You might think hope is an important ingredient in happiness, but a University of Michigan study suggests that's not always the case.

The results indicated people do not adapt well to situations they believe are short term and thus might be happier if they accept their health condition and adapt to it as best they can.

Dr. Peter A. Ubel, director of the U-M Center for Behavioral and Decision Sciences in Medicine, and his colleagues studied patients whose colons were removed and had to have bowel movements in a pouch outside their bodies.

"At the time they received their colostomy, some patients were told that the colostomy was reversible — that they would undergo a second operation to reconnect their bowels after several months," the UM Health System said in a press release about the study. "Others were told that the colostomy was permanent and that they would never have normal bowel function again. The second group - the one without hope - reported being happier over the next six months than those with reversible colostomies." "We think they were happier because they got on with their lives," Ubel said in the press release. "They realized the cards they were dealt, and recognized that they had no choice but to play with those cards," says Ubel.

The results were published in this month's edition of Health Psychology.

Read the press release.