The Surprising Reason Why Money Can ’t Buy Happiness

Money can’t buy happiness. But why not? After all, money has its advantages. In one study, Nobel Prize winning scientists Daniel Kahneman and Angus Keaton looked at this question. They found that as income increases, life-satisfaction rises too. On the role of money in his dating life, Curb Your Enthusiasm comedian Larry David, quipped, “She’s supposed to like me for myself? I don’t even like me for myself!” Still, most of us intuitively feel money alone can’t explain happiness. Let’s look at why. The (Un)happy Thief Consider a scenario from a study led by Harvard cognitive scientist Jonathan Phillips: Tom always enjoys his job as a janitor at a local community college. What he likes most about his job is how it gives him a chance to meet the young female students who are attending the community college. Almost every single day Tom feels good and generally experiences a lot of pleasant emotions. In fact, it is very rare that he would ever feel negative emotions like sadness or loneliness. When Tom thinks about his life, he always comes to the same conclusion: he feels highly satisfied with the way he lives.   The reason Tom feels this way is that every day he goes from locker to locker and steals belongings from the students and re-sells these belongings to buy himself alcohol. Each night as he’s going to sleep, he thinks about the things he will steal the next day. Researchers presented this story to participants and asked them to rate T...
Source: World of Psychology - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Tags: Happiness Money and Financial Research Ethics Finances Fulfillment Morality riches Source Type: blogs