Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Volume 109, Issue 49, Pages 19949-19952Publisher
NATL ACAD SCIENCES
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1212592109
Keywords
aging; primate; satisfaction; evolution; affect
Categories
Funding
- University of Edinburgh Development Trust [2828]
- Daiwa Foundation [6515/6818]
- Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) [21310150]
- Asia and Africa Science Platform Program under the Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science, Environment Research and Technology Development Fund [D-1007]
- Cooperation Research Program of the Primate Research Institute, Kyoto University
- MEXT [24000001]
- Economic and Social Research Council funding of the Centre for Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy at the University of Warwick
- Economic and Social Research Council [ES/H021248/1] Funding Source: researchfish
- ESRC [ES/H021248/1] Funding Source: UKRI
- Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research [21310150] Funding Source: KAKEN
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Recently, economists and behavioral scientists have studied the pattern of human well-being over the lifespan. In dozens of countries, and for a large range of well-being measures, including happiness and mental health, well-being is high in youth, falls to a nadir in midlife, and rises again in old age. The reasons for this U-shape are still unclear. Present theories emphasize sociological and economic forces. In this study we show that a similar U-shape exists in 508 great apes (two samples of chimpanzees and one sample of orangutans) whose well-being was assessed by raters familiar with the individual apes. This U-shaped pattern or midlife crisis emerges with or without use of parametric methods. Our results imply that human well-being's curved shape is not uniquely human and that, although it may be partly explained by aspects of human life and society, its origins may lie partly in the biology we share with great apes. These findings have implications across scientific and social-scientific disciplines, and may help to identify ways of enhancing human and ape well-being.
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