Does more money correlate with greater happiness?

Are people who earn more money happier in daily life? Though it seems like a straightforward question, research had previously returned contradictory findings, leaving uncertainty about its answer.

Foundational work published in 2010 from Princeton University's Daniel Kahneman and Angus Deaton had found that day-to-day happiness rose as annual income increased, but above $75,000 it leveled off and happiness plateaued. In contrast, work published in 2021 from the University of Pennsylvania's Matthew Killingsworth found that happiness rose steadily with income well beyond $75,000, without evidence of a plateau.

To reconcile the differences, the two paired up in what's known as an adversarial collaboration, joining forces with Penn Integrates Knowledge University Professor Barbara Mellers as arbiter. In a new Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences paper, the trio shows that, on average, larger incomes are associated with ever-increasing levels of happiness. Zoom in, however, and the relationship becomes more complex, revealing that within that overall trend, an unhappy cohort within each income group shows a sharp rise in happiness up to $100,000 annually and then plateaus.

"In the simplest terms, this suggests that for most people larger incomes are associated with greater happiness," says Killingsworth, a senior fellow at Penn's Wharton School and lead paper author. "The exception is people who are financially well-off but unhappy. For instance, if you're rich and miserable, more money won't help. For everyone else, more money was associated with higher happiness to somewhat varying degrees."

Mellers digs into this last notion, noting that emotional well-being and income aren't connected by a single relationship. "The function differs for people with different levels of emotional well-being," she says. Specifically, for the least happy group, happiness rises with income until $100,000, then shows no further increase as income grows. For those in the middle range of emotional well-being, happiness increases linearly with income, and for the happiest group the association actually accelerates above $100,000.

Joining forces The researchers began this combined effort recognizing that their previous work had drawn different conclusions. Kahneman's 2010 study showed a flattening pattern where Killingsworth's 2021 study did not. As its name suggests, an adversarial collaboration of this type -- a notion originated by Kahneman -- aims to solve scientific disputes or disagreements by bringing together the differing parties, along with a third-party mediator.

Killingsworth, Kahneman, and Mellers focused on a new hypothesis that both a happy majority and an unhappy minority exist. For the former, they surmised, happiness keeps rising as more money comes in; the latter's happiness improves as income rises but only up to a certain income threshold, after which it progresses no further.

To test this new hypothesis, they looked for the flattening pattern in data from Killingworth's study, which he had collected through an app he created called Track Your Happiness. Several times a day, the app pings participants at random moments, asking a variety of questions including how they feel on a scale from "very good" to "very bad." Taking an average of the person's happiness and income, Killingsworth draws conclusions about how the two variables are linked.

A breakthrough in the new partnership came early on when the researchers realized that the 2010 data, which had revealed the happiness plateau, had actually been measuring unhappiness in particular rather than happiness in general. "It's easiest to understand with an example," Killingsworth says. Imagine a cognitive test for dementia that most healthy people pass easily. While such a test could detect the presence and severity of cognitive dysfunction, it wouldn't reveal much about general intelligence since most healthy people would receive the same perfect score.

"In the same way, the 2010 data showing a plateau in happiness had mostly perfect scores, so it tells us about the trend in the unhappy end of the happiness distribution, rather than the trend of happiness in general. Once you recognize that, the two seemingly contradictory findings aren't necessarily incompatible," Killingsworth says. "And what we found bore out that possibility in an incredibly beautiful way. When we looked at the happiness trend for unhappy people in the 2021 data, we found exactly the same pattern as was found in 2010; happiness rises relatively steeply with income and then plateaus."

"The two findings that seemed utterly contradictory actually result from data that are amazingly consistent," he says.

Implications of this work Drawing these conclusions would have been challenging had the two research teams not come together, says Mellers, who suggests there's no better way than adversarial collaborations to resolve scientific conflict.

"This kind of collaboration requires far greater self-discipline and precision in thought than the standard procedure," she says. "Collaborating with an adversary -- or even a non-adversary -- is not easy, but both parties are likelier to recognize the limits of their claims." Indeed, that's what happened, leading to a better understanding of the relationship between money and happiness.

And these findings have real-world implications, according to Killingsworth. For one, they could inform thinking about tax rates or how to compensate employees. And, of course, they matter to individuals as they navigate career choices or weigh a larger income against other priorities in life, Killingsworth says.

Read more at Science Daily

Just one quality conversation with a friend boosts daily well-being

Conversing with a friend just once during the day to catch up, joke around or tell them you're thinking of them can increase your happiness and lower your stress level by day's end.

These are among the results of a new study co-authored by University of Kansas professor of Communication Studies and friendship expert Jeffrey Hall.

"Quality Conversation Can Increase Daily Well-Being" was published in the journal Communication Research by Hall and co-authors Amanda Holmstrom, Natalie Pennington, Evan Perrault and Daniel Totzkay. The study was informed by and provides further support for Hall's Communicate Bond Belong (CBB) theory of relationships. Hall is the director of KU's Relationships and Technology Lab.

"This paper was an attempt to define quality communication in the context of relationships," Hall said."The types of communication we chose to study were ones shown in past research to make people feel more bonded through conversation."

There were seven:

•    Catching up
•     Meaningful talk
•     Joking around
•     Showing care
•     Listening
•     Valuing others and their opinions
•     Offering sincere compliments

Over 900 study participants from five university campuses -- before, during and after pandemic lockdowns -- were directed to engage in one of the seven communication behaviors on a single day, and then reported back that night about their feelings of stress, connection, anxiety, well-being, loneliness and the quality of their day.

As it turned out, Hall said, it didn't matter which of these quality conversations someone had. The very act of intentionally reaching out to a friend in one of these ways was what mattered most.

"One of the take-home messages of this study is that there are many paths toward the same goal," Hall said.

He said the study was also designed to explore the impact of both the quality and quantity of daily communications.

"There's a lot of good research that says the number of interactions you have as well as the quality of interactions are both associated with being a less lonely, happier and more connected person," said Hall. This study found that once is enough, but more is better. Participants who chose to have more quality conversations had better days.

"This means the more that you listened to your friends, the more that you showed care, the more that you took time to value others' opinions, the better you felt at the end of the day," he said.

"The experimental design means that it's not just people who are already having fulfilling lives who have higher-quality conversations," Hall said. "This study suggests that anyone who makes time for high-quality conversation can improve their well-being. We can change how we feel on any given day through communication. Just once is all it takes."

The study also brought in Hall's past research on different ways to connect in the era of social and mobile media. The study found high quality face-to-face communication was more closely associated with well-being than electronic or social media contact.

"If at least one of their quality conversations was face-to-face, that mattered," Hall said.

The paper also explains why quality communication makes people feel better. CBB theory claims that people use conversations with friends to help get their need to belong met.

"Across these three studies, quality conversation mattered most for connection and stress," Hall said. "This supports the idea that we use communication to get our need to belong met, and, in doing so, it helps us manage our stress."

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Was I happy then? Our current feelings can interfere with memories of past well-being

Many of us spend our lives chasing "happiness," a state of contentment that is more difficult for some to achieve than others. Research in Psychological Science suggests that one reason happiness can seem so elusive is that our current feelings can interfere with memories of our past well-being.

"Happy people tend to overstate the improvement of their life satisfaction over time, whereas unhappy ones tend to overstate the deterioration of their level of happiness. This indicates a certain confusion between feeling happy and feeling better," explained authors Alberto Prati (University College London and University of Oxford) and Claudia Senik (Sorbonne University) in an interview.

Prati and Senik analyzed data from four longitudinal surveys to investigate how our current feelings influence our memories of past happiness.

First, Prati and Senik analyzed existing data from the German Socio-Economic Panel's ongoing survey of German citizens' well-being, focusing on responses from 11,056 participants between 2006 and 2016. Each year, participants had reported how satisfied they were with their life on a scale of 1 to 10. In 2016, respondents were also asked to select one of nine line graphs that best reflected the trajectory of their life satisfaction over the past decade.

Participants' graph selections were generally reflective of their past responses, Prati and Senik wrote in the article. People who reported higher current life satisfaction were more likely to select a chart illustrating continuous improvement. People with middling satisfaction were likelier to select a chart illustrating slight improvement, and people who reported lower current life satisfaction were likelier to select a chart illustrating dips in their well-being.

"People are able to recall how they used to feel about their life, but they also tend to mix this memory with the way they currently feel," Prati and Senik said.

The researchers further investigated this trend using data from 20,269 participants in the 1997 to 2009 British Household Panel Survey. As part of the survey, respondents had reported their current life satisfaction on a scale of 1 to 7 as well as whether they felt more, less, or equally satisfied as they recalled being the year before.

Around half of respondents accurately recalled how their current life satisfaction compared with their report the previous year. But, as with the German data, inaccurate recollections appeared to be influenced by current satisfaction.

These results held at the aggregate level, too. When Prati and Senik analyzed 18,589 quarterly responses to a National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies survey, they found that French participants recalled, on average, being less happy a year ago than they had actually reported on the survey.

American respondents to the 1971, 1976, 2001, and 2006 Gallup Poll Social Series demonstrated the same tendency to underreport their past happiness, with the averaged responses of 4,000 participants suggesting that Americans remembered being less happy 5 years ago than they had reported at the time.

"It thus seems that feeling happy today implies feeling better than yesterday," Prati and Senik wrote. "This recall structure has implications for motivated memory and learning and could explain why happy people are more optimistic, perceive risks to be lower, and are more open to new experiences."

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'Urban green space affects citizens' happiness'

A recent study revealed that as a city becomes more economically developed, its citizens' happiness becomes more directly related to the area of urban green space.

A joint research project by Professor Meeyoung Cha of the School of Computing and her collaborators studied the relationship between green space and citizen happiness by analyzing big data from satellite images of 60 different countries.

Urban green space, including parks, gardens, and riversides not only provides aesthetic pleasure, but also positively affects our health by promoting physical activity and social interactions. Most of the previous research attempting to verify the correlation between urban green space and citizen happiness was based on few developed countries. Therefore, it was difficult to identify whether the positive effects of green space are global, or merely phenomena that depended on the economic state of the country. There have also been limitations in data collection, as it is difficult to visit each location or carry out investigations on a large scale based on aerial photographs.

The research team used data collected by Sentinel-2, a high-resolution satellite operated by the European Space Agency (ESA) to investigate 90 green spaces from 60 different countries around the world. The subjects of analysis were cities with the highest population densities (cities that contain at least 10% of the national population), and the images were obtained during the summer of each region for clarity. Images from the northern hemisphere were obtained between June and September of 2018, and those from the southern hemisphere were obtained between December of 2017 and February of 2018.

The areas of urban green space were then quantified and crossed with data from the World Happiness Report and GDP by country reported by the United Nations in 2018. Using these data, the relationships between green space, the economy, and citizen happiness were analyzed.

The results showed that in all cities, citizen happiness was positively correlated with the area of urban green space regardless of the country's economic state. However, out of the 60 countries studied, the happiness index of the bottom 30 by GDP showed a stronger correlation with economic growth. In countries whose gross national income (GDP per capita) was higher than 38,000 USD, the area of green space acted as a more important factor affecting happiness than economic growth. Data from Seoul was analyzed to represent South Korea, and showed an increased happiness index with increased green areas compared to the past.

The authors point out their work has several policy-level implications. First, public green space should be made accessible to urban dwellers to enhance social support. If public safety in urban parks is not guaranteed, its positive role in social support and happiness may diminish. Also, the meaning of public safety may change; for example, ensuring biological safety will be a priority in keeping urban parks accessible during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Second, urban planning for public green space is needed for both developed and developing countries. As it is challenging or nearly impossible to secure land for green space after the area is developed, urban planning for parks and green space should be considered in developing economies where new cities and suburban areas are rapidly expanding.

Third, recent climate changes can present substantial difficulty in sustaining urban green space. Extreme events such as wild?res, ?oods, droughts, and cold waves could endanger urban forests while global warming could conversely accelerate tree growth in cities due to the urban heat island effect. Thus, more attention must be paid to predict climate changes and discovering their impact on the maintenance of urban green space.

Read more at Science Daily

Money matters to happiness--perhaps more than previously thought

 What's the relationship between money and well-being? "It's one of the most studied questions in my field," says Matthew Killingsworth, a senior fellow at Penn's Wharton School who studies human happiness. "I'm very curious about it. Other scientists are curious about it. Laypeople are curious about it. It's something everyone is navigating all the time."

To answer this question, Killingsworth collected 1.7 million data points from more than 33,000 participants who provided in-the-moment snapshots of their feelings during daily life. In a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Killingsworth confirms that money does influence happiness and, contrary to previous influential research on the subject suggesting that this plateaus above $75,000, there was no dollar value at which it stopped mattering to an individual's well-being.

Killingsworth conducts much of his work using a technique called experience sampling, which asks people to repeatedly fill out short surveys at randomly selected moments during their day. "It tells us what's actually happening in people's real lives as they live them, in millions of moments as they work and chat and eat and watch TV."

Most previous studies of the money-happiness link focused on evaluative well-being, which encompasses overall satisfaction with life. But for this study, Killingsworth aimed to capture both evaluative and experienced well-being, the latter indicating how people feel in the moment.

Through an app he created called Track Your Happiness, people recorded this a few times each day, with check-in times randomized per participant. To measure experienced well-being, each check-in asked them, "How do you feel right now?" on a scale ranging from "very bad" to "very good." At least once during the process, participants also answered the question, "Overall, how satisfied are you with your life?" on a scale of "not at all" to "extremely." This measured evaluative well-being.

Secondary measures of experienced well-being included 12 specific feelings, five positive (confident, good, inspired, interested, and proud) and seven negative (afraid, angry, bad, bored, sad, stressed, and upset). Secondary measures of evaluative well-being included two other measures of life satisfaction collected on an intake survey.

"This process provided repeated snapshots of people's lives, which collectively gives us a composite image, a stop-motion movie of their lives," he says. In total, 33,391 employed, 18- to 65-year-olds in the United States provided 1,725,994 reports of experienced well-being. "Scientists often talk about trying to get a representative sample of the population," he adds. "I was trying to get a representative sample of the moments of people's lives."

Killingsworth then calculated the average level of well-being for each person and analyzed its relationship to people's income. In part, he was trying to confirm the findings of a 2010 paper that suggested that as people earn more money their well-being increases, but experienced well-being plateaus once annual household income hits $75,000.

"It's a compelling possibility, the idea that money stops mattering above that point, at least for how people actually feel moment to moment," he says. "But when I looked across a wide range of income levels, I found that all forms of well-being continued to rise with income. I don't see any sort of kink in the curve, an inflection point where money stops mattering. Instead, it keeps increasing."

Here, "income" refers to a concept known as log(income); rather than each dollar mattering the same to each person, each dollar starts to matter less the more a person earns. "We would expect two people earning $25,000 and $50,000, respectively, to have the same difference in well-being as two people earning $100,000 and $200,000, respectively. In other words, proportional differences in income matter the same to everyone."

Beyond that, Killingsworth's work also provides a deeper understanding of the link between income and happiness.

Higher earners are happier, in part, because of an increased sense of control over life, he says. "When you have more money, you have more choices about how to live your life. You can likely see this in the pandemic. People living paycheck to paycheck who lose their job might need to take the first available job to stay afloat, even if it's one they dislike. People with a financial cushion can wait for one that's a better fit. Across decisions big and small, having more money gives a person more choices and a greater sense of autonomy."

Yet it might be best not to define success in monetary terms, he says. "Although money might be good for happiness, I found that people who equated money and success were less happy than those who didn't. I also found that people who earned more money worked longer hours and felt more pressed for time."

Though the study does show that income matters beyond a previously believed threshold, Killingsworth also doesn't want the takeaway to enforce an idea that people should focus more on money. In fact, he found that, in actuality, income is only a modest determinant of happiness.

"If anything, people probably overemphasize money when they think about how well their life is going," says Killingsworth. "Yes, this is a factor that might matter in a way that we didn't fully realize before, but it's just one of many that people can control and ultimately, it's not one I'm terribly concerned people are undervaluing." Rather, he says he hopes this research can help move forward the conversation in an attempt to find what he calls the "equation for human happiness."

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Study shows meaningful lockdown activity is more satisfying than busyness

 New research shows people who pursue meaningful activities -- things they enjoy doing -- during lockdown feel more satisfied than those who simply keep themselves busy.

The study, published in PLOS ONE, shows you're better off doing what you love and adapting it to suit social distancing, like swapping your regular morning walk with friends for a zoom exercise session.

Simply increasing your level of activity by doing mindless busywork will leave you unsettled and unsatisfied.

Co-lead researcher Dr Lauren Saling from RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia said while novelty lockdown activities -- like baking or painting -- have their place, trying to continue what you enjoyed before lockdown can be more rewarding.

"Busyness might be distracting but it won't necessarily be fulfilling," she said.

"Rather, think about what activities you miss most and try and find a way of doing them."

Survey participants rated their level of wellbeing as it was during social distancing and retrospectively one month beforehand.

They also indicated how much time they spent engaged in various activities and nominated how important each activity was for them.

Although participants reported feeling more positive emotions while doing novelty 'meaningless' activities like binge watching TV, they also felt more negative emotions -- they felt unhappy just as much as they felt happy.

But when substituting activities enjoyed before lockdown -- like dining with friends -- for a virtual alternative, their positive and negative emotions were more subdued.

Saling said busyness riles you up, prompting you to change your behaviour, but meaningful activity -- doing what you enjoy -- calms you down.

"Extreme emotions are not necessarily a good thing," she said.

"Emotions are a mechanism to make you change your behaviour.

"But when you're doing what you love, it makes sense that you feel more balanced -- simply keeping busy isn't satisfying."

Saling said the study challenged assumptions that we are either happy or sad and that we can stave off sadness by keeping busy.

Rather, those who kept busy with mindless tasks felt more frustrated and even when they were happy felt less fulfilled.

"The study showed positive and negative affect worked together, not as opposites," Saling said.

"Respondents who simply stayed busy during lockdown reported an increase in both positive and negative emotions.

"This heightened emotionality will tend to shift you away from activity in general and towards meaningful activity."

The study also found the biggest change in positive emotions before and during lockdown was experienced by people aged under 40.

Read more at Science Daily

Biological diversity evokes happiness

 Under the current pandemic conditions, activities out in nature are a popular pastime. The beneficial effects of a diverse nature on people's mental health have already been documented by studies on a smaller scale. Scientists of the Senckenberg Gesellschaft für Naturforschung, the iDiv, and the University of Kiel now examined for the first time whether a diverse nature also increases human well-being on a Europe- wide scale.

To this end, the researchers used the data from the "2012 European quality of Life Survey" to study the connection between the species diversity in their surroundings and the life satisfaction in more than 26,000 adults from 26 European countries. Species diversity was measured based on the diversity of avian species, as documented in the European breeding bird atlas.

"Europeans are particularly satisfied with their lives if their immediate surroundings host a high species diversity," explains the study's lead author, Joel Methorst, a doctoral researcher at the Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre, the iDiv, and the Goethe University in Frankfurt. "According to our findings, the happiest Europeans are those who can experience numerous different bird species in their daily life, or who live in near-natural surroundings that are home to many species."

Birds are well-suited as indicators of biological diversity, since they are among the most visible elements of the animate nature -- particularly in urban areas. Moreover, their song can often be heard even if the bird itself is not visible, and most birds are popular and people like to watch them. But there is also a second aspect that affects life satisfaction: the surroundings. A particularly high number of bird species can be found in areas with a high proportion of near-natural and diverse landscapes that hold numerous greenspaces and bodies of water.

"We also examined the socio-economic data of the people that were surveyed, and, much to our surprise, we found that avian diversity is as important for their life satisfaction as is their income," explains Prof. Dr. Katrin Böhning-Gaese, director of the Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre, professor at the Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main, and member of the iDiv. This result becomes particularly obvious when both values increase by ten percent. Fourteen additional bird species in the vicinity raise the level of life satisfaction at least as much as an extra 124 Euros per month in the household account, based on an average income of 1,237 Euro per month in Europe.

According to the study, a diverse nature therefore plays an important role for human well-being across Europe -- even beyond its material services. At the same time, the researchers draw attention to impending health-related problems. "The Global Assessment 2019 by the World Biodiversity Council IPBES and studies of avian species in agricultural landscapes in Europe clearly show that the biological diversity is currently undergoing a dramatic decline. This poses the risk that human well-being will also suffer from an impoverished nature. Nature conservation therefore not only ensures our material basis of life, but it also constitutes an investment in the well-being of us all," adds Methorst in conclusion.

From Science Daily

Why experiences are better gifts for older children

 What should we get for our kids this holiday? As children get older, giving them something they can experience (live through) instead of material things makes them happier, according to new research led by Lan Nguyen Chaplin, associate professor of marketing at the University of Illinois Chicago.

The research, published in the International Journal of Research in Marketing, compared the level of happiness children derive from material goods with the level of happiness they derive from experiences.

Across four studies with children and adolescents, Chaplin and her collaborators demonstrated that children ages 3-12 derive more happiness from material things than from experiences. However, older children derive more happiness from their experiences than from their possessions.

"What this means is, experiences are highly coveted by adolescents, not just expensive material things, like some might think," Chaplin says.

She goes on to explain, "Don't get me wrong. Young children do love experiences. Entire industries (e.g., theme parks such as Disneyland) are built around this premise. In fact, young children are ecstatic throughout the experience. However, for experiences to provide enduring happiness, children must be able to recall details of the event long after it is over."

Long after they have unwrapped their Legos and stuffed animals, there will still be a physical reminder to give them a "jolt" of happiness. However, young children can't see or touch experiences after they are over, making it harder for them to appreciate experiences long after the event is over. There's an easy and inexpensive fix though, according to Chaplin.

"Take pictures or videos of family walks, playing in the snow, and birthday parties," she said. "Children are likely going to appreciate those experiences more if there is something to remind them of the event. Additionally, they'll be able to learn the social value of shared experiences."

Children will remember and appreciate not only the birthday gifts they received, but also the time spent with family and friends as they relive the experience through concrete reminders such as photos and videos.

Read more at Science Daily

Happiness and the evolution of brain size

 During human evolution, the size of the brain increased, especially in a particular part called the neocortex. The neocortex enables us to speak, dream and think. In search of the causes underlying neocortex expansion, researchers at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden, together with colleagues at the University Hospital Carl Gustav Carus Dresden, previously identified a number of molecular players. These players typically act cell-intrinsically in the so-called basal progenitors, the stem cells in the developing neocortex with a pivotal role in its expansion. The researchers now report an additional, novel role of the happiness neurotransmitter serotonin which is known to function in the brain to mediate satisfaction, self-confidence and optimism -- to act cell-extrinsically as a growth factor for basal progenitors in the developing human, but not mouse, neocortex. Due to this new function, placenta-derived serotonin likely contributed to the evolutionary expansion of the human neocortex.

The research team of Wieland Huttner at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics, who is one of the institute's founding directors, has investigated the cause of the evolutionary expansion of the human neocortex in many studies. A new study from his lab focuses on the role of the neurotransmitter serotonin in this process. Serotonin is often called the happiness neurotransmitter because it transmits messages between nerve cells that contribute to well-being and happiness. However, a potential role of such neurotransmitters during brain development has not yet been explored in detail. In the developing embryo, the placenta produces serotonin, which then reaches the brain via the blood circulation. This is true for humans as well as mice. Yet, the function of this placenta-derived serotonin in the developing brain has been unknown.

The postdoctoral researcher Lei Xing in the Huttner group had studied neurotransmitters during his doctoral work in Canada. When he started his research project in Dresden after that, he was curious to investigate their role in the developing brain. Lei Xing says: "I exploited datasets generated by the group in the past and found that the serotonin receptor HTR2A was expressed in fetal human, but not embryonic mouse, neocortex. Serotonin needs to bind to this receptor in order to activate downstream signaling. I asked myself if this receptor could be one of the keys to the question of why humans have a bigger brain." To explore this, the researchers induced the production of the HTR2A receptor in embryonic mouse neocortex. "Indeed, we found that serotonin, by activating this receptor, caused a chain of reactions that resulted in the production of more basal progenitors in the developing brain. More basal progenitors can then increase the production of cortical neurons, which paves the way to a bigger brain," continues Lei Xing.

Significance for brain development and evolution

"In conclusion, our study uncovers a novel role of serotonin as a growth factor for basal progenitors in highly developed brains, notably human. Our data implicate serotonin in the expansion of the neocortex during development and human evolution," summarizes Wieland Huttner, who supervised the study. He continues: "Abnormal signaling of serotonin and a disturbed expression or mutation of its receptor HTR2A have been observed in various neurodevelopmental and psychiatric disorders, such as Down syndrome, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and autism. Our findings may help explain how malfunctions of serotonin and its receptor during fetal brain development can lead to congenital disorders and may suggest novel approaches for therapeutic avenues."

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The key to happiness: Friends or family?

 Think spending time with your kids and spouse is the key to your happiness? You may actually be happier getting together with your friends, said SMU psychology professor Nathan Hudson.

Hudson's research finds that people report higher levels of well-being while hanging with their friends than they do with their romantic partner or children. In fact, being around romantic partners predicted the least amount of happiness among these three groups, reveals a study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

Hudson stressed, however, that the finding has more to do with the activity than the person it is shared with. That's because people tend to spend more of their time doing enjoyable activities with friends than they do with family members, who occasionally find themselves together doing unpleasant tasks like chores or caretaking duties.

"Our study suggests that this doesn't have to do with the fundamental nature of kith versus kin relationships," he said. "When we statistically controlled for activities, the 'mere presence' of children, romantic partners, and friends predicted similar levels of happiness. Thus, this paper provides an optimistic view of family and suggests that people genuinely enjoy their romantic partners and children."

More than 400 study participants were asked to think back on times with their friends or family -- identify the activity they shared -- and rate whether those experiences left them feeling various emotions, such as happy, satisfied, and with a sense of meaning. Each emotion was rated from 0 (almost never) to 6 (almost always).

This information and other responses about how study participants felt at different times allowed Hudson and his co-authors, Richard E. Lucas and M. Brent Donnellan, to estimate rates of happiness with their friends and family. Lucas and Donnellan are both from Michigan State University.

The activities people most frequently perform while they're with their romantic partners include socializing, relaxing, and eating. People tend to do similar activities when they are with their friends, too. They just do a lot more of these enjoyable tasks while hanging with their friends and a lot less housework, the study found. For instance, 65 percent of experiences with friends involved socializing, but only 28 percent of the time shared with partners.

Spending time with their children also meant more time doing things that had a negative association, such as housework and commuting.

However, the activity that people reported most often with their offspring -- childcare -- was viewed positively. And overall, people report feeling similar levels of well-being while in the presence of friends, partners, and children once the activity was taken out of the equation.

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