Older people are happier Laura Carstensen

people are living longer and societies

are getting grayer you hear about it all

the time you read about it in your

newspapers you hear about it on your

television sets sometimes I’m concerned

that we hear about it so much that we’ve

come to accept longer lives with a kind

of a complacency even ease but make no

mistake longer lives can and I believe

will improve quality of life at all ages

now to put this in perspective let me

just zoom out for a minute more years

were added to average life expectancy in

the 20th century then all years added

across all prior millennia of human

evolution combined in a blink of an eye

we nearly double the length of time that

we’re living so if you ever feel like

you don’t have this aging thing quite

pegged don’t kick yourself it’s it’s

brand-new and because fertility rates

fell across that very same period that

life expectancy was going up that

pyramid that has always represented the

distribution of age in the population

with many young ones at the bottom we

know to a tiny peak of older people who

make it and survive to old age as being

reshaped into a rectangle and now if

you’re the kind of person who can get

chills from population statistics these

are the ones that should do it because

what that means is that for the first

time in the history of the species the

majority of babies born in the developed

world are having the opportunity to grow

old how did this happen well we’re no

genetically harder than our ancestors

were ten thousand years ago this

increase in life expectancy is the

remarkable product of culture

the crucible that holds science and

technology and wide-scale changes in

behavior that improve health and

well-being through cultural changes our

ancestors largely eliminated early death

so that people can now live out their

full lives now there are problems

associated with aging diseases poverty

loss of social status it’s hardly time

to rest on our laurels but the more we

learn about aging the clearer it becomes

that a sweeping downward course is

grossly inaccurate aging brings some

rather remarkable improvements increased

knowledge expertise and emotional

aspects of life improve that’s right

older people are happy they’re happier

than middle aged people and younger

people certainly study after study is

coming to the same conclusion the the

CDC recently conducted a survey where

they asked respondents simply to tell

them whether they experienced

significant psychological distress in

the previous week and fewer older people

answered affirmatively to that question

than middle-aged people and younger

people as well and a recent Gallup poll

asked participants how much stress and

worry and anger they had experienced the

previous day and stress worry anger all

decreased with age now social scientists

call this the paradox of aging I mean

after all aging is not a piece of cake

so we’ve asked all sorts of questions to

see if we could undo this finding

we’ve asked whether it may be that the

current generations of older people are

and always have been the greatest

generations that is that younger people

today may not typically experience these

improvements as they grow older

we’ve asked well maybe older people are

just trying to put a positive spin on an

otherwise depressing existence

but the more we’ve tried to disavow this

finding the more evidence we find to

support it years ago my colleagues and I

embarked on a study where we followed

the same group of people over a 10-year

period originally the sample was aged 18

to 94 and we studied whether and how

their emotional experiences changed as

they grew older our participants would

carry electronic pagers for a week at a

time and we’d page them throughout the

day and evenings at random times and

every time we page them we’d ask them to

answer several questions on a one to

seven scale how happy are you right now

how sad are you right now how frustrated

are you right now so that we could get a

sense of the kinds of emotions and

feelings they were having in their

day-to-day lives and using this intense

study of individuals we find that it’s

not one particular generation that’s

doing better than the others but the

same individuals over time come to

report relatively greater positive

experience now you see the slight

downturn at very advanced ages and there

is a slight downturn but at no point

does it return to the levels we see an

early adulthood now it’s really too

simplistic to say that older people are

happy in our study they are more

positive but they’re also more likely

than younger people to experience mixed

emotions sadness at the same time you

experience happiness you know that tear

in the eye when you’re smiling at a

friend and other research has shown that

older people seem to engage with sadness

more comfortably and we’re accepting of

sadness than younger people are and we

suspect that this may help to explain

why older people are better than than

younger people at solving hotly charged

emotional conflicts and debates older

people can view injustice with

compassion but not despair and all

things being equal older people direct

their cognitive resources like attention

and memory

to positive information more than

negative if we show older middle-aged

younger people images like the ones you

see on the screen and we later ask them

to recall all the images that they can

older people but not younger people

remember more positive images than

negative images we’ve asked older and

younger people to view faces in

laboratory studies some frowning some

smiling older people look toward the

smiling faces and away from the frowning

angry faces in day-to-day life this

translates into greater enjoyment and

satisfaction but as social scientists

we’ve continued to ask about possible

alternatives we’ve said well maybe older

people report more positive emotions

because they’re cognitively impaired

we’ve said could it be that positive

emotions are simply easier to process

the negative emotions and so you switch

to the positive emotions maybe our

neural centers in our brain are degraded

such that we’re unable to process

negative emotions anymore but that’s not

the case the most mentally sharp older

adults are the ones who show this

positivity effect the most and under

conditions where it really matters older

people do process the negative

information just as well as the positive

information so how can this be well in

our research we found that these changes

are grounded fundamentally and the

uniquely human ability to monitor time

not just clock time and calendar time

but lifetime and if there’s a paradox of

Aging it’s that recognizing that we

won’t live forever changes our

perspective on life in positive ways

when time horizons are long and nebulous

as they typically are and youth people

are constantly preparing trying to soak

up all the information they possibly can

taking risks exploring we might spend

time with people we don’t even like

because it’s somehow interests

ding you know we might learn something

unexpected we go on blind dates you know

after all if it doesn’t work out there’s

always tomorrow

people over 50 don’t go on blind dates

as we age our time horizons grow shorter

and our goals change when we recognize

that we don’t have all the time in the

world we see our priorities most clearly

we take less notice of trivial matters

we savor life

we’re more appreciative more open to

reconciliation we invest in more

emotionally important parts of life and

life gets better so we’re happier day to

day but that same shift in perspective

leads us to have less tolerance than

ever for injustice by 2015 there will be

more people in the United States over

the age of 60 than under 15 what will

happen to societies that are top-heavy

with older people the numbers won’t

determine the outcome culture will if we

invest in science and technology and

find solutions for the real problems

that older people face and we capitalize

on the very real strengths of older

people then added years of life can

dramatically improve quality of life at

all ages societies with millions of

talented emotionally stable citizens who

are healthier and better educated than

any generations before them armed with

knowledge about the practical matters of

life and motivated to solve the big

issues can be better societies than we

have ever known my father who is 92

likes to say let’s stop talking only

about how to save the old folks and

start talking about how to get them to

save us all