July 17, 2008

Getting Older Means Getting . . . Happier
The recently published results of a long term, ongoing survey suggest that older people are happier than younger ones. This result certainly runs counter to the conventional wisdom that "aging is not sissies."  An array of studies parsing the data from the survey attempts to get at some reasons for this happiness factor.

Annually since 1972, the General Social Survey interviewed a group of 50,000 Americans, asking the same detailed set of questions year after year.  One of the questions was whether they are very happy, pretty happy or not too happy.

"One important finding was people who were biologically older are happier than younger adults," said Tom W. Smith in an interview with The Washington Post (link below).  Smith, who is the director of the General Social Survey, found that respondents did not report happiness just because they were part of the ‘silent generation’ who were raised not to complain: through the duration of the Survey, the same people had not always reported being happy at a younger age.

Smith continued: "It is counter to most people's expectations.  People would expect it to be in the opposite direction -- you start off by saying older people have illnesses, deaths of spouses -- they must be less happy."

The work of Laura Carstensen, director of the Stanford Center on Longevity, delving into the “socioemotional selectivity theory,”  (or, as it is popularly known, “the positivity effect”) has produced similar results.  Says Stacey Wood of Scripps College in an interview with Stanford Medicine: “We used to believe that as they aged, older adults became disengaged, their emotions became dampened. This is no longer true. There’s really been a paradigm shift due to Carstensen’s work.”

Wood continues: “The rates of depression among older adults actually decline.  Therapists are now aware that it isn’t normal for an older person to be disengaged or depressed and will treat them as such.”

One recent study using data from the General Social Survey looked at older respondents and categorizing emotions both by negative and positive qualities, but also active and passive qualities.  (Anger is negative and active, while contentment is both positive and passive.)

The study, by Catherine Ross and John Mirowsky at the University of Texas at Austin, concluded that while advanced age correlates with feeling positive emotions, it correlates negatively with active emotions: older people had not only more positive emotional states but also more passive emotional states.

"The reason we think the elderly have higher levels of depression [a characterization Wood would likely dispute] is not because they have higher levels of negative emotions but that they have higher levels of passivity," Ross reported in the same interview with The Washington Post. "If the problem is having lower levels of energy, maybe the answers lie in increasing levels of energy, like reading a book or taking a walk -- mental and physical activity -- taking a bike ride or a yoga class. The sadness part may not be a negative emotion but a manifestation of the energy level.”

Indeed, in terms of aphorisms on aging, perhaps George Burns had it right after all when he said, “You can't help getting older, but you don't have to get old.”

Denise Barnes, The Freshwater Group

Read More:
Stanford Center on Longevity: The Positivity Effect

Stanford Medicine: The Positivity Effect

Washington Post: Older Americans May Be Happier Than Younger Ones