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