The idea that an optimistic attitude is not only correlated with, but can perhaps cause people to live longer, became established as scientific fact several years ago by Yale psychologist Becca Levy. In her studies of people’s perceptions about the aging process, Levy found that those who held more favorable views about getting older actually lived to older ages than those who took a less sanguine attitude about their own aging. This research was a great boost to other gerontologists who, like myself, think that society’s negative depiction of the aging process creates a self-fulfilling prophecy. We become what we are expected to become and if the expectation is negative, we give up on ourselves. As a result, we don’t take advantage of strategies that could keep us healthier and more productive.
New research is suggesting some of the mechanisms that could account for this attitude-longevity effect. To understand this research, we need to take a small detour from psychology to cell biology. The telomere is a region of DNA at the end of the chromosome that doesn’t contain genetic information. It seems to be there to protect the genetic material in the chromosome during the process of cell replication. Every time cells replicate, the chromosomes become a little shorter. Eventually, the losses affect not only the telomeres but also start to affect the genetic material we care about–in other words the genes that code the proteins we need to keep our bodies operating smoothly.
Still with me? Even if you aren’t a fan of biology, this is one part of biology that you should care about. If you don’t have telomeres, bad things start to happen when proteins are manufactured in the cells and you start to lose some important functions. Some researchers believe that the telomeres are the key to long life. Just in case you think it would be a good idea to cure aging by promoting telomere growth, though, I have bad news. Unimpeded telomere growth is a process implicated in cancer, as was discovered by 2009 Nobel prizewinners Elizabeth H. Blackburn, Carol W. Greider and Jack W. Szostak.
But I digress. The main point here is that we need telomeres and if we lose them prematurely, we will age prematurely. Now, let’s get back to happiness.
A research team headed by UC San Francisco psychologist Aoife O’Donovan studied telomere length in the immune system cells (the ones that ward off disease) of postmenopausal women ranging from 50 to 86 years old. Not only did the pessimists have poorer immune system functioning, but they also had shorter telomeres than the optimists. In fact, the correlation between pessimism and telomere length, even controlling for other important characteristics of their subjects (such as whether they were caregivers), was a whopping -.55. Psychologists rarely get correlations of this magnitude.
You’re thinking–once again–correlation does not equal causation. Because this was a correlational study, there is definitely the possibility that rather than pessimism causing a decrease in telomere length other factors were at play. Perhaps a more aggressive cell replication process, one that saws off the telomeres, causes greater pessimism. Behavioral geneticists are learning all sorts of ways that the environment can alter a cell’s genetic information. It’s also possible that harsh early environments cause people to become pessimistic and also start the stress that will harm their telomeres.
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