Thaindian News

Washington, Mar 12 (ANI): It’s long been said that always looking at the positive side of things and not working too hard will lead to a long and happy life, but a new study by University of California, Riverside researchers has challenged those beliefs.

“It’s surprising just how often common assumptions - by both scientists and the media - are wrong,” said Howard S. Friedman, distinguished professor of psychology who led the 20-year study.

Friedman and Leslie R. Martin, a 1996 UCR alumna (Ph.D.) and staff researchers, examined, refined and supplemented data gathered by the late Stanford University psychologist Louis Terman and subsequent researchers on more than 1,500 bright children who were about 10 years old when they were first studied in 1921.

“Probably our most amazing finding was that personality characteristics and social relations from childhood can predict one’s risk of dying decades later,” Friedman concluded.

The study followed the children through their lives, collecting information that included family histories and relationships, teacher and parent ratings of personality, hobbies, pet ownership, job success, education levels, military service and numerous other details.

“When we started, we were frustrated with the state of research about individual differences, stress, health and longevity,” Friedman recalled. “It was clear that some people were more prone to disease, took longer to recover, or died sooner, while others of the same age were able to thrive. All sorts of explanations were being proposed - anxiety, lack of exercise, nerve-racking careers, risk-taking, lack of religion, unsociability, disintegrating social groups, pessimism, poor access to medical care, and Type A behavior patterns.”

But none were well-studied over the long term. That is, none followed people step-by-step throughout their lives.

When Friedman and Martin began their research in 1991, they planned to spend six months examining predictors of health and longevity among the Terman participants.

But the project continued over the next two decades and the team eventually involved more than 100 graduate and undergraduate students who tracked down death certificates, evaluated interviews, and analyzed tens of thousands of pages of information about the Terman participants through the years.

“We came to a new understanding about happiness and health,” said Martin, now a psychology professor at La Sierra University in Riverside. “One of the findings that really astounds people, including us, is that the Longevity Project participants who were the most cheerful and had the best sense of humor as kids lived shorter lives, on average, than those who were less cheerful and joking. It was the most prudent and persistent individuals who stayed healthiest and lived the longest.”

The study also found that “don’t work too hard, don’t stress” doesn’t work as advice for good health and long life. Terman subjects who were the most involved and committed to their jobs did the best. (ANI)