The U Shape of Happiness: A Response.
Perspect Psychol Sci
; 16(6): 1435-1446, 2021 11.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-1325255
ABSTRACT
We write in response to an article published in this journal, "The U Shape of Happiness Across the Life Course Expanding the Discussion," by Galambos, Krahn, Johnson and Lachman. The authors claim that "support for the purported U shape is not as robust and generalizable as is often assumed" and "we believe the conclusion that happiness declines from late adolescence to midlife (the first half of the U shape) is premature, and possibly wrong." We respectfully disagree. The authors' main evidence is based on summaries of 33 articles; they find 12 to have U shapes, seven to have none, and 14 to be mixed. We found that most of these articles are misclassified Four of them are ineligible for inclusion, 25 find a U, and four are mixed. We then identified a further 353 articles, including 329 in peer-reviewed journals, that all found U shapes that were not identified in the literature review. This is a major omission. We also present our own evidence of midlife nadirs in well-being using around eight and a half million individual observations from nationally representative surveys for the United States and Europe. The midlife low occurs in the mid-40s and its drop is equivalent to roughly three quarters of the unprecedented drop observed in well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
COVID-19
/
Happiness
Type of study:
Observational study
/
Prognostic study
/
Reviews
Limits:
Adolescent
/
Humans
Country/Region as subject:
North America
Language:
English
Journal:
Perspect Psychol Sci
Year:
2021
Document Type:
Article
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