Elderly people's life experience and the very passage of time have been identified as contributing factors to their contented nature, it has been reported.

Scientists have identified that people in their senior years are less likely to become emotionally wound-up and are increasingly liable to focus on the positive elements of a situation rather than dwelling on the downbeat parts, according to the LA Times.

Neuropsychologist Stacey Wood from Scripps College in Claremont carried out a study alongside Michael Kisley from the Univerisy of Colorado in which 63 adults - ranging in age - were shown a series of positive and negative images.

And older adults were identified as being around 30 per cent less reactive to negative images compared to their younger counterparts, the newspaper asserts.

Ms Woods told the publication: "When you have that disaster at ten in the morning, you can deal with it better when you're older. With people in their twenties, it throws them off. They experience more emotion and it's more intense emotion."

Research carried out by the government as part of UK Older People's Day at the start of the month suggested that Britain's over-50s are happier now than at any other time in their lives.