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Midlife is the happiness low
Aging is not a linear decline, and happiness doesn't simply rise with age either. In midlife people work a lot, sit a lot, are stressed, and handle emotions less well than they could. Back pain is probably the most common complaint.
A UCLA psychologist who interviewed older adults for a book on aging reports that many of them call 60 or 70 probably the best time in their lives. Younger years are often romanticized, though undergraduates are trying to work out what they want to do, and many people find their 40s rough.
One explanation is the positivity bias. As people get older, they focus more on positive information and events, while younger people focus more on negative ones, possibly for survival. Older adults often say they no longer have time for negativity, and they stay around people who make them feel good. That may help explain the uptick in happiness.
Why does happiness dip in midlife?
Economists David Blanchflower and Andrew Oswald found a U-shaped pattern of life satisfaction across more than 100 countries, with the low point in the late 40s. Blanchflower's 2020 analysis put the average low at about 47 in advanced economies. Midlife often combines career pressure, money worries, and care for both children and aging parents. The curve remains after adjusting for income, marriage, and employment.
How does the positivity bias show up in memory?
In 2005, Mara Mather and Laura Carstensen showed younger and older adults faces with different expressions and found that older adults looked away from negative faces and toward positive ones. Older adults also remembered more of the positive images than negative ones. Brain imaging studies by Mather and colleagues found that the amygdala of older adults responded less to negative images than to positive ones. The shift appears even in adults who are healthy and sharp.
Why would young people focus on negative information?
Bad events tend to carry more weight than good ones, a pattern Roy Baumeister and colleagues laid out in a 2001 paper titled Bad Is Stronger Than Good. Noticing threats quickly would have had survival value, so attention is drawn to them more readily. Younger people also have long futures to protect and more to learn, so negative signals matter more. The paper reviewed evidence from relationships, learning, health, and memory.
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