"The soul is healed by being with children," wrote Fyodor Dostoevsky, the Russian novelist. It is a comforting thought. It is also, research suggests, usually not true.

“灵魂通过与孩子相处而得到治愈，”俄罗斯小说家费奥多尔·陀思妥耶夫斯基写道。 这是一个令人欣慰的想法。 但研究表明，它通常也并不真实。

The study, published in Evolutionary Psychology, looked for signs that having children made people happier.

这项发表在《进化心理学》上的研究，旨在寻找迹象表明有孩子能让人们更幸福。

It found none. Drawing on data from more than 5,000 participants in ten countries, including Britain, the study unearthed no strong evidence that parenthood — and the arrival of a supposed bundle of joy — led to a measurable increase in positive emotions.

研究并未发现任何此类迹象。 该研究利用了来自英国等十个国家超过5000名参与者的数据，未发现强有力的证据表明为人父母——以及一个所谓“欢乐包裹”的到来——会导致积极情绪的可测量增加。

Instead, there was virtually no difference between parents and non-parents.

相反，父母与非父母之间几乎不存在差异。

The researchers, led by Menelaos Apostolou of the University of Nicosia, looked at two kinds of well-being. The first, known as hedonic wellbeing, concerns day-to-day feelings, such as happiness, sadness and loneliness. The participants answered questions, designed to gauge how strongly and how often they experienced different emotional states.

由尼科西亚大学的梅内拉奥斯·阿波斯托卢领导的研究人员，考察了两种类型的幸福感。 第一种被称为享乐幸福感，关乎日常感受，如快乐、悲伤和孤独。 参与者回答了旨在衡量他们体验不同情绪状态的强度和频率的问题。

Parents and non-parents' overall levels of life satisfaction were much the same. Earlier studies that found a much stronger positive effect of having children may, it seems, have confused parenthood with partnership. In the new study, people who were in a relationships tended to be better off emotionally than those who weren't; they were also more likely to have children.

父母与非父母的生活满意度总体水平大致相同。 早期那些发现生育有更强积极影响的研究，似乎可能混淆了为人父母与伴侣关系。 在这项新研究中，处于恋爱关系中的人往往比没有恋爱关系的人情绪状态更好；他们也更有可能有孩子。

The study also looked at a second type of "eudaimonic wellbeing", which deals with whether people feel they have purpose.

该研究还考察了第二种类型的“实现幸福感”，这种幸福感涉及人们是否感到自己拥有目标。

Women with children reported a slightly greater sense of finding meaning in life, on average, than those without children. However, the difference was small. When the ten countries included in the data were separated out, the result was found only to be statistically meaningful for mothers from Greece.

平均而言，有孩子的女性报告的生活意义感略强于没有孩子的女性。 然而，这种差异很小。 当将数据中包含的十个国家分开来看时，这一结果仅在希腊母亲群体中才具有统计学意义。

The broader conclusion is not that children bring misery. Rather, they appear to leave overall emotional wellbeing largely unchanged.

更广泛的结论并非表明孩子带来痛苦。 相反，它们似乎使整体情绪幸福感基本保持不变。

This creates a puzzle. In lots of other studies, parents have described their children as powerful sources of happiness. One recent paper found that 97 per cent of parents endorsed the view that their progeny were responsible for positive emotional experiences.

这便产生了一个谜题。 在许多其他研究中，父母将他们的孩子描述为幸福的重要来源。 最近的一篇论文发现，97%的父母认同这样的观点，即他们的后代带来了积极的情绪体验。

In the European Values Survey, which includes nearly 60,000 respondents from the continent, about 90 per cent agreed that "watching children grow up is life's greatest joy".

在欧洲价值观调查中，该调查涵盖了来自欧洲大陆的近6万名受访者，约90%的人同意“看着孩子成长是人生最大的乐趣”这一说法。

Such sentiments do not show up clearly in the latest study. The authors offer a plausible explanation. Children may, they suggest, generate intense but brief positive emotional experiences, such as pride when a big milestone is achieved. These moments are memorable, but they may be too fleeting to shift a person's average level of happiness. Parenthood, according to this view, produces emotional spikes rather than a sustained uplift.

这种情感在最新的研究中并未清晰地显现出来。 作者们提供了一个合理的解释。 他们提出，孩子可能产生强烈但短暂的积极情绪体验，例如在达成重大成长里程碑时感到的自豪。 这些时刻令人难忘，但它们可能过于短暂，以至于无法改变一个人的平均幸福水平。 根据这种观点，为人父母带来的是情绪上的峰值，而非持续的提升。

The study also found that parents were, on average, slightly less satisfied with their relationship with their partner than non-parents. Again, the effect was small.

研究还发现，平均而言，父母对伴侣关系的满意度略低于非父母。 同样，这种影响很小。

But the result seems plausible. Children may place strains on couples — including through sleep deprivation, financial pressures and everyday logistical challenges — even if parenthood ultimately binds them more tightly together. As one aphorism has it: "Children are a great comfort in your old age, and they help you reach it faster."

但这个结果似乎是合理的。 孩子可能会给夫妻关系带来压力——包括通过睡眠不足、经济压力和日常事务上的挑战——即使为人父母最终将他们更紧密地联系在一起。 正如一句格言所说：“孩子是你老年时的一大慰藉，而且他们还能帮你更快地到达老年。”