Happiness is down to your genes

(The Smiling Faces of Boddhastavas, Cambodia)

Ever the eternal optimist, here’s a piece of research which I can really relate to … Psychologists at the University of Edinburgh working with researchers at Queensland Institute for Medical Research in Australia found that happiness is partly determined by personality traits and that both personality and happiness are largely hereditary.

Rating personalities with the ‘Five factor model’ the researchers found that people who do not excessively worry, and who are sociable and conscientious tend to be happier. The findings suggest that those lucky enough to have the right inherited personality mix have an ‘affective reserve’ of happiness which can be called upon in stressful times or in times of recovery.

Dr Alexander Weiss, of the University of Edinburgh’s School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences, who led the research said: “Together with life and liberty, the pursuit of happiness is a core human desire. Although happiness is subject to a wide range of external influences we have found that there is a heritable component of happiness which can be entirely explained by genetic architecture of personality.”

Elaine Warburton www.geneticsandhealth.com