来源：《新科学家》
原文刊登日期：2022年1月19日
You probably know the type: those who seem to have a relentlessly sunny disposition. Are they simply born happy? Is it the product of their environment? Or does it come from their life decisions?
你可能知道这类人：那些似乎有着无限的阳光性格的人。他们生来就是快乐的吗？这是他们环境的产物吗？还是来自于他们的人生决定？
If you are familiar with genetics research, you will have guessed that it is a combination of all three. A 2018 study of 1516 Norwegian twins suggests that around 30 per cent of the variance in people’s life satisfaction is inherited. Much of this seems to be related to personality traits, such as neuroticism, which can leave people more vulnerable to anxiety and depression, and extraversion, which encourages more sociable behaviour. Both traits are known to be influenced by a range of genes.
如果你熟悉遗传学研究，你会猜到这是三者的结合。2018年一项针对1516对挪威双胞胎的研究表明，人们生活满意度的差异约有30%是遗传的。这在很大程度上似乎与人格特征有关，比如神经质，它会让人更容易焦虑和抑郁；外向，它会鼓励更多的社交行为。众所周知，这两种人格特征都受到一系列基因的影响。
To put this in context, the heritability of IQ is thought to hover around 80 per cent, so environmental factors clearly play a role in our happiness. These include our physical health, the size and strength of our social network, job opportunities and income. The effect of income, in particular, is nuanced: it seems that the absolute value of our salary matters less than whether we feel richer than those around us, which may explain why the level of inequality predicts happiness better than GDP.
考虑到这一点，智商的遗传率被认为徘徊在80%左右，所以环境因素显然对我们的幸福起着作用。这些因素包括我们的身体健康、社交网的大小和强度、工作机会和收入。收入的影响尤其微妙：我们的工资的绝对值似乎没有我们是否觉得自己比周围的人更富有重要，这或许可以解释为什么不平等的程度比GDP更能预测幸福。
Interestingly, many important life choices have only a fleeting influence on our happiness. Consider marriage. A 2019 study found that, on average, life satisfaction does rise after the wedding, but the feeling of married bliss tends to fade over middle age. Needless to say, this depends on the quality of the relationship: marriage’s impact on well-being is about twice as large for people who see their partner as their “best friend”.
有趣的是，许多重要的人生选择对我们的幸福感只有短暂的影响。例如婚姻。2019年的一项研究发现，平均而言，婚后生活满意度确实会上升，但婚姻幸福的感觉往往会随着中年而消退。不用说，这取决于两性关系的质量：对于那些把伴侣视为“最好朋友”的人来说，婚姻对幸福感的影响是平均的两倍。
Parenthood is even more complex. For decades, social scientists have found that people with children at home are significantly less happy than those without. More recent research, however, suggests that there are important regional differences. Jennifer Glass at the University of Texas and her colleagues have shown that the “parent gap” in well-being is larger in the US and the UK than in most European countries, and it is non-existent in Finland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Spain and France – where the joys of parenthood outbalance the stresses.
为人父母的影响则更为复杂。几十年来，社会科学家发现，家里有孩子的人明显不如没有孩子的人快乐。然而，最近的研究表明，这存在显著的地区差异。德克萨斯大学的格拉斯和她的同事们发现，在美国和英国，幸福感的“父母差距”比大多数欧洲国家都要大，在芬兰、丹麦、瑞典、挪威、西班牙和法国，这个差异则不存在，为人父母的乐趣超越了压力。
Glass’s analyses show that these differences can be almost completely explained by variations in paid parental leave, flexible working hours, affordable childcare and holiday leave, which together reduce the potential for work-family conflict. The effects of these policies may play out across generations. In addition to the legacy of their genes, parents’ own emotional well-being will influence the family dynamic, which will, in turn, shape the personality of their offspring.
格拉斯的分析表明，这些差异几乎完全可以用带薪育儿假、弹性工作时间、负担得起的儿童保育和假期的差异来解释，这些因素共同减少了工作与家庭冲突的可能性。这些政策的影响可能会跨越几代人。除了遗传基因外，父母自身的情感健康也会影响家庭动态，而这反过来又会塑造他们后代的个性。
Our life satisfaction, then, is a complex combination shaped by our genes, our health, our economic prospects, our relationships and the culture around us.
因此，我们的生活满意度是由我们的基因、我们的健康、我们的经济前景、我们的人际关系和我们周围的文化形成的一个复杂组合。