Relationship Between Activity Level and Happiness

Relationship Between Activity Level and Happiness Correlation Study of the Relationship between Three Variables Introduction Personality is one of the key things that psychologists assess, and it is comprised of various things. Happiness, activity-level and sociability are key aspects in the life of every person, and they differ from person to person. These are one of the components of a person’s personality, and there are various causes of the differences in these key life elements. There are considerable differences between males, and females, and it shows that gender impact a number of aspects in the lives of people. Age also has an impact on these aspects, and there are notable variations as a person ages. International personality item pool test is a tool that is used in psychology to assess various aspects of an individual. It was created in the year 1999 by Goldberg, and the aspects that it assesses are emotional stability, agreeableness, openness, extraversion, and conscientiousness. These are personality elements that psychologists can use when describing an individual. It was a tool that was aimed at standardising the people’s psychological assessment, and it contains 50 questions. The five elements that it contains are divided into six subscales. It is a tool that has been widely used by researchers when looking at the differences between ethnic groups; genders; and age groups. Gender and age have an influence on happiness, activity-level and sociability. These aspects can be summed up in the personality elements that are assessed using the international item pool test. There is considerable change that occurs in a person’s level of activity as they age. This change usually starts to occur as a person enters school and it usually a decline. The decline continues until it reaches a level where a person has a sedentary lifestyle when he or she is old. The activity level between males and females is different with the latter having a less level than the former. There are researchers who however attribute this difference to be because of socialisation rather than the biological differences between the two sexes. Age has an impact on the level of happiness, and researchers have found various results when comparing the young and the elderly in terms of their level of happiness. Cooper et al. (2011) found that there are various factors that determine the level of happiness in various age groups. There is a proposed happiness factor that increases as a person passes the age of 46, and this impacted by things like age, gender, and external circumstances. The level of happiness between men and women is different, but is difficult to clearly state that one gender in happier than the other. There are men who are happier than women, and the same is true for women. This is because happiness in the current environment is determines by factors that affect both men and women in equal measure. This is unlike in the past where many women were restricted by the traditional gender roles, and this made a lot of them unhappy. Sociability is a key trait that individuals possess, and it is different between two people. Men are usually more sociable than women because of the freedoms that they have from the time that they are small. In childhood, there are fewer restrictions that are placed on boys on what they can do as compared to girls. Sociability also differs between the young and the old, with a majority of the young people being more sociable. As people age, many become lonely and are not able to move about easily as they did when in years past because of illness, or aging body. Discussion A negative correlation between the level of activity, and happiness was found, and this is similar with the results of some studies that show that old people are happier than the young. This similarity is because those who are old have been shown to have a reduced level of activity. The increased level of happiness in old age has been attributed to having a lifelong partner, and the decrease in responsibility like children who grow up, and leave the homes to become independent. The study also found out that the score of happiness decreased as the score of sociability increased, and this is an inverse relationship. This finding is supported by research that shows that the old people are not as sociable as the young, but they are happier. Various literatures have shown that there age has an impact on the level of happiness, and even though the elderly are lonely, they still live a happy life that is not mainly focused on the interaction with various people. The results however differ with others findings, which show that the young people are happy because they are able to socialise with various people. It also contradicts other research that found that women are less happy in certain settings because the society places restrictions on them regarding their level of socialisation. The difference in the amount of activity between men and women leads to a contradiction of the findings of the study because some studies have shown that men and women in the current world setup are equally happy because of increasing equality. This disproves the findings that the level of activity may have an influence on the level of happiness as was seen in the results of the study. This would mean that men are less happy than women because they are more active, and yet other studies have not been able to show this correlation. The results also showed that there is no significant level of difference of activity between the two genders. This contradicts the findings of other researchers, which have shown that there is considerable difference in the level of activity between men and women. Many studies show that men are more physically active than women, and they tend to take tasks that require a lot of physical activity. From this, it is hard to link the results of this study to what was previously found. The difference is due to genetics, and the musculature of men as compared to that of women, and the results of the study, therefore, shows that even though there is a genetic and biological difference, the level of activity is nearly the same. It was also found that those who are below the age of 60 years have nearly the same level of activity as those who are above the age of 60 years. This totally disagrees with the findings of many studies that show that the level of activity decreases as a person ages. Past results, therefore, show that those who are above the age of 60 are less physically active than those who are below the age of 60. These results are disputed by past findings that show that as a person ages, there are physical changes that occur that lead to a reduction in the amount of physical activity that they can perform. This is the reason many people who are above 60 years of age live a sedentary lifestyle. The results of the study that were aimed at looking at the age and gender differences in the level of happiness, activity level; and sociability differ with a majority of research that have been conducted. There are, however, studies that have found similar findings and show that there may not be major changes in the activity level between men and women. Researches with similar findings as the study also show that a high level of activity may have a negative impact on happiness. This may be true when focusing on the traditional roles of women who were unhappy with the many duties that were placed on them by the society. References Cooper, C., Bebbington, P., King, M., Jenkins, R., Farrell, M., Brugha, T., McManus, S.,Stewart, R., Livingston G. (2011). Happiness across age groups: results from the 2007 National Psychiatric Morbidity Survey. Int J Geriatr Psychiatry, 26(6), 608-614. Ehrharta, K. H., Roeschb, S. C., Ehrhartb, M. G., Kilianc, B. (20008). A Test of the Factor Structure Equivalence of the 50-Item IPIP Five-Factor Model Measure Across Gender and Ethnic Groups. Journal of Personality Assessment, 90(5), 507-516. Singh, A., Misra, N. (2009). Loneliness, depression and sociability in old age. Ind Psychiatry J. 18(1), 51–55.