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From: keesan@bbncca.ARPA (Morris Keesan)
Newsgroups: net.singles
Subject: Re: The Enquirer
Message-ID: <313@bbncca.ARPA>
Date: Tue, 15-Nov-83 10:34:54 EST
Article-I.D.: bbncca.313
Posted: Tue Nov 15 10:34:54 1983
Date-Received: Tue, 15-Nov-83 21:35:27 EST
References: <772@ihuxr.UUCP>
Organization: Bolt, Beranek and Newman, Cambridge, Ma.
Lines: 28

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NOW WAIT A MINUTE!
First, go back and read leff's article.  It doesn't say that the statistics
about happiness came from the Enquirer, only that some garbage about
"baby-love-hunger" was in the Enquirer.  I recall seeing a similar report to
the one leff mentions, and it wasn't in the Enquirer.  If I recall correctly,
it was a very brief summary of some psychological research which had been done
somewhere, and I probably saw it either in Science News or in The Boston Globe.
The gist of the article I saw was that what makes people happy is not money or
sex (or drugs or rock&roll), but rather achieving in life what one thinks one
ought to achieve.  With no percentages given, the article claimed that in
general married people are happier than unmarried (which would make sense given
the foregoing thesis, since this society tends to instill in people the feeling
that they "ought" to be married), that the happiest group are young marrieds
without children, and the unhappiest are young marrieds with children.  The
last is attributed to financial problems.
    Now, before people start flaming about their personal lives being quite
happy/unhappy while single/married with/without children, let me point out
that these are generalizations based on a statistical sample which one hopes
is large enough and diverse enough to have some statistical significance.
Also note that no definition of "young" is given, but I'm sure "young marrieds
with children" must include "17 years old, just out of high school, and had to
get married", which would tend to skew the happiness curve away from "25 year
old couple of young computer professionals with no financial worries".
    I'll try to find my reference, if people are interested.

						    Morris M. Keesan
						    decvax!bbncca!keesan