Americans aren’t a particularly happy group right now.
The share of people who say they’re ‘very happy’ has tanked this past decade to just 12 percent of the population.
But there are some trends among those cheeriest 40 million Americans from which the rest of the nation can learn.
They tend to be older women who believe in God. They also value marriage, community, and close personal ties.
That’s the finding of a new Wall Street Journal-NORC poll, which follows other research that shows the happiest people are those with strong emotional ties to others.
A Wall Street Journal-NORC poll found that the happiest Americans tend to be older women
The survey of 1,019 adults found that 56 percent of Americans rated themselves as ‘pretty happy,’ and 30 percent selected the glummest option of ‘not too happy.’
The sliver of 12 percent of ‘very happy’ Americans stands out.
To start with, women are broadly happier than men, and those aged 60 and above are happier than younger adults.
Overwhelmingly, they value strong relationships.
More than two thirds say marriage is important to them — even those who have not tied the knot — compared to 43 percent of respondents overall.
They also tend to be more spiritual. Two-thirds say they are very or moderately religious, compared with less than half of adults overall.
The happiest Americans are more keen on being involved in their communities, researchers found.
They also don’t attach a lot of importance to money.
The same goes for politics — there’s little difference between the scores for Republicans and Democrats.
Robert Waldinger, a professor of psychiatry at the Harvard Medical School, said levels of happiness are linked to age.
The Wall Street Journal-NORC poll found that the happiest Americans tended to believe in God, marriage and playing a role in a community
Research shows that the happiest people are those with strong emotional connections to others
Marriage and support for the institution is linked to higher rates of happiness, research shows
SmartAsset reviewed government data on personal finance, well-being, and quality of life, and ranked the country’s 164 biggest cities. Sunnyvale, California, came top
‘As we get older and realize that death is a real thing, rather than making us depressed, it makes us put a priority on well-being,’ Waldinger told the Journal.
Women may fare better in the happiness stakes because they tend to live longer than men, he added.
In his own, separate, study, Waldinger tracked the lives of 724 Boston men for 80 years from 1938 and then went on to study their Baby Boomer children.
He found that relationships are more important than money and success for happiness.
Waldinger’s TED talk, ‘What makes a good life? Lessons from the longest study on happiness’ has been watched 24 million times.
In another study, researchers found that happiness may be easier to find in some US cities.
SmartAsset reviewed government data on personal finance, well-being, and quality of life, and ranked the country’s 164 biggest cities.
Sunnyvale, California, came top, thanks to its wealthy residents, a high marriage rate and few violent crimes.
Five other California cities landed in the top 10: Fremont, Roseville, San Jose, Santa Clarita, and Irvine.
