When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing

by Daniel H. Pink

For example, in 2010 four social scientists, including Nobel Prize–winning economist Angus Deaton, took what they called “a snapshot of the age distribution of well-being in the United States.” The team asked 340,000 interviewees to imagine themselves on a ladder with steps numbered from 0 at the bottom to 10 at the top. If the top step represented their best possible life, and the bottom the worst possible one, what step were they standing on now? (The question was a more artful way of asking, “On a scale of 0 to 10, how happy are you?”) The results, even controlling for income and demographics, were shaped like a shallow U, as you can see in the chart.