Asselmann Eva, Specht Jule
Faculty of Health, HMU Health and Medical University.
Department of Psychology, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.
Emotion. 2023 Oct;23(7):2013-2023. doi: 10.1037/emo0001217. Epub 2023 Feb 27.
Becoming a parent relates not only to joy but also to new challenges. Consistent with set-point theory, previous research found that life satisfaction increased around childbirth but decreased back to baseline in the following years. However, it remains unresolved whether individual facets of affective well-being show lasting or temporary changes around childbirth.
In 5,532 first-time parents from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), we tested how life satisfaction, happiness, sadness, anxiety, and anger changed in the five years before and five years after becoming a parent.
Parents experienced a large increase in life satisfaction and happiness in the years surrounding the birth of their first child. This increase was most pronounced in the first year of parenthood. Sadness and anger decreased in the years before childbirth, reached their lowest point in the first year of parenthood, and increased in the following years. Anxiety slightly increased in the five years before childbirth but was lower thereafter. Most well-being changes bounced back in the long run, resulting in comparable well-being levels five years after versus five years before becoming a parent.
These findings suggest that set-point theory also applies to different facets of affective well-being across the transition to parenthood. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).
为人父母不仅带来喜悦，也带来新的挑战。与设定点理论一致，先前的研究发现，生活满意度在分娩前后有所提高，但在随后几年又降至基线水平。然而，情感幸福感的各个方面在分娩前后是呈现持久变化还是暂时变化，这一问题仍未得到解决。
在来自德国社会经济面板（SOEP）的5532名初为人父母者中，我们测试了他们在成为父母前五年和后五年中生活满意度、幸福、悲伤、焦虑和愤怒是如何变化的。
在第一个孩子出生前后的几年里，父母的生活满意度和幸福感大幅提高。这种提高在为人父母的第一年最为明显。悲伤和愤怒在分娩前几年有所下降，在为人父母的第一年达到最低点，随后几年又有所上升。焦虑在分娩前五年略有增加，但此后较低。从长远来看，大多数幸福感变化会反弹回来，导致为人父母五年后的幸福感水平与成为父母前五年相当。
这些发现表明，设定点理论也适用于向为人父母转变过程中情感幸福感的不同方面。（PsycInfo数据库记录（c）2023美国心理学会，保留所有权利）
