• 16
  • March
    2011

Generally speaking, happy children grow up to be happy adults. But, ironic as it sounds, adults who were once considered happy teenagers were more likely to end up facing divorce, according to a recent study.

The University of Cambridge British study, which began in 1946, has tracked 2776 individuals from the ages of 13 to 15. Teachers of the teenagers were asked to rate their students on their level of happiness. Researchers then categorized the teens into one of three categories: a happy group, a neutral group and an unhappy group.

In particular, teenagers who were considered "happy" had two or more of the following characteristics:

  • They were very popular.
  • They were unusually happy and content
  • They made friends extremely easily
  • They were extremely energetic

The study then re-examined the individuals at three different age intervals: 36, 43 and 53. Participants were asked to give information regarding their social lives, mental health and overall life satisfaction at each age.

Not surprisingly, teens in the "happy group" were found to be 60 percent less likely to have a mental illness. The happy teens were also much more likely to get married. However, such teens were more likely to be divorced than both the neutral group and the unhappy group. This is not an intuitive result and is, in fact, very surprising. So how can this result be explained?

It is possible that happier people are often surrounded by a support network, including friends and family. Happier individuals also tend to come from stable and loving homes. As a result, they may have had good role models for relationships. It may be that they were able to recognize when a relationship was not a good one and felt supported enough to leave when things were not working out.

One interesting question that the study did not address was whether the divorces of the happier individuals would be considered amicable. Amicable divorces are generally uncontested divorces in which both parties agree on all important issues, such as alimony, child custody and property division. More importantly, uncontested divorce is typically a faster and more cost-efficient approach to ending a marriage.

Source: The Huffington Post, "Happy Kids Divorce More: University of Cambridge Study," Amy Lee, 14 Mar 2011