic spouse
- Prioritizing “success and material goods”
- Working much more or much less than you’d ideally like (though being unemployed or underemployed is worse than being overworked)
- For men, being underweight
- For women, being obese
Here’s how the researchers summed up their findings: “Results showing that long-term happiness can be substantially affected by individual choices are good news, not only for economists but also for governments and humankind.”
-- Karen Kaplan / Los Angeles Times
