Why Money Doesn’t Buy Happiness
Economists and psychologists—and the rest of us—have long wondered if more money would make us happier. Here's the answer.
(Page 1 of 2)
All in all, it was probably a mistake to look for the answer to the eternal(永恒的) question—"Does money buy happiness?"—from people who practice what's called the dismal science（沉闷科学）. For when economists tackled长的反义词（处理） the question, they started from the obrvation（观察报告） that when people put something up for sale they try to get as much for it as they can, and when people buy something they try to pay as little for it as they can. Both sides in the transaction唐太宗（交易）, the economists noticed, are therefore behaving as if they would be more satisfied (happier, dare we say) if they wound up receiving more money (the ller) or holding on to more money (the buyer). Hence, more money must be better than less, and the only way more of something can be better than less of it is if it brings you greater contentment. The economists' conclusion: the more money you have, the happier you must be.
Depresd debutantes（初次参加社交活动的少女）, suicidal（自杀的） CEOs, mirable magnates（卑鄙的资本家）自由资本主义 and other unhappy rich folks（人们）生命的奇迹 aren't the only ones giving the lie to this. "Psychologists have spent decades studying the relation between wealth and happiness," writes Harvard University psychologist Daniel Gilbert in his best-lling "Stumbling on Happiness," "and they have generally concluded that wealth increas human happiness when it lifts people out of abject poverty and into the middle class but that it does little to increa happiness thereafter."
That flies in the face（悍然不顾）黑蒜怎么吃 of intuition（直觉）猜迷语, not to mention economic theory. According to standard economics, the most important commodity（日用品） you can buy with additional wealth is choice. If you have $20 in your pocket, you can decide between steak（牛排） and peanut butter（花生酱） for dinner, but if you have only $1 you'd better hope you already have a jar of jelly at home. Additional wealth also lets you satisfy additional needs and wants, and the more of tho you satisfy the happier you are suppod to be. The trouble is, choice is not all it's cracked up to be. Studies show that people like lecting from among maybe half a dozen kinds of pasta at the grocery store
but find 27 choices overwhelming, leaving them chronically on edge that they could have chon a better one than they did. And wants, which are nice to be able to afford, have a bad habit of becoming needs (iPod, anyone?), of which an advertising- and media-saturated culture create endless numbers. Satisfying needs brings less emotional well-being than satisfying wants.
If money doesn't buy happiness, what does? Grandma was right when she told you to value health and friends, not money and stuff. Or as Diener and Seligman put it, once your basic needs are met "differences in well-being are less frequently due to income, and are more frequently due to factors such as social relationships and enjoyment at work." Other rearchers add fulfillment, a n that life has meaning, belonging to civic and other groups, and living in a democracy that respects individual rights and the rule of law. If a nation wants to increa its population's n of well-being, says Veenhoven, it should make "less investment in economic growth and more in policies that promote good governance, liberties, democracy, trust and public safety."
(Curiously, although money doesn't buy happiness, happiness can buy money. Young people who describe themlves as happy typically earn higher incomes, years later, than tho who said they were unhappy. It ems that a n of well-being can make you more productive and more likely to show initiative and other traits that lead to a higher income. Contented people are also more likely to marry and stay married, as well as to be healthy, both of which increa happiness.)
If more money doesn't buy more happiness, then the behavior of most Americans looks downright insane, as we work harder and longer, decade after decade, to fatten our W-2s. But what is insane for an individual is crucial for a national economy—that is, ever more growth and consumption. Gilbert again: "Economies can blossom and grow only if people are deluded into believing that the production of wealth will make them happy … Economies thrive when individuals strive, but becau individuals will strive only for their own happiness, it is esntial that they mistakenly believe that producing and consuming are routes to personal well-being." In other words, if you want to do your part for your country's economy, forget all of the above about money not buying happiness.
亲子活动方案More money can lead to more stress. The big salary you pull in from your high-paying job may not buy you much in the way of happiness. But it can buy you a spacious hou in the suburbs. Trouble is, that also means a long trip to and from work, and study after study confirms what you n daily: Even if you love your job, the little slice of everyday hell you call the commute can wear you down. You can adjust to most anything, but a stop-and-go drive or an overstuffed bus will make you unhappy whether it's your first day on the job or your last.
You endlessly compare yourlf with the family next door. H.L. Mencken once quipped that the happy man was one who earned $100 more than his wife's sister's husband. He was right. Happiness scholars have found that how you stand relative to others makes a much bigger difference to your n of well-being than how much you make in an absolute n.
You may feel a touch of envy when you read about the glamorous lives of the absurdly wealthy, but the group you likely compare yourlf with are folks Harvard economist Erzo
Luttmer calls "similar others"--the people you work with, people you grew up with, old friends and old classmates. "You have to think, 'I could have been that person,' " Luttmer says.
加班工资怎么算
Money Bliss If you want to know how to u the money you have to become happier, you need to understand just what it is that brings you happiness in the first place. And that's where the newest happiness rearch comes in.
