Monday, July 07, 2008
Is well-being U-shaped over the life cycle?
Blanchflower & Oswald (2008) present evidence that psychological well-being is U-shaped through life. Using data on 500,000 randomly sampled Americans and West Europeans, the paper designs a test that can control for cohort effects. Holding other factors constant happiness reaches its minimum middle age. The U-shape in age is found in separate well-being regression equations in 72 developed and developing nations. The authors also note that American male birth-cohorts seem to have become progressively less content with their lives.
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4 comments:
So its all downhill from here? Bummer. Guess I will just have to grow old disgracefully.
Downhill in terms of freewheeling happily into old age I think! Children and old people are always bound to be the happiest with their underdeveloped/degenerating frontal lobes,,,
I once read somewhere (that I won´t suggest to be a credible source) that mental degeneration in old age could be considered as an evolutionary response to facing the "endgame". But I`m inclined to think that its just a case of the hardware slowing down. The only reputable evidence that I´ve happened to read in this domain is the work that Richard Roche has done on brain-exercises staving off Alzheimers.
Another example of the poverty of many evolutionary psychology arguments. Why would natural selection occur in favour of dementia? Makes no sense.
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