Why We’re Still Happy

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/27/opinion/27lyubomirsky.html?ref=todayspaper

by veteran • 18 years ago

17 18 18 years ago

jmtame• 18 years ago

Makes sense, especially when you consider the example of racism in history.

petercooper2• 18 years ago

As the economists David Hemenway and Sara Solnick demonstrated in a study at Harvard, many people would prefer to receive an annual salary of $50,000 when others are making $25,000 than to earn $100,000 a year when others are making $200,000.

I find it more surprising that everyone didn't choose the first option. Even though $100,000 is more than $50,000, in terms of purchasing power it's all about relativity. The more other people earn given the same productivity, the higher prices will be overall and the less purchasing power you'll have.

For example, if you gave everyone $10m and I only got $2m.. I'd still be a "millionaire" but inflation would go through the roof and I'd still end up with rather little compared to everyone else.

ShardPhoenix• 18 years ago

I think it's assumed that these are "real" dollar values (ie in the latter case the overall economy would be larger). The point of the study is that people care more about relative status than absolute wealth.

Herring• 18 years ago

I must be missing something. Do people regularly turn down jobs paying double their current salary ... because others in the new department are getting more? I understand the cost of living in the new city might be higher, or that they prefer shopping around for a better deal, but that's not what the study's saying.

petercooper2• 18 years ago

If they were real dollar values and everyone else were earning double what you were, you might be able to maintain a good lifestyle by current standards, but by the standards of this significantly larger more advanced economy you'd still be relatively "poor" while earning twice today's income. I think the study shows people are inherently aware of this (or at least wired to act in such a way).

scott_s• 18 years ago

The last time I heard about a study like that (maybe the same one), they explicitly stated that $1 had the same purchasing power in both circumstances.

andrewf• 18 years ago

That's a paradox. At that point surely the survey becomes garbage in, garbage out.

lallysingh• 18 years ago

I'm not sure I see the real insight here, but the data point is nice.

AFAIK, Social standing, group health/status are all innately part of humans, but our economic status is quite synthetic.

If it was all the food we had for 3 months instead of income, I think we'd see something different.

TweedHeads• 18 years ago

This is a fake recession, an induced depression that won't last a year.

Wake me up when there isn't any bread in the bakery.

ced• 18 years ago

Social status is a zero-sum game, so if happiness correlates strongly with it.... Then an egalitarian policy could be the best choice even if everyone would individually be worse off.

I think this is a crucially missing point from most analyses about the income gap.

tl• 18 years ago

So, basically this is the same point that 1984 made (make everyone's quality of life suck to protect the inner party's welfare, even if they're not better off than an above average person pre-Ingsoc) applied to at an individual level?

pg• 18 years ago

Obsession with status isn't the only explanation for this. A problem that affects only you probably is one that you should worry more about. Whereas something that affects everyone is probably not something you can easily fix.

Why We’re Still Happy

Related Stories