London, Nov 20 (IANS) Chimpanzees and orangutans too, can
experience a mid−life crisis just like humans, a study suggests.
This is the finding from a new study that set out to test the
theory that the pattern of human well−being over a lifespan
might have evolved in the common ancestors of humans and great
apes. A team of researchers − including professor of economics
Andrew Oswald, and psychologist Alex Weiss from the Universities
of Warwick and Edinburgh, respectively − discovered that, as in
humans, chimpanzees and orangutan well−being follows a U−shape
and is high in youth, falls in middle−age, and rises again into
old−age. The authors studied 508 great apes housed in zoos and
sanctuaries in the US, Japan, Canada, Australia and Singapore,
the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
reported. The apes' well−being was assessed by keepers,
volunteers, researchers and care−takers who knew the apes well.
Their happiness was scored with a series of measures adapted
from human subjective well−bei