Saturday, January 11

Tag: human experience

Does Life’s Happiness Have a Shape?

Does Life’s Happiness Have a Shape?

Science and Nature
Register for the totally free Nautilus newsletter: science and culture for individuals who like lovely writing. It's long been presumed that joy throughout the life-span reveals an unique "U" shape. When we're young, and in fairly health, we have high levels of joy. In mid-life, joy plunges as individuals come to grips with the needs of their adult years and duties of domesticity. As those obligations minimize with age, and as individuals acquire more knowledge and viewpoint, their levels of joy increase once again. Years of research study had actually borne this out. U-shaped joy curves appeared to be essential to the human experience. One research study even reported that the pattern kept in nonhuman primates in captivity, consistin...