Early adult antecedents of life satisfaction at age 70

Association between Life Satisfaction Ratings at about age 70 and cognitive, personality, interpersonal, and family characteristics in early adulthood are examined using data from the Guidance Study at the University of California, Berkeley. When the parents of participants in that study were in their early 30s, the mothers were rated on 15 cognitive and personality characteristics and both parents were rated on personal, interpersonal, and family variables. Approximately 40 years later, the surviving parents were interviewed intensively and assigned Life Satisfaction Ratings, For both sexes, certain traits of their own at 30 are correlated with life satisfaction at 70. The predictive characteristics for women reflect a buoyant, responsive attitude toward life; those for men represent emotional and physical health. For a woman, the material relationship and some of her circumstances at 30 were also predictive, but her husband's traits were for the most part unrelated to her satisfaction with life at 70. For men, in contrast, characteristics of their wives indicative of emotional stability were even more highly predictive of their life satisfaction at 70 than were their own traits at 30.