Having more sex does not translate into greater happiness

It is very easy and intuitive to relate the amount of sex that is had with the levels of happiness that we experience.. It seems common sense to think that sexual satisfaction plays an important role in human psychology and the degree to which we are content with life; even one of the first references in the history of psychology, Sigmund Freud, gave human sexuality a starring role in the development of our personality.

Furthermore, as we saw in other item, we know that during sexual intercourse, various strategic areas of our body begin to emit and receive a greater amount of hormones related to the sensation of well-being and the creation of affective ties that make us feel good. Even evolutionary psychology talks about the origin of many innate psychological characteristics in our species, linking their origins to sex!

More amount of sex, greater happiness. Sure?

However, science is among other things to test the ideas that common sense takes for granted. And, at least in the field of subjective satisfaction with life,

it seems that more sexual intercourse does not have to equate to an increase in perceived happiness.

This is what a study conducted by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and published in Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization.

Starting from a simple question

There is plenty of research indicating that the people who feel the happiest are also the ones who tend to have more sex than average. This correlation, like almost all of them, is quite confusing and raises many questions about how perceived happiness and amount of sex interact: Is it happiness that leads to a more active sex life, or the other way around? Or maybe there is a third unknown variable that drives both increased happiness levels and increased frequency of intercourse?

Researchers from Carnegie Mellon University set out precisely to explore the possible causal relationships that could be found between happiness and the sexual life of people. Specifically, sought to answer the question of whether more sex increases happiness levels or not. And they did it in the crudest way possible: recruiting a certain number of couples and assigning them very specific duties, consisting of doubling the frequency with which they used to make love, for 90 days followed.

The investigation was done like this

Of course, these people were not the only ones who participated in the study. In total, 64 couples were recruited, but only half had to increase the amount of sex they would have over several months.. The rest were given instructions of any kind in sexual matters, since they had to be part of what is known as control group. All the members of the couples, regardless of whether they had to double the frequency with which they had sex or not, They had to fill in a series of questionnaires during the three months that the data collection phase lasted. data.

The questions that appeared in these questionnaires dealt with the perceived levels of happiness, the health habits that were being maintained and the satisfaction found in sex.

The results, somewhat disconcerting

The main conclusion reached through the study was that Not only does more sex not give greater happiness, but it can also decrease it. In addition, many of the couples who had to increase the frequency of intercourse became significantly less motivated by sex. If desire level had decreased.

Of course, this does not mean that deliberately increasing sexual activity for three months is going to affect us negatively. always: for example, if instead of focusing on quantity, efforts were devoted to improving its quality, the results could be others.