Which age group is happier? Senior citizens or twenty-somethings? The answer may be surprising.

The Saturday Evening Post featured an article about happiness, specifically about research on happiness in older adults. Though it would seem that people with fewer years left in which to fulfill hopes and dreams would suffer from more depression than those in the prime of their lives, this isn’t the case at all, according to the article. Happiness seems to be greater for those 60 and older, possibly because they are better able to manage stress and cope with obstacles in their lives:

Over time people become more realistic about their expectations, more accepting about what they have or haven’t achieved, and more resilient when things don’t pan out…Older Americans worry less and are less sad and depressed than people in other age groups, and that trend rises into their 60s despite less robust physical health.

This article reminded me of a study I read about in the book On Second Thought: Outsmarting Your Mind’s Hard-Wired Habits by Wray Herbert. Herbert relates research, conducted by psychologist Derek Isaacowitz, on the connection between gaze, mood, and motivation. Isaacowitz wanted to see how long people gazed at—or “fixated on”—images of happy, sad, angry, and fearful faces. (Gaze time was measured in milliseconds using machines.) He found that older people fixated less on the faces with unpleasant expressions. From this observation, it was speculated that “as people age, they tend to focus on goals that are attainable and to disengage from unrealistic goals, which can lead to failure and unhappiness” (p. 246). This inference substantiates the happiness/aging connection discussed in The Saturday Evening Post article.

Apparently older people avoid dwelling as much on negative, nonproductive thoughts and ideas. Perhaps this is their way of coping with the realization that their days on earth are not as plentiful in number as in the past. As it is explained in On Second Thought, “They [older people] may increasingly feel like they’re living on borrowed time, and so they pursue emotionally meaningful, uplifting experiences” (p. 246). No matter the explanation, there is consolation in knowing that growing older brings a psychological edge when it comes to peace of mind.