Summary: Subjective well-being varies significantly across different stages of life, reveals a comprehensive study examining 460,902 participants. Life satisfaction dips during teenage years, peaks in the 70s, and drops off again by age 96.
While positive feelings generally decrease from childhood to late adulthood, negative emotions see fluctuations, with a noticeable rise after age 60. These insights emphasize the necessity to nurture emotional well-being across different life phases.
Key Facts:
- Life satisfaction dips during adolescence (ages 9-16), rebounds, and peaks around age 70 before declining towards age 96.
- Positive emotions tend to drop consistently from childhood through late adulthood.
- The research underscores the importance of cultivating well-being across various life stages, with findings crucial for designing interventions, especially for older adults.
Source: RUB
In their study, the researchers examined trends in subjective well-being over the lifespan based on 443 samples from longitudinal studies with a total of 460,902 participants.
“We focused on changes in three central components of subjective well-being,” explains Professor Susanne Bücker, who initially worked on the study in Bochum and has since moved to Cologne: “Life satisfaction, positive emotional states and negative emotional states.”
The findings show that the life satisfaction decreased between the ages of 9 and 16, then increased slightly until the age of 70, and then decreased once again until the age of 96. Positive emotional states showed a general decline from age 9 to age 94, while negative emotional states fluctuated slightly between ages 9 and 22, then declined until age 60 and then increased once again. The authors identified greater median changes in positive and negative emotional states than in life satisfaction.
Positive trend over a wide period of life
“Overall, the study indicated a positive trend over a wide period of life, if we look at life satisfaction and negative emotional states,” as Susanne Bücker sums up the results.
The researchers attribute the slight decline in life satisfaction between the ages of 9 and 16 to, for example, changes to the body and to the social life that take place during puberty. Satisfaction rises again from young adulthood onwards. Positive feelings tend to decrease from childhood to late adulthood. In very late adulthood, all components of subjective well-being tended to worsen rather than improve.
“This could be related to the fact that in very old people, physical performance decreases, health often deteriorates, and social contacts diminish; not least because their peers pass away,” speculates the researcher.
The study highlights the need to consider and promote subjective well-being with its various components across the lifespan, as the authors of the study conclude. Their findings could provide significant guidance for the development of intervention programmes, especially those aimed at maintaining or improving subjective well-being late in life.
About this aging and happiness research news
Author: Meike Driessen
Source: RUB
Contact: Meike Driessen – RUB
Image: The image is credited to Neuroscience News
Original Research: Closed access.
“The development of subjective well-being across the lifespan: A meta-analytic review of longitudinal studies” by Susanne Bücker et al. Psychological Bulletin
Abstract
The development of subjective well-being across the lifespan: A meta-analytic review of longitudinal studies
How does subjective well-being (SWB) develop across the life span? Theories and previous empirical research suggest heterogeneous conclusions regarding this question.
Therefore, in this meta-analysis, we synthesized the available longitudinal data on mean-level change in three SWB components: life satisfaction, positive affect, and negative affect. The analyses were based on 443 unique samples with a total of 460,902 participants.
Our results showed that life satisfaction decreased from age 9 to 16 (d = −0.56), increased slightly until age 70 (d = 0.16), and then decreased again until age 96 (i.e., the oldest age for which data on life satisfaction were available; d = −0.24). Positive affect declined from age 9 for almost the entire time until age 94 (d = −1.71). Negative affect showed small ups and downs between ages 9 and 22. After age 22, negative affect declined until age 60 (d = −0.92), after which it increased again until age 87 (d = 0.58).
Average changes in positive and negative affect were stronger than in life satisfaction. The moderator analyses suggested that the pattern of mean-level changes held across gender, country, ethnicity, sample type, the measure of SWB, time frame of SWB measure, and birth cohort.
In sum, we found a favorable developmental trajectory of SWB over large parts of life for life satisfaction and negative affect and decreases from childhood until late adulthood for positive affect. In late adulthood, SWB tended to worsen rather than improve.
Consequently, interventions aimed at maintaining or enhancing SWB in older adults might be useful.
