{"id":6079,"date":"2021-12-17T18:31:01","date_gmt":"2021-12-17T18:31:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/billlosey.com\/knowledge-center\/?p=6079"},"modified":"2021-12-17T18:31:01","modified_gmt":"2021-12-17T18:31:01","slug":"money-your-happiness-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/billlosey.com\/knowledge-center\/money-your-happiness-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Money & Your Happiness"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Does money actually buy a degree of happiness?<\/strong> In this holiday season, it is worth thinking about the effect money has on our lives. What role does money play in your happiness? Is that role overrated?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most psychologists and sociologists will tell you that our happiness comes largely from social interaction. But studies indicate that there is a direct correlation between wealth and a kind of mental health.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Pearl Bailey immortally quipped, \u201cHoney, I been poor, and I been rich. And let me tell you, rich is better.\u201d Having a well-paying job, being successful at what you do \u2013 these are definite cornerstones of self-esteem and contribute to happiness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So is Warren Buffett happier than we are?<\/strong> The math is not quite that simple. American wealth grew remarkably in the late 20th century, but surveys found that Americans on average weren\u2019t any happier than they\u2019d been decades before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A 2002 study by psychologists Edward Diener, Ph.D., and David Myers, Ph.D. documented greater happiness among residents of wealthy countries versus poor countries. But they found that once individuals in both types of nations gained the money to pay for basic creature comforts, happiness did not markedly increase along with wealth thereafter. A second 2002 survey by psychologist Tim Kasser, Ph.D., showed lower personal well-being in individuals who \u201cbought into\u201d messages of materialism and consumerism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Does spending money make people happy?<\/strong> It depends on the purpose. Perhaps you\u2019ve heard of the \u201chedonic treadmill\u201d theory, an economic theory which holds that the middle-class and the affluent exhaust themselves and diminish their happiness through endless pursuit of the latest material goods. Americans are proudly competitive and can\u2019t help but measure their wealth in relation to their friends and neighbors. We have to have more than the next guy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Does spending money on others make people happy?<\/strong> Yes, according to the results of a study published in Science Magazine. Researchers took a sample of 600 Americans. They instructed 46 to spend a $5 or $20 bill on a particular day. Some were told to spend the money on others, and the study found that they were happier at the end of the day than the ones who spent the money on themselves. The study also tracked 16 workers who got profit-sharing bonuses, and observed that employees who gave a majority of their bonus to others ended up happier than those who spent it on themselves. In fact, the main forecaster of happiness was not the size of the bonus, but how it was spent. The Science study also discovered that spending more money on gifts and charity correlated with increased happiness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Are we ultimately only as happy as we want to be?<\/strong> Perhaps. Researchers now increasingly feel that people have a genetic \u201cbaseline\u201d or \u201cset point\u201d of happiness, and deviations from this norm are temporary. In other words, how the stock market does doesn\u2019t rattle our basic level of happiness. Even life-altering tragedies or seeming miracles don\u2019t ultimately budge us much from the norm. (Studies of the brain indicate that people with more activity in their left prefrontal cortexes seem to be happier than some others.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

University of Virginia psychology professor Jonathan Haidt wrote a classically-rooted book called The Happiness Hypothesis. Haidt observed that within a year of their life-changing experiences, \u201clottery winners and paraplegics, have both, on average, returned most of the way to their baseline levels of happiness.\u201d He feels that happiness can grow from \u201cvital engagement\u201d with other people and one\u2019s passions, and from a spiritual and moral \u201ccoherence\u201d in yourself and your life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How about some Gross Domestic Happiness (GDH)?<\/strong> No joke: since 1972, the government of Bhutan has dedicated itself to boosting GDH, Gross Domestic Happiness, via a platform of equitable and sustainable economic growth, cultural preservation in the face of the West, good government, and environmentalism. Other nations have studied Bhutan\u2019s example; in fact, conferences have been held on the concept in Bhutan, Mongolia and the Netherlands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wishing you a great Christmas and holiday season.<\/strong> May it be warm, wonderful, and bright; may 2022 be a year of great things for you. And may you know great happiness. Let\u2019s vow to retain our optimism through the challenges ahead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Does money actually buy a degree of happiness? In this holiday season, it is worth thinking about the effect money has on our lives. What role does money play in your happiness? Is that role overrated? Most psychologists and sociologists will […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6048,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/billlosey.com\/knowledge-center\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/billlosey.com\/knowledge-center\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/billlosey.com\/knowledge-center\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/billlosey.com\/knowledge-center\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/billlosey.com\/knowledge-center\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6079"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/billlosey.com\/knowledge-center\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6079\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6080,"href":"https:\/\/billlosey.com\/knowledge-center\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6079\/revisions\/6080"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/billlosey.com\/knowledge-center\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/billlosey.com\/knowledge-center\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/billlosey.com\/knowledge-center\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/billlosey.com\/knowledge-center\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}