Category: Happiness

For happiness: when you should have children and how many.

First and second children provide parents a boost in happiness up to a year before they are born but the third does not, research finds.

The increase in happiness lasts around one year from birth, after which some parents’ happiness returns to its usual pre-baby levels.

The research, published in the journal Demography, found that it’s the first child that provides the greatest boost in happiness, while the increase from the second is about half the size (Myrskylä & Margolis, 2014).

The happiness boost from the first child was equivalent in size, on average, to getting divorced or losing your job — except obviously it made people happy rather than sad.

Men and women, on average, saw similar increases in happiness, although women gained more just before the birth and their happiness dropped more quickly in the year after birth.

Professor Mikko Myrskylä, the study’s co-author, explained:

“Our results show a temporary and transitory gain in parents’ happiness around the birth of first and second children.

The fact that parental happiness increases before these children are born suggests that we are capturing broader issues relating to childbearing such as couples forming partnerships and making plans for the future.

The arrival of a third child is not associated with an increase in the parents’ happiness, but this is not to suggest they are any less loved than their older siblings.

Instead, this may reflect that the experience of parenthood is less novel and exciting by the time the third child is born or that a larger family puts extra pressure on the parents’ resources.

Also, the likelihood of a pregnancy being unplanned may increase with the number of children a woman already has — and this brings its own stresses.

Parents who are highly educated or have their first children between the ages of 35 and 49 show the strongest gains in happiness around the birth of their children.

For these parents, happiness gained when they became parents was sustained over the long-term.

Dr. Rachel Margolis, who co-authored the study, said:

“The fact that among older and better-educated parents, well-being increases with childbearing, but the young and less-educated parents have flat or even downward happiness trajectories, may explain why postponing fertility has become so common.”

The researchers found that teenagers who had children showed no happiness boost, indeed they tended to become less happy over time.

The data comes from the analysis of household surveys in Britain and Germany, which included over 7,000 people.

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A 12-minute exercise that boosts happiness and empathy while reducing anxiety.

Wishing happiness for others, and really meaning it, makes people feel happier themselves, research finds.

Instead of focusing inwards, sending loving-kindness outwards can work magic.

People who did this for just 12 minutes felt happier than those who concentrated on how they were better off than others.

It also reduced anxiety and boosted empathy.

Professor Douglas Gentile, the study’s first author, said:

“Walking around and offering kindness to others in the world reduces anxiety and increases happiness and feelings of social connection.

It’s a simple strategy that doesn’t take a lot of time that you can incorporate into your daily activities.”

For the study, young people were split into three different groups and each tried a different strategy for feeling happier:

• Loving-kindness: looking at others and sincerely wishing them happiness.
• Interconnectedness: considering people’s connections to each other.
• Comparing oneself favourably to others: thinking about how one is better off than other people.

All were compared to a control group.

The results showed that people who practiced loving-kindness felt happier themselves, were less anxious and more caring and empathetic.

In contrast, those who compared themselves to others felt less caring, connected and empathetic.

Dr Dawn Sweet, study co-author, explained:

“At its core, downward social comparison is a competitive strategy.

That’s not to say it can’t have some benefit, but competitive mindsets have been linked to stress, anxiety and depression.”

Loving-kindness is effective, whatever your personality type, Lanmiao He, study co-author, said:

“This simple practice is valuable regardless of your personality type.

Extending loving-kindness to others worked equally well to reduce anxiety, increase happiness, empathy and feelings of social connection.”

Social media tends to encourage social comparisons, said Professor Gentile:

“It is almost impossible not to make comparisons on social media.

Our study didn’t test this, but we often feel envy, jealousy, anger or disappointment in response to what we see on social media, and those emotions disrupt our sense of well-being.”

The study was published in the Journal of Happiness Studies (Gentile et al., 2019).

The face can express this emotion in 17 different ways.

Happiness can be expressed in 17 ways on the face, over half the total number of expressions we use for all emotions, research finds.

We change the type of happiness we convey by adjusting the size of our smile and the crinkles that appear around our eyes.

In contrast, disgust, only requires one facial expression, while fear has three and there are five each for anger and sadness.

Happiness, though, is way out in front, said Professor Aleix Martinez, study co-author:

“This was delightful to discover, because it speaks to the complex nature of happiness.”

The conclusions come from a study of over 7 million images collected from 31 different countries.

It was inspired by the ancient idea that there are only around 7 or 8 emotions.

Professor Martinez said:

“To think that humans are only capable of eight emotions is absurd.

We are complex creatures.

What about the different forms of joy?

We experience the world on a much deeper level than just eight emotions.”

The results of the study showed that there are 35 separate facial expression that convey how we are feeling to others across all these cultures.

Professor Martinez said:

“We were shocked, I thought there would be way, way more.”

The researchers found only eight expressions that are used in almost all cultures.

Happiness, though, continually emerged as the most varied.

It suggests happiness is the most complex emotion, if you consider the number of facial expressions required to show its variety.

Professor Martinez thinks it is because happiness helps bind people together, perhaps more than other emotions:

“Happiness acts as a social glue and needs the complexity of different facial expressions; disgust is just that: disgust.”

The study was published in the journal IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing (Srinivasan et al., 2018).