I can't see me lovin' nobody but you
For all my life.
When you're with me, baby, the skies'll be blue
For all my life.
- Gary Bonner and Alan Gordon
The results of an ambitious longitudinal study spanning 25 years were recently described by Bruce Headey, Ruud Muffelsb, and Gert Wagner. The data came from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) Survey, an ongoing investigation of a large nationally representative sample of Germans, aged 16 and over, who have reported their life satisfaction every year from 1984 to 2008.
There are many interesting results, but Headey and colleagues emphasized how these data show that the set-point theory of happiness is wrong. According to set-point theory, people have a certain genetically-determined level of happiness, which can be temporarily raised or lowered by life events, but only temporarily. In other words, people will revert to their characteristic levels of happiness, whatever they may be. By this logic, happiness cannot be boosted in a lasting way, and good-intentioned efforts by positive psychologists to do so are doomed to fail.
The problem with set-point theory is that the data from the SOEP Survey - and other longitudinal studies - do not support the premise that people's levels of happiness are fixed. There of course is some stability in reported happiness, but for many people, happiness can and does change. Set-point theory predicts that across increasing periods of time, more stability in happiness should be found. The data show just the opposite pattern.
Indeed, Headey and colleagues concluded that psychosocial factors are more important than biology in determining happiness.
What should one do to live happily ever after, regardless of one's starting point?
Among the factors implicated in the SOEP Survey are:
1. Having an emotionally stable (non-neurotic) marital partner;
2. Prioritizing altruistic and/or family goals;
3. Attending church; and
4. Making a satisfactory tradeoff between work and leisure - both are important, but need to be balanced.
In their article, Headey and colleagues dubbed these factors choices, which they may or may not be - it depends on how much of a determinist one is. However, I will observe that most of us have more control over such matters than we do over our genes.
