Research by marketing psychologists Adam Alter and Hal Hershfield found that people tend to engage in extreme and ambitious behaviors more frequently at ages ending in 9, such as 29, 39, and 49. This includes self-destructive acts and ambitious goals like running a marathon. These milestone birthdays make people take stock of their lives and search for meaning. Suicide rates among nine-enders were also found to be higher.
Everyone seems to dread certain birthdays. Turning 30, 40, or 50 seems to have a bundle of negative connotations related to these milestone events. No one wants to be “over the hill” after all. But findings from 2015 research by marketing psychologists Adam Alter and Hal Hershfield point to a different dynamic people face as they get older. Using the term “nine-enders,” they studied “meaning-seeking behaviors” that seem to occur at ages ending with nine, such as 29, 39, and 49. They found that people tend to do things that are extreme and/or ambitious – both good and self-destructive – more frequently at ages ending in 9 than at other ages.
Number nine:
Research found that suicide rates among nine-enders were significantly higher than other age groups. They also reported more self-destructive acts, such as visiting online sites offering illicit affairs, more frequently.
They found that 29-year-olds were twice as likely to run marathons (compared to 28 or 30-year-olds) and 49-year-olds were three times more likely to attempt these grueling runs than people just a year older. .
“These milestone birthdays end up disproportionately affecting us, making us take stock of our lives,” says Hershfield. “When we do that, we’re more vulnerable to searching for meaning in a variety of ways.”
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