It's frolicking forties, actually

<div class="section1"><div class="Normal">Forget the mid-life crisis, the forties can be fun. The decade often associated with worries about mortality, failed ambition and sagging midriffs is actually a time of happiness, a study claims.<br /><br />Scientists have identified an emotional "growth spurt" that makes people more relaxed and easier for others to spend time with.This quality, which the scientists are calling "agreeableness", grows dramatically between the late thirties and early fifties.<br /><br />The findings, based on e-mail questionnaires filled in by 120,000 respondents, suggest that feelings of self-fulfilment and acceptance of one’s own personality are more widespread than disillusionment.<br /><br />They overturn the view propagated by films such as 10, the 1979 film in which Dudley Moore portrays a sexually desperate fortysomething pursuing the younger Bo Derek.<br /><br />"I was very surprised by the findings," said Samuel Gosling, a British psychologist at the University of Texas at Austin, who worked on the research. "It was generally accepted that the human personality is largely set by 30, but this indicates that some elements of the personality not only keep developing but that this process accelerates in our forties.<br /><br />"We start relaxing and enjoying life and other people fully only when we hit our late thirties. It challenges notions of a mid-life crisis."<br /><br />The findings, published in the Journal of Personality, have prompted a debate between experts. Some argue that the mellowing in personality is caused by environmental factors such as feeling relatively in control at work and at ease in family and social lives, while others suggest it merely reflects a decline in testosterone levels in both sexes.<br /><br />This would also explain why people become less extrovert as they become older — there is no longer such an intense neurological demand to seek excitement and stimulate brain chemicals. Another suggestion is that humans are programmed by evolution to turn inward and protect material and emotional gains after youthful exertions.<br /><br />The findings of the study were supported by Stephen Joseph, a health psychologist at Warwick University. "As people come through adversity in their lives, they can become more agreeable, more appreciative of friends and family and more able to reach out to others and take part in their community." <br /><br /><span style="" font-weight:="" bold="">Sunday Times, London</span></div> </div>