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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.

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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff mom never told you?

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Speaker 1: From House Towards dot Com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 1: This is Molly and I'm Kristin and Kristin they we're

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Speaker 1: gonna talk about happiness. So I wanted to stay in

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Speaker 1: a good mood. But I do have a small confession

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Speaker 1: to make to you. Okay, sometimes when I am in

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Speaker 1: the vicinity of your home, which I know where it is,

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Speaker 1: but I won't stay on the podcast. Thank you, Molly.

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Speaker 1: I'm compelled to like Robert, to like Robert and to

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Speaker 1: rob your house. There's one thing that I would want

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Speaker 1: to take from your house if I could. I think

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Speaker 1: I know what that is, Molly, because the last time

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Speaker 1: you were at my house you tried to steal it. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: It's this year book picture of Kristen. It's the most

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Speaker 1: adorable photo ever because I was an adorable child. But

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Speaker 1: she's wasn't third grade, no, Molly, that was thin. That

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Speaker 1: was um K four. Okay, so she's around that age.

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Speaker 1: She's young and cute, and she just got the biggest

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Speaker 1: screen you could possibly imagine. Yeah, I was really proud

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Speaker 1: of myself at that phase because I just lost both

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Speaker 1: my front teeth, and I had a rock and mullet,

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Speaker 1: and I was wearing my favorite T shirt dress if

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Speaker 1: my mom had made me with matching bow, and that

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Speaker 1: picture was taken right after playtime as well, so I

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Speaker 1: I was just as happy as it could be. A

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Speaker 1: rainy to go. Yeah, it's it's the kind of photo

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Speaker 1: that I would want to, like try and sell to

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Speaker 1: an photo agency because they could use it as the

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Speaker 1: stereotypical happy child. Whereas my yearbook photos, the smiles a

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Speaker 1: little bit more forced. I'm usually caught off guard by

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Speaker 1: the photographer. It's doesn't capture my true happy essence. Well, Molly, um,

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Speaker 1: researchers have been doing a lot of investigation into how

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Speaker 1: much your smile reflects authentic happiness. Did you know, because

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Speaker 1: right now the science of happiness is exploding. It started

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Speaker 1: back in the nineteen nineties with a guy named Martin Seligmann,

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Speaker 1: who is the former president of the American Psychological Association,

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Speaker 1: and he decided that instead of figuring out why people

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Speaker 1: become depressed and looking so much at these negative emotions,

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Speaker 1: why not find out more about happiness and what makes

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Speaker 1: us happy and what are the what are the characteristics

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Speaker 1: shared among the happiest people. So we have this new branch,

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Speaker 1: relatively new branch of psychology called positive psychology that really

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Speaker 1: focuses on the science of happiness. Um. And they pay

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Speaker 1: a lot of attention to smiles. You've run across some

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Speaker 1: of these studies, right, Molly. Yeah. I found this study

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Speaker 1: recently about you know, they basically go back to these

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Speaker 1: yearbook They're going to go back and look at adorable

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Speaker 1: little Kristen and semi for smiling little Molly, and they

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Speaker 1: might look at us in like twenty years and see

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Speaker 1: if we're still married. They're saying that, you know, your

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Speaker 1: marriage can predict your I mean, your smile can predict

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Speaker 1: your marital success, which is a lot of eight to

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Speaker 1: put on like a five year old child. I really

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Speaker 1: hope one day to say to my kid, better smile

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Speaker 1: or you're getting divorced. That's life lesson there, Molly, that

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Speaker 1: you'll impart to your children. Um. Yeah. Speaking of these

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Speaker 1: smile studies, there was there was one that I found

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Speaker 1: that tracked a hundred and forty one high school seniors

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Speaker 1: into middle age. And I think these were all uh,

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Speaker 1: female students, and they characterized the smiles and the photographs

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Speaker 1: is either do Shane smiles which are caused by more

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Speaker 1: muscle contractions and reflect authentic joy supposedly like Kristen's photo,

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Speaker 1: like my photo, I was just a Douchhane child, um,

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Speaker 1: whereas Molly probably had more of a Pan American smile,

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Speaker 1: which is a little more rigid and pose, not little forced,

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Speaker 1: little forced Molly so um. In the study they found

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Speaker 1: that down the road, the study found that the dou

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Speaker 1: Shane smilers reported more of life satisfaction and had more

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Speaker 1: marital relationship success than the Pan American smiles, which I say,

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Speaker 1: take it or leave it. I mean, you know that's

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Speaker 1: you can read your book. Photo really really predict that much. Well,

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Speaker 1: that's the thing about studying happiness in general is it's

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Speaker 1: so subjective. You know. The best they can say is that,

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Speaker 1: you know, if you smile authentically when you're a child,

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Speaker 1: it just means that you might be a happier person overall,

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Speaker 1: which means that once you get married, you might be

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Speaker 1: more willing to work it out, have a positive outlook

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Speaker 1: on your marriage. So it's it's a lot of sort

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Speaker 1: of gross generalizations. In my opinion. But you can't deny

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Speaker 1: that everyone's studying happiness. Who can get a grant to

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Speaker 1: do so. They're studying whether certain cultures are happier, whether

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Speaker 1: you know, certain ages are happier. And of course this

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Speaker 1: comes down to one of the biggest differences of all

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Speaker 1: and that's why we're going to discuss it today. Are

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Speaker 1: men or women happier? And Uh, there were a lot

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Speaker 1: of large scale happiness studies that have been going on,

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Speaker 1: like you mentioned global studies. UH. For instance, Um, there's

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Speaker 1: this thing called the UH I think it's the World

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Speaker 1: Happiness Map that has mapped out happiest places in the world.

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Speaker 1: Denmark is is number one. I don't know why, but

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Speaker 1: they are. So maybe I'm gonna go to Denmark for

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Speaker 1: my next vacation. Um. And they've broken down these all

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Speaker 1: this data into male and female trends. And overall, in

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Speaker 1: a lot of these large scale surveys, as a group,

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Speaker 1: women come out on top a little bit, a little

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Speaker 1: bit more happy. Yeah. Um. And this is based on

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Speaker 1: the Pew Global Attitudes Project that surveyed thousand men and

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Speaker 1: women across forty four countries and the Nielsen Happiness Survey

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Speaker 1: that was conducted in fifty one countries, but mollly once

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Speaker 1: we start breaking those groups down into different age groups

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Speaker 1: and different nationalities, some differences do emerge. Correct right, women

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Speaker 1: from certain countries, including kind of surprisingly to US, Pakistan, Japan,

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Speaker 1: and Argentina are much much happier than the men living there.

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Speaker 1: It seems like the women in these surveys tended to

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Speaker 1: focus more on personal and domestic issues that they might

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Speaker 1: have more control over. Right where they're saying, the men

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Speaker 1: are just burdened by the weight of the world, and

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Speaker 1: they look out and there's you know, their a wars,

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Speaker 1: there's a recession, and that weighs more heavily on the men,

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Speaker 1: whereas women are just worried about grocery shopping. But see then,

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Speaker 1: once you kind of flip that and take these sort

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Speaker 1: of ideas about what men and women are preoccupied with

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Speaker 1: and take it to the United States, that's where the

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Speaker 1: women don't hold up quite as well. University of Pennsylvania

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Speaker 1: researchers in two thousand and eight found that American women

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Speaker 1: today aren't as happy as they were thirty years ago.

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Speaker 1: And this is kind of surprising when you look at

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Speaker 1: happiness data for Americans in general, because We've been doing

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Speaker 1: these kind of surveys since about nineteen seventy nineteen seventy two,

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Speaker 1: and Americans happiness level has been just pretty much flat line.

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Speaker 1: We haven't We're about as happy as we were thirty

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Speaker 1: years ago, supposedly, but women aren't as doing quite as well.

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Speaker 1: And like you said, it's it's pretty surprising because think

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Speaker 1: of all the things that women have accomplished in the

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Speaker 1: past thirty years. You know, we've got a lot more

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Speaker 1: women in the workplace, which seems to indicate that women

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Speaker 1: have more license to sort of follow their dreams, have

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Speaker 1: a career beyond equal footing with men that you know,

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Speaker 1: they're not just sitting at home raising children. Uh. And

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Speaker 1: so some you know, in my mind kind of snotty

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Speaker 1: researchers are saying, you know, those fifty stereotypical housewives didn't

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Speaker 1: know what they're missing. They were kind of blindly happy,

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Speaker 1: and now that women are getting out in the workforce

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Speaker 1: and having dreams come true or not come true, they're

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Speaker 1: they're less happy. Basically, Yeah, the horizons are broadened, so

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Speaker 1: you have more of an idea of what you don't

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Speaker 1: have right than you know, a more limited sphere of

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Speaker 1: things that you can control. The University of Pennsylvania researchers

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Speaker 1: equated this shift in mood or happiness of women American

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Speaker 1: women UM to a nation that has gone from a

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Speaker 1: four percent to twelve point five percent unemployment rate. It's

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Speaker 1: that same kind of drop morale, and it's not just

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Speaker 1: you know, the University of Pennsylvania. Maybe they're just you know, unhappy,

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Speaker 1: But they found the same thing at Princeton, so maybe

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Speaker 1: the whole Northeast is unhappy. But basically, what Princeton did

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Speaker 1: was they looked at common activities like gardening and watching television,

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Speaker 1: things that should make you happy, um, versus things that

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Speaker 1: you just sort of have to do, like paying bills,

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Speaker 1: household chores, and it seemed that women were spending more

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Speaker 1: time on the ungratifying task, about ninety more minutes than

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Speaker 1: men on average. So some researchers say that this might

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Speaker 1: reflect more still, the second shift idea that women have

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Speaker 1: to work that's very gratifying to them. They go off

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Speaker 1: to work, they might be happy with that, but then

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Speaker 1: they've got to come home and have this second job

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Speaker 1: taking care of the house, whereas men have been able

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Speaker 1: to sort of just stay with the same level of housework, job,

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Speaker 1: sitting in from the television, and mollly if you if

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Speaker 1: you look at this research broken out into the different

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Speaker 1: activities that men and women are doing. I think it

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Speaker 1: also reflects the impact of the aging humor population. A

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Speaker 1: lot of these women are now having to not only

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Speaker 1: come home and possibly care for children, but they're also

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Speaker 1: having to care for aging parents. There is a pretty

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Speaker 1: stark contrast between the enjoyment level of from between men

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Speaker 1: and women of having spending time with their parents. Percent

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Speaker 1: of women found time with parents as being more burdensome

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Speaker 1: and more of a chore, whereas when the seven percent

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Speaker 1: of men found it to be enjoyable. Unenjoyable in this

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Speaker 1: in this survey because they're less likely to be the

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Speaker 1: main caregiver so they can go over watch television, hang out,

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Speaker 1: Whereas if a woman goes over, she might be more

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Speaker 1: likely to be paying all their bills, um, you know,

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Speaker 1: arranging medications for the week. And so what this research

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Speaker 1: really kind of indicates is that women have a lot

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Speaker 1: more staff to juggle, a lot more like, yes, they

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Speaker 1: have this new career that might be fulfilling, but it's

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Speaker 1: a ball in the air with all these other balls

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Speaker 1: exactly um, and when you break down specific age groups

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Speaker 1: of women, there is yet another interesting trend that emerges

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Speaker 1: because at for ears, when we're younger and Molly, you

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Speaker 1: and I are in our mid twenties right now, if

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Speaker 1: we average it all out, we are going to be

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Speaker 1: probably happier than men at this age. And hooray, hooray, yeah,

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Speaker 1: which I mean it's a pretty generalized statement, but the

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Speaker 1: thinking behind that is women are more apt in their

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Speaker 1: younger years to get things that they'll find more fulfilling,

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Speaker 1: such as, you know, finding mate and settling down, starting

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Speaker 1: a family, building a home, whereas men are at the

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Speaker 1: bottom of their career ladders and having to slowly, painfully

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Speaker 1: climb up it and try to make more and more money.

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Speaker 1: Which I don't know that I buy that completely, but

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Speaker 1: that is the general logic behind it. But there's a

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Speaker 1: study in the Journal of Happiness Studies that established forty

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Speaker 1: eight at the age of forty eight when men's happiness

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Speaker 1: actually starts to overtake women's happiness. And so while women

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Speaker 1: are on this downward slope, the men and then the

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Speaker 1: meantime have gotten into management positions. Life is just gonna

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Speaker 1: long And then to even add to their happiness at

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Speaker 1: age sixty four, men appreciate their families even more than women. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's like they're finally at the top of their careers.

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Speaker 1: They can kind of kick back. Hopefully they've saved up

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Speaker 1: for retirement and now they can really start looking around

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Speaker 1: them and saying, hey, look at my beautiful family, look

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Speaker 1: at maybe my young, adorable grandchildren. This is so great.

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Speaker 1: And women are still supposedly grappling with uh you know, identity. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: unfulfilled dreams and identity. Uh thanks researchers. Yeah, but but Molly,

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Speaker 1: it's not all bad. Tell me why. Well, okay, first

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Speaker 1: of all, all these happiness surveys, I mean, it's just

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Speaker 1: you're gonna find conflicting results in them, such as a

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Speaker 1: two thousand eight University College of London survey found that

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Speaker 1: women over fifty years old we're more optimistic than their

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Speaker 1: male counterparts. So it might depend where you live. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it could be geography. Maybe it's just the American dream

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Speaker 1: ain't so cheerful after all for the ladies. Dark Kristen,

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Speaker 1: But I know you like darkness because you like the

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Speaker 1: idea of anti happiness, right, I do a little bit.

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Speaker 1: There's this whole idea of positive, positive psychology and searching

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Speaker 1: for the new science of happiness has kind of been

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Speaker 1: overblown so much that there's now this kind of backlash

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Speaker 1: we all want to be happy, and that's fine, well

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Speaker 1: and good, but let's not forget that sometimes the best

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Speaker 1: times in life are met because you've overcome a struggle,

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Speaker 1: and like, there can be definite value in having to

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Speaker 1: overcome hardships in life that make things really worth living

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Speaker 1: and really genuinely joyful. So but I mean, we'll go

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Speaker 1: ahead and buy into this happiness idea, and I know

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Speaker 1: that you are very much in love with the Grant Study. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: there's this uh awesome study And yes, I just said

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Speaker 1: awesome study. Um it's a seven me two years study

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Speaker 1: that's taken place at Harvard University that tracked over two

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Speaker 1: hundred male students since they were freshmen at Harvard. And now,

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Speaker 1: I mean a lot of these guys have actually gone

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Speaker 1: and they died. A lot of them are, you know,

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Speaker 1: an old age in their eighties, and it has tracked

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Speaker 1: their happiness throughout life to try to find out what

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Speaker 1: what makes a happy man. And one of the biggest

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Speaker 1: findings that's come out of this research, because you know,

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Speaker 1: these are Harvard graduates. They had some of them, didn't

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Speaker 1: all have you know, uh, wealthy upbrings, but they leaving Harvard,

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Speaker 1: you would think that they were all kind of on

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Speaker 1: the equal footing to succeed at the end of the

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Speaker 1: day seventy two years later, the biggest finding from the

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Speaker 1: study is that it's not social aptitude or intelligence or

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Speaker 1: social class that leads to happy aging relationships Molly relationship

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Speaker 1: matter more than anything else. And this is something that

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Speaker 1: I've seen in all of these happiness articles that have

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Speaker 1: come out. At the end of the day, the biggest

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Speaker 1: predictor of happiness isn't male or female, or smart or

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Speaker 1: unintelligent or what have you. It's the social networks that

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Speaker 1: you build. It's when things go wrong, are you going

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Speaker 1: to have a network there to help you recover? Sounds good.

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Speaker 1: So if I could sum up everything I've learned so

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Speaker 1: far in this podcast, you can just smile big for

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Speaker 1: your yearbook photo, and then when you order the prints,

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Speaker 1: you give them to as many people as possible to

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Speaker 1: start building your social networks. Right there, you go and

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Speaker 1: pass your yearbook around to get them to sign them

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Speaker 1: so you build, yeah, make more friends. And Molly, we

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Speaker 1: do have one more silver lining for all of this

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Speaker 1: happiness research. By and large, when we get older, people

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Speaker 1: are just happy people. Older people, male or female, are

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Speaker 1: happier than younger people. And that's because, you know, despite

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Speaker 1: maybe unfulfilled career dreams or hardships along the way. Hopefully

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Speaker 1: by the time we're in our seventies, we can sit

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Speaker 1: back and look at all the things that have happened

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Speaker 1: and say, well, I made it this far. That's something

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Speaker 1: to be happy about. And if all else fails, just

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Speaker 1: look at cute pictures of kittens on the internet. Kittens.

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Speaker 1: That's happy. That's very happy. Hey, you know what makes

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Speaker 1: me happy talking at the same time, um, listener mail.

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Speaker 1: Listener mail is very happy. Making Yeah, listener mail will nice.

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Speaker 1: Listener mail at least makes Molly and me happier than

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Speaker 1: a lot of other things at work, it seems. So

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Speaker 1: let's read some mail. So, uh, first mail I wanted

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Speaker 1: to read came as a response to our is Roller

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Speaker 1: Derby Sport or Spectacle podcast. It's from Monica, who writes,

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Speaker 1: thanks so much for doing an episode on Roller Derby

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Speaker 1: and explaining what the current sport is like today. Um,

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Speaker 1: people still have so many misconceptions as to what Derby

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Speaker 1: is and she thinks that we are for after when

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Speaker 1: we said it is sport and spectacle. She says, it's

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Speaker 1: insanely hard work, it's athletic, it's sexy, it's empowering. And

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Speaker 1: then Christian special message to you, since you were talking

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Speaker 1: about your roller Derby dreams, she told you don't give

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Speaker 1: up on skating. Monica just started skating for the first

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Speaker 1: time last November. She was all over the rank, falling

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Speaker 1: and being latched by five year olds and she assumed

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Speaker 1: she was crazy for you've been trying. But just a

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Speaker 1: couple of months later, she's a skater. She can pick

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Speaker 1: it up, So do not give up. I would say,

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Speaker 1: if you want to see kristin roller Derby, let's write in.

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Speaker 1: Let's make it a rite in campaign. Thank you Monica

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Speaker 1: for those encouraging words. We had another former roller girl

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Speaker 1: rock Still a rampage of the Jet City roller Girls

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Speaker 1: right in and she said, I've listened to your podcast

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Speaker 1: about roller Derby, and one important thing that was not

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Speaker 1: mentioned was the amount of time that these women dedicate

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Speaker 1: to the sport. As a former roller girl, I would

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Speaker 1: spend a minimum of six hours each week for practice

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Speaker 1: and or bouts, and that was at the low end

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Speaker 1: of time dedicated to the sport. This is not the

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Speaker 1: type of hobby for people who are just looking to

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Speaker 1: be a weekend warrior. And I will say that when

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Speaker 1: I talked to Tania Hyde with the Atlanta roller Girls,

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Speaker 1: that was one thing we talked about was that girls

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Speaker 1: are out there skating probably five times a week, so

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Speaker 1: I mean, and that's I'm sure that's at least six hours.

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Speaker 1: So these these women are always out there skating, getting

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Speaker 1: better and then competing in bouts. So something for you

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Speaker 1: to keep in mind. Christen, Yes, time management. And then

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Speaker 1: one last email. We do not have this person's name,

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Speaker 1: but we loved the email. She listened to the podcast

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Speaker 1: What does a Feminist look Like and she quite agreed

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Speaker 1: with a lot of what we talked about, particularly about

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Speaker 1: how modern day women do not want to be labeled

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Speaker 1: as feminist because of the negativity surrounding the word, especially teenagers.

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Speaker 1: She wrote, I usually do not like labels and especially stereotypes,

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Speaker 1: but I am proud to call myself a feminist. I

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Speaker 1: am Mexican, which is very male dominated culture, and that

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Speaker 1: has influenced my beliefs, especially I do not shave my legs,

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Speaker 1: but I don't mind wearing a little black dress now

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Speaker 1: and then I am fifteen that I've been voicing my

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Speaker 1: opinions on the subject ever since I was young and

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Speaker 1: at times naive ten year old, and the podcast inspired

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Speaker 1: her to go out and buy a this is what

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Speaker 1: a feminist looks like t shirts? So fifteen year old

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Speaker 1: ready to put the feminist label on her, even with

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Speaker 1: the negative stereotypes. And I'm sure she was not that

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Speaker 1: naive at ten year old. Yes, sounds verymature, awesome. So

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Speaker 1: if you guys want to write us, I've got an

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Speaker 1: email address. It's Mom Stuff at how stuff works dot com.

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Speaker 1: And if you want to read more about happiness and

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Speaker 1: how to get happy, you should head on over to

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Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com for more on this and

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Speaker 1: thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff works dot com?

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Speaker 1: Want more how stuff works? Check out our blogs on

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Speaker 1: the house stuff works dot com home page. Brought to

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Speaker 1: you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray. It's ready,

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Speaker 1: are you