A new analysis assesses the heterogeneity of factors linked with happiness among single Americans who are just entering adulthood, highlighting a particularly strong link between happiness and satisfying friendships. Lisa Walsh of the University of California, Los Angeles, U.S., and colleagues present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on October 2, 2024.

Prior research suggests that Americans in their early 20s may be less happy, on average, than at other points in their lives. Meanwhile, a growing percentage of young adults are not in long-term romantic relationships, and researchers are increasingly studying single people as a distinct group, without conventional comparisons to coupled people.

However, few studies have focused on distinct categories of single people, such as younger adults. To better understand these individuals’ experiences, Walsh and colleagues analyzed online survey data from 1,073 single American adults aged 18 to 24.

The survey included questions assessing participants’ overall happiness as well as five predictors of happiness: satisfaction with family, satisfaction with friends, self-esteem, neuroticism, and extraversion.

To analyze participants’ answers, the researchers applied latent profile analysis, a research approach that assumes individuals fall into diverse subgroups within a population, instead of assuming a more homogeneous population, as traditional approaches often do.

The research team found that the heterogeneity of the young, single adults in their dataset was best represented by dividing them into five subgroups, or profiles, each with distinctive combinations of the five measured predictors, and each corresponding to a different level of happiness.

For instance, people in profile 1 were happiest and had favorable levels of all five predictors, including high friendship satisfaction and low neuroticism. Meanwhile, people in profile 5, who were least happy, had unfavorable levels of all five predictors. Higher scores on some of the five predictors appeared to offset lower scores on others, with friendship satisfaction being particularly strongly linked to participants’ happiness.

On the basis of their findings, the researchers suggest that young, single adults might benefit from deliberately creating meaningful, long-term friendships. However, they note that further research is needed to clarify any cause-effect relationship between happiness and the five predictors they studied.

The authors add, “One of the standout findings from our study is how deeply friendships shape happiness for single emerging adults. We found that singles who were satisfied with their friendships tended to be happy with their lives, while those dissatisfied with their friendships were less happy. In short, the quality of your friendships is a key factor for your well-being, especially if you’re single.”