Study Touts 'James Dean Effect'

March 13 -- Maybe it is better to burn out than to fade away.

A new study finds most people believe living more years can make for an inferior life, even if the extra years are mildly pleasant. Put another way: It doesn't matter how long you live, but rather how exciting your life is when you happen to die.

The report, published this month in the journal Psychological Science, identifies what the authors call the "James Dean Effect" — the belief that a wonderful life that ends abruptly near the moment of peak fulfillment is actually more desirable than an equally wonderful life that has additional mildly pleasant years.

"People perceive life as more positive if it ends on a high note," wrote the authors of the study, Edward Diener, a University of Illinois psychology professor who has written extensively about happiness, and two colleagues, Derrick Wirtz and Shigehiro Oishi.

The effect isn't absolute, however. Researchers found that enough mildly pleasant extra years eventually outweigh the perceived benefits of a short, wonderful life.

Old and Young Responded Alike

Diener and his colleagues used both college students and middle-aged participants, and found similar results with both groups. In all, 204 people participated in the study: 149 undergraduates, and 55 adults aged 34 to 63. They were given different short vignettes describing a woman's life and asked to rate how desirable it was on a scale from 1 to 9, with 9 representing the "most desirable or happy life one can imagine." (See sidebar below.)

In the versions in which the woman died sooner, the average response was 6.13. When she died later, with extra years of slightly happy life, the average response was 5.43.

The study found no difference in participants' responses whether the character in the vignette died at 30 or 60.

Harry Triandis, another psychology professor at the University of Illinois who studies happiness, praised the work of the study's main author, but also cautioned against calling any one survey definitive.