Happiness may be inherited

Many parents fret about ensuring their children's happiness, but those worries could be too late if happiness is mainly is inherited, as a researcher now suggests.

Epigenetics research has shown how life experiences and a person's environment can impact gene expression and change the traits that parents pass on to their kids. That provides some indirect support for this latest hypothesis.

However, some related research last year found that happiness is partly determined by personality traits that are largely inherited from parents. Psychologists identified common genes which express personality traits that predispose people to the sunny side of life.

Of course, parents can't gift happiness to their kids wholesale. The keys to happiness are manifold, and life experiences seem to play an important role, other studies have shown. Kids will still struggle through their usual challenges of adolescence and eventually adulthood, and try to seek happiness any way they can — whether by finding a great place to live or being charitable.