Daily Tips from The Marriage Library.com
Library pic
 
Marriage Is Not the Key to Happiness
 
By Anne Becker

May 24, 2011                                                                                                Issue 657    

 

Summary of this article
 
The title of this article might surprise you since I am all about marriage. This article is about research that shows people have a "set point" for happiness just like they do for success or weight. If they get married, they get happy for a time period but they usually settle back to their "set point". This makes sense. It's not the external event, it's what you do inside yourself to create your own happiness. The time period seems to be about 5 years. Also possibly of note is that the study was done in Germany.

Jim   

Marriage Is Not the Key to Happiness

 

By Anne Becker,

 

March 18, 2003, Psychology Today

 

Married people are no happier than singles. Though people react strongly to events such as marriage, they return to their personal "set point of happiness" after a certain period of time.

 

Attention all victims of nagging mothers: getting married is not necessarily the key to achieving eternal bliss. Most people were no more satisfied with life after marriage than they were prior to marriage in a study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

 

The study, which measured life satisfaction levels of more than 24,000 individuals living in Germany, looked at how people adapt to both positive and negative life events, according to author Ed Diener, a psychology professor at the University of Illinois. Results conclusively showed that though people react strongly to events such as marriage, they return to their personal "set point of happiness" after a certain period of time.

 

"Some people are happier than others, that's clear. And there are things you can do to make yourself happier, but something external like getting married isn't a royal road to changing your set point," Diener says.

 

The study's authors call this process of returning to one's set point "hedonic leveling" because of its equalizing effect on people's overall happiness levels. "If you become super happy, there are forces that will bring you back to a more average level [of happiness]," Diener explains. "People tend to be slightly to very happy, but not ecstatic all the time"

 

Study results, for example, showed, spikes in respondents' happiness levels both before and after marriage, but the increase was minimal-approximately one-tenth of one point on an 11-point scale-and was followed by a return to prior levels of happiness.

 

On a positive note when something bad happens, humans react negatively, but bounce back over time, says Diener. The study found that after about five years, even widows and widowers returned to the levels of happiness they had before their spouses' passing.

______________________________________________

 

God bless your marriage and your family. 

 

Jim

 

 

 


Cartoon

Subscribe to these Daily E-Tips today!

Practical tips and news sent to you every day.

 

Low monthly fee of only $5. That's 365 articles for less than the cost of a marriage seminar. 

 

Read one or read them all. Just one piece of information could change your marriage!!!   ....priceless.

 

Subscribe now using PayPal!

 

More info...

Get paid $3/month for everyone you refer who subscribes.

Subscribe Now
Just $5 a month
A new practical tip
everyday. 
Click here
What's your favorite charity. Tell them about
They can receive $3/mon. donation for everyone they refer to Marriage Tips.
 
        
 Archives of past
Daily E-Tips

(must be a subscriber)
 
Did you like this article? Can you think of someone who might benefit from it. Please forward it to them using this button. Reach out and make a connection...it benefits both of you.
 
Please use this button, not the "forward" button because if your friend clicks the "unsubscribe" button, YOU are the one that will be unsubscribed!!! 

To place a link to
today's information
on your Facebook or Twitter, click the "SHARE" button at
the top of this page.

Jim Stephens
The Marriage Library
 20112011