Health and Happiness Aren’t Always Linked (NY Times, free reg. req’d)

Are healthy people happier than seriously ill ones? Not necessarily.

In a study described in The Journal of Experimental Psychology, a group of people with end-stage kidney failure were provided with electronic devices that prompted them to record their moods at various times throughout the day. For comparison, a group of healthy volunteers used the same devices.

When researchers tabulated the results, they found that the levels of happiness were about the same for the two groups.

The researchers, led by Dr. Jason Riis of Princeton when he was a graduate student at the University of Michigan, also found that the healthy people greatly overestimated how unhappy the sick ones would be. And the sick people overestimated how happy healthy ones would be.

Dr. John Grohol is the CEO and founder of Psych Central. He is an author, researcher and expert in mental health online, and has been writing about online behavior, mental health and psychology issues -- as well as the intersection of technology and human behavior -- since 1992. Dr. Grohol sits on the editorial board of the journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking and is a founding board member and treasurer of the Society for Participatory Medicine.

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    Last reviewed: By John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on 16 Feb 2005
    Published on PsychCentral.com. All rights reserved.