Older people are happier | Laura Carstensen | TEDxWomen

In the 20th century we added an unprecedented number of years to our lifespans, but is the quality of life as good? Surprisingly, yes! In this talk, psychologist Laura Carstensen shows research that demonstrates that as people get older they become happier, more content, and have a more positive outlook on the world.

People are living longer
and societies are getting grayer.

You hear about it all the time.

You read about it in your newspapers.

You hear about it on your television sets.

Sometimes, I'm concerned

that we hear about it so much
that we've come to accept longer lives

with a kind of a complacency, even ease.

But make no mistake, longer lives can --

and, I believe, will improve
quality of life at all ages.

Now to put this in perspective,
let me just zoom out for a minute.

More years were added to average
life expectancy in the 20th century

than all years added
across all prior millennia

of human evolution combined.

In the blink of an eye,

we nearly doubled the length of time
that we're living.

So if you ever feel like you don't have
this aging thing quite pegged,

don't kick yourself.

It's brand new.

And because fertility rates fell
across that very same period

that life expectancy was going up,

that pyramid that has always represented
the distribution of age in the population,

with many young ones at the bottom
winnowed to a tiny peak of older people

who make it and survive to old age,

is being reshaped into a rectangle.

And now, if you're the kind of person

who can get chills
from population statistics,

(Laughter)

these are the ones that should do it.

Because what that means

is that for the first time
in the history of the species,

the majority of babies born
in the developed world

are having the opportunity to grow old.

How did this happen?

Well, we're no genetically hardier
than our ancestors were 10,000 years ago.

This increase in life expectancy
is the remarkable product of culture --

the crucible that holds
science and technology

and wide-scale changes in behavior
that improve health and well-being.

Through cultural changes, our ancestors
largely eliminated early death

so that people can now
live out their full lives.

Now there are problems
associated with aging --

diseases, poverty, loss of social status.

It's hardly time to rest on our laurels.

But the more we learn about aging,

the clearer it becomes
that a sweeping downward course

is grossly inaccurate.

Aging brings some rather
remarkable improvements --

increased knowledge, expertise --

and emotional aspects of life improve.

That's right, older people are happy.

They're happier than middle-aged people,
and younger people, certainly.

(Laughter)

Study after study
is coming to the same conclusion.

The CDC recently conducted a survey

where they asked respondents
simply to tell them

whether they experienced
significant psychological distress

in the previous week.

And fewer older people
answered affirmatively to that question

than middle-aged people,
and younger people as well.

And a recent Gallup poll
asked participants

how much stress and worry and anger
they had experienced the previous day.

And stress, worry, anger

all decrease with age.

Now social scientists call this
the paradox of aging.

I mean, after all,
aging is not a piece of cake.

So we've asked all sorts of questions
to see if we could undo this finding.

We've asked whether it may be that
the current generations of older people

are and always have been
the greatest generations.

That is that younger people today
may not typically experience

these improvements as they grow older.

We've asked,

well, maybe older people
are just trying to put a positive spin

on an otherwise depressing existence.

(Laughter)

But the more we've tried
to disavow this finding,

the more evidence we find to support it.

Years ago, my colleagues
and I embarked on a study

where we followed the same group
of people over a 10-year period.

Originally, the sample was aged 18 to 94.

And we studied whether and how
their emotional experiences changed

as they grew older.

Our participants would carry
electronic pagers

for a week at a time,

and we'd page them throughout the day
and evenings at random times.

And every time we paged them,

we'd ask them to answer
several questions --

"On a one to seven scale,
how happy are you right now?"

"How sad are you right now?"

"How frustrated are you right now?" --

so that we could get a sense of the kinds
of emotions and feelings they were having

in their day-to-day lives.

And using this intense study
of individuals,

we find that it's not
one particular generation

that's doing better than the others,

but the same individuals over time

come to report relatively greater
positive experience.

Now you see this slight downturn
at very advanced ages.

And there is a slight downturn.

But at no point does it return
to the levels we see in early adulthood.

Now it's really too simplistic
to say that older people are "happy."

In our study, they are more positive.

But they're also more likely
than younger people

to experience mixed emotions --

sadness at the same time
you experience happiness;

you know, that tear in the eye
when you're smiling at a friend.

And other research has shown that
older people seem to engage with sadness

more comfortably.

They're more accepting of sadness
than younger people are.

And we suspect
that this may help to explain

why older people are better
than younger people

at solving hotly charged
emotional conflicts and debates.

Older people can view injustice
with compassion,

but not despair.

And all things being equal,

older people direct their cognitive
resources, like attention and memory,

to positive information
more than negative.

If we show older, middle-aged,
younger people images,

like the ones you see on the screen,

and we later ask them
to recall all the images that they can,

older people, but not younger people,

remember more positive images
than negative images.

We've asked older and younger people
to view faces in laboratory studies,

some frowning, some smiling.

Older people look toward the smiling faces
and away from the frowning, angry faces.

In day-to-day life, this translates
into greater enjoyment and satisfaction.

But as social scientists, we continue
to ask about possible alternatives.

We've said, well, maybe older people
report more positive emotions

because they're cognitively impaired.

(Laughter)

We've said, could it be

that positive emotions are simply easier
to process than negative emotions,

and so you switch
to the positive emotions?

Maybe our neural centers in our brain

are degraded such that we're unable
to process negative emotions anymore.

But that's not the case.

The most mentally sharp older adults

are the ones who show
this positivity effect the most.

And under conditions
where it really matters,

older people do process
the negative information

just as well as the positive information.

So how can this be?

Well, in our research,

we've found that these changes
are grounded fundamentally

in the uniquely human
ability to monitor time --

not just clock time
and calendar time, but lifetime.

And if there's a paradox of aging,

it's that recognizing
that we won't live forever

changes our perspective on life
in positive ways.

When time horizons are long and nebulous,
as they typically are in youth,

people are constantly preparing,

trying to soak up all the information
they possibly can,

taking risks, exploring.

We might spend time with people
we don't even like

because it's somehow interesting.

We might learn something unexpected.

(Laughter)

We go on blind dates.

(Laughter)

You know, after all,

if it doesn't work out,
there's always tomorrow.

People over 50 don't go on blind dates.

(Laughter)

As we age, our time horizons grow shorter
and our goals change.

When we recognize that we don't have
all the time in the world,

we see our priorities most clearly.

We take less notice of trivial matters.

We savor life.

We're more appreciative,

more open to reconciliation.

We invest in more emotionally
important parts of life,

and life gets better,

so we're happier day-to-day.

But that same shift in perspective

leads us to have less tolerance
than ever for injustice.

By 2015,

there will be more people
in the United States

over the age of 60 than under 15.

What will happen to societies
that are top-heavy with older people?

The numbers won't determine the outcome.

Culture will.

If we invest in science and technology

and find solutions for the real problems
that older people face

and we capitalize on the very real
strengths of older people,

then added years of life can dramatically
improve quality of life at all ages.

Societies with millions of talented,
emotionally stable citizens

who are healthier and better educated
than any generations before them,

armed with knowledge
about the practical matters of life

and motivated to solve the big issues

can be better societies
than we have ever known.

My father, who is 92, likes to say,

"Let's stop talking
only about how to save the old folks

and start talking about
how to get them to save us all."

Thank you.

(Applause)