According to a recent study by the University of Glasgow in Scotland, the more children a couple have, the happier they are.  The catch?  This only holds true for married couples.  The same children and happiness correlation didn’t apply to single, co-habiting or separated parents. The study took into account not only marital status but gender, income, age, and education.

So what seemed to explain this difference?  Dr. Luis Angeles, who headed the program had this to say:

“One is tempted to advance that children make people better off under the ‘right conditions’ — a time in life when people feel that they are ready, or at least willing, to enter parenthood…likely signal…may well be the act of marriage.”

That’s Not What I’ve Heard

This is the first study that challenges previous ones which concluded that having more children makes parents less happy, not more. However, the key with the distinction may well be the marital status of the parents.  In other words, marriage is the signal that one is ready for commitment, not just to marriage, but to family life in general.

Other interesting findings is that the happiness correlation was markedly stronger with Moms. The parents also expressed that children were one of the most important thing in their lives.

So if you and your spouse want to improve your life satisfaction? Have kids, and don’t stop at one, or even two.

Happiness is a contagious thing. And not just in the “meet space” but in cyberspace as well. Happy people attract happy people and tend to form clusters – through social networks. This is according to a study conducted by researchers at Harvard, and reviewed by Nature News.

In the study, they found that people with smiling faces on social networks like Facebook are linking more to each other than to not-so-happy faces. In the same way, people who use smileys often tend to attract people of similar temperament. This connection seems to extend beyond just direct contact but also to your contacts’ contacts, to your friends’ friends. However, the emotional link gets weaker with distance and disappears beyond the 3^rd degree of separation.

Conversely, depressive people will also seek depressive company. The recent surge in suicide pacts by young people over Internet networks has been alarming. Truly the psychological impact of social networking needs to be studied more.

Don’t forget to add Babies Online to your social networks!

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Is happiness linked to how we spend our money? Apparently yes, according to a recent study published in Science.

And shoppaholics would be surprised to hear the results – spending money on other people is more fun than spending money on one’s self. And, after you’ve spent money on other people, you gain more satisfaction in buying something for yourself.

Is this something new? I don’t think so. Ask moms with little children. I’m sure most of us would rather shop at Baby Gap outlets and toy stores than spend our money in high-end boutiques.

What is new is the effect of the so-called ‘prosocial spending’ – spending money to buy gifts for others and donating to charity. It seems that this type of spending is closely related to an individual’s overall satisfaction with his/her life.

This link between generosity and happiness is not dependent on income. It’s not the absolute amount that translates to happiness – it’s all relative to what you have. In fact, poor people tend to put a higher proportion of their income on prosocial spending than rich people. However, on the average, people tend to allocate about 10% of their monthly budget to prosocial spending, according to the researchers.

Philanthropic acts of donating to charity can make you happy but it’s not the only factor that’s involved. According to surveys, Americans are tops in terms of ‘per capita charitable donations’ but they are not tops when it comes to happiness. Less generous countries such as the Netherlands and the UK have actually much happier citizens.

Sources:

Science 21 March 2008:Vol. 319. no. 5870, pp. 1687 – 1688

Nature News, 20 March 2008

With Valentine’s day approaching, and Easter not far away, perhaps you’ll be receiving some chocolate soon. Oooh, but what about watching your weight?

Researchers in Finland, who appear to be chocoholics, studied 300 pregnant women. They asked the women to record their diets and stress levels while pregnant, and then visited with the mothers and babies six months after birth.

The babies born to women who ate chocolate daily while pregnant were happier, and smiled and laughed more.

And, the babies of stressed women who had eaten chocolate daily appeared to deal with stressful situations better, showing less fear, than the babies of stressed women who didn’t eat chocolate.

The researchers can’t prove that it’s chocolate that caused the effect, but they speculate that mood enhancing chemicals known to be in chocolate may cross the placenta and affect the baby.

I don’t think anyone would give you the green light to eat a box of chocolates a day, but a little treat a day won’t hurt. Except, of course, if your doctor says no, like for moms with gestational diabetes.

I’m a happier mom with a little chocolate, and my toddler is certainly the cheerful, smiley type. I’m quite willing to believe indulging while pregnant helped make my sweet son a very happy little boy!

Source – New Scientist Online