Decades ago, elusive happiness became a subject of study for psychologists and scientists, who have tried to find the keys to that mental state that we all pursue, related to better health and increased longevity. Most of the research of the last half century has concluded that “the line of happiness” throughout our lives is U-shaped, with the lowest point of satisfaction located in our forties. According to many of these works, happiness would begin to decline when we enter our twenties and would suffer its worst phase between 40 and 60 years. This theory has been so accepted by society that this supposed “midlife crisis” has become a cliché of cinema and television series, and a commercial claim to sell all kinds of products to the 40s and 50s.
But a recent study published in Developmental Psychology by researchers from the University of Alberta (Canada) has come to discuss this widely accepted hypothesis. In fact, the people analyzed in this work turned out to be happier in their early 40s than at 18; in fact, early middle age would mark one more season in rising happiness beginning in adolescence and early twenties.
The Alberta researchers looked at two groups of individuals of both genders: one high school graduates between the ages of 18 and 43, and the other of college graduates between the ages of 23 and 37. Both showed an increase in happiness starting in their 30s. . The research took into account factors such as work and emotional changes, but the conclusion was always the same: in the years after leaving high school and university, the two samples of subjects had experienced an improvement in their psychological well-being.
It was not the only conclusion: it also turned out that in the period from 18 to 30 years is when happiness grows faster; that is higher among married people and in good physical condition, and that suffers a logical downturn with unemployment.
The sociologist Harvey Krahn, one of the authors of the research, maintains that this analysis of the happiness curve throughout life is more reliable than the previous ones, carried out with a cross-sectional approach: that is, choosing a population sample in a single temporary moment of their existence. In contrast, the Alberta scientists’ work was done with a longitudinal approach, investigating the same groups of people over a period of time. According to Krahn, “If you want to know how people change with age, you have to follow the same individuals over the years.”
