Studies of Young Adults

Today, we’re looking at three studies of satisfaction in young adults. First, Lansford et al. (2025) published “Predictors of Young Adults' Primal World Beliefs in Eight Countries” in Child Development. Here’s the editedabstract:

Primal world beliefs (“primals”) capture understanding of general characteristics of the world, such as whether the world is Good and Enticing. Children (N = 1215, 50% girls), mothers, and fathers from Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, and United States reported neighborhood danger, socioeconomic status, parental warmth, harsh parenting, psychological control, and autonomy granting from ages 8 to 16 years. At age 22 years, original child participants reported their primal world beliefs. Parental warmth during childhood and adolescence significantly predicted Good, Safe, and Enticing world beliefs, but other experiences were only weakly related to primals. We did not find that primals are strongly related to intuitive aspects of the materiality of childhood experiences, which suggests future directions for understanding the origins of primals.

I thought this was an interesting study in both the sample size and the international sample. It’s not surprising that parental warmth matters most in predicting good, safe, and enticing world beliefs. The next study looks further at well-being in early adulthood. Green, van de Groep, van der Cruijsen, Warnert & Crone (2025) published “Neural Correlates of Well-Being in Young Adults” in Emotion. The edited abstract follows:

Subjective experiences of well-being are multifaceted in nature, but the behavioral and neural correlates of subdomains of well-being are not yet well understood. Prior neuroimaging studies have primarily focused on single aspects of well-being (e.g., happiness). In the present study, we differentiated between five domains of well-being based on prior research (Green, van de Groep, et al., 2023): (a) family relationships; (b) dealing with stress; (c) self-confidence; (d) having impact, purpose, and meaning; and (e) feeling loved, appreciated, and respected. Young adults (age range = 20–25 years; n = 34) completed a self-evaluation functional magnetic resonance imaging task addressing the applicability of the items to the self on a scale of 1 to 4, followed by whether this item addressed a desire for change on a scale of 1 to 4. Behavioral ratings showed that young adults were least positive about dealing with stress and reported the highest degree of desired change for this domain. Higher positivity ratings in all five domains of current well-being were negatively associated with burnout symptoms. More burnout symptoms were associated with higher desire for future changes in the impact, confidence, and loved conditions. More depressive symptoms were associated with higher desire for future changes in all domains, except for confidence. Neural results showed increased activity in the precuneus for items addressing “positive family relations” and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex for items addressing “dealing with stress,” relative to the other domains, which did not result in distinct neural patterns. Together, these findings highlight the importance of assessing various components of well-being, which show distinct behavioral and neural patterns.

This isn’t a large sample but the results make sense. Stress is likely to be most challenging for young adults. Burnout symptoms also make sense. I especially liked the MRI findings about the precuneus and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. The final study looks at sex frequency and life satisfaction. Johnson, Li, Impett, Lavner, Neyer & Muise (2025) published “How Are Sexual Frequency and Relationship Satisfaction Intertwined? A latent profile analysis of male–female couples” in Journal of Family Psychology. The edited abstract is as follows:

Do most couples who report high sexual frequency also report high relationship satisfaction? Are there happy sexless couples? In this study, we take a novel approach to investigating how sexual frequency and relationship satisfaction are intertwined by using latent profile analysis to identify subgroups of couples based on how frequently the couple has sex/sexual intercourse and the relationship satisfaction of both partners. We also test how demographic (age, relationship duration, raising young children) and relational (commitment, self-disclosure, conflict) covariates are associated with profile membership. Data came from 2,101 male–female couples (82.7% of males and 95.8% of females were young adults between the ages of 20–39 years) in the German Family Panel (pairfam) study. Results revealed that couples were classified into four distinct profiles. The majority of the sample (86.38%) occupied a profile in which both partners were highly satisfied and the couple had sex frequently (just less than once a week). The second profile was characterized by low relationship satisfaction for both partners and infrequent sex (less than 2–3 times per month; 3.60%). Two profiles had partners with discrepant levels of relationship satisfaction and a moderate sexual frequency (between two and three times per month and weekly): a satisfied female partner and highly dissatisfied male partner profile (4.01% of the sample) and a satisfied male partner and dissatisfied female partner profile (6.01%). The demographic covariates were rarely associated with class membership, but the relational covariate associations were robust. Couples with infrequent conflict and high levels of self-disclosure and commitment from both partners had higher odds of being in the highly satisfied and frequent sex profile compared to all other profiles. 

This is a large sample which enabled the researchers to find four profiles. The final sentence is helpful as well. Taken together, these studies illustrate ways in which young adults find aspects of happiness and relationship satisfaction.