Over the last 70 years, researchers have been studying happy and unhappy people and finally found out ten factors that make a difference. Our feelings of well-being at any moment are decided to a certain degree by genes. However, of all the factors, wealth and age are the top two.
Money can buy a degree of happiness. But once you can afford to feed, clothe and house yourself, each extra dollar makes less and less difference. Researchers find that, on average, wealthier people are happier. But the link between money and happiness is complex. In the past half-century, the average income has sharply increased in developed countries, yet happiness levels have remained almost the same. Once your basic needs are met, money only seems to increase happiness if you have more than your friends, neighbors and colleagues.
“Dollars buy status (social position), and status makes people feel better,” say some experts, which helps explain why people who can seek status in other ways, scientists or actors, for example, may happily accept relatively poorly-paid jobs.
In his research, Professor Alex Michalos found that the people whose desires, not just for money, but for friends, family, job, health, rose furthest beyond what they already had, tended to be less happy than those who felt a smaller gap. Indeed, the size of the gap predicted happiness about five times better than income alone. “The gap measures just blow away the measures of only income.”says Michalos.
Another factor that has to do with happiness is age. Old age may not be so bad “Given all the problems of aging, how could the elderly be more satisfied?” asks Professor Laura Carstensen. In one survey, Carstensen interviewed 184 people between the ages of 18 and 94, and asked them to fill out an emotion questionnaire. She found that old people reported positive emotions just as often as young people. Some scientists suggest older people may expect life to be harder and learn to live with it, or they’re more realistic about their time running out. Older people have learned to focus on things that make them happy and let go of those that don’t.
“People realize not only what they have, but also that what they have cannot last forever,” she says. “A goodbye kiss to a husband or wife at the age of 85, for example, may bring far more complex emotional responses than a similar kiss to a boy or girl friend at the age of 20.”
Some actors would like to accept poorly-paid jobs because the jobs__________.

A．make them feel much better

B．provide chances to make friends

C．improve their social position

D．satisfy their professional interests

Professor Alex Michalos found that people feel less happy if _________.

A．the gap between reality and desire is bigger

B．they have a stronger desire for friendship

C．the hope for good health is much greater

D．their income is far below their expectation

We can infer from the passage that older people _________.

A．would like to have more goodbye kisses than young people

B．are used to living a hard life because they are kind to others

C．express their positive opinions just as some young people do

D．find it easier to feel happy because they are more realistic

According to the passage, the feeling of happiness _________.

A．increases gradually with age

B．is controlled partly by desires

C．has little to do with wealth

D．is decided mostly by genes

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