Does greater richness of life bring greater happiness in older adults?

Aims: The happiness during old age years is closely linked to psychosocial factors such as richness of experience. Richness of experience refers to the level of meaning and fulfillment in individuals' lives through various activities and experiences. This research focused on exploring how the richness of experience is related to the happiness in older adults. In addition, the role of various demographic and psychosocial variables in shaping this relationship were examined. Methods: The study sample consisted of 179 older adults. 64.2% of the participants were female and 35.8% were male. The participants were administered the psychologically rich life questionnaire, and the psychological well-being in the elderly scale as well as a sociodemographic form. Simple Linear Regression was used to analyze the predictive power of richness of experiences, and pearson correlation analysis was conducted to assess the strength of the relationships between richness of experiences and psychological well-being. Independent Groups t-test and ANOVA were applied to explore if there is a difference on the score based on the sociodemographic differences. Results: The results of this study indicated a significant positive correlation between a psychologically rich life and psychological well-being in older adults. According to regression analysis, psychologically rich life was found to be a strong predictor of psychological well-being and explained 57% of the variance. Education level and income level were found to significantly affect psychologically rich life and psychological well-being levels such that university graduates and high-income group received the highest scores. Participants without a chronic disease were found to have significantly higher scores on psychological well-being and psychological rich life. No significant differences were found in terms of other sociodemographic variables such as gender, marital status and having children. Conclusion: These findings suggest that richness of experiences can be an important factor that improves the quality of life of older adults and the value of diversity of experiences for psychological well-being.