Money and Happiness

Quicksearch

Blog Administration

Open login screen

RSS Readers

Sunday, January 26. 2014

We go back to Arthur C. Brooks' 2007 What Really Buys Happiness? Not income equality, but mobility and opportunity

Most of the studies he discusses avoid defining happiness, and just let people report. At issue, of course, is that as long as one is not in dire straits, happiness and contentment in life depend on non-economic factors: temperament and personality, relationships, family, hobbies and interests, etc.

There is no one "happiness." Some are most happy when taking risks, others more comfortable when they feel more secure. Material gain is not a universal goal.

Posted by Dr. Joy Bliss in Psychology, and Dr. Bliss, The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation at 16:51 | Comments (2) | Trackbacks (0)

Trackbacks

Trackback specific URI for this entry

No Trackbacks

Comments

Display comments as (Linear | Threaded)

indeed happiness cannot be defined by any one thing. For some people it may therefore require a larger amount of money to obtain the same degree of happiness as compared to others.

This is of course true even for people who have would be happy with the same life, if they live it in different places.
A small house, with some decent furniture, and 3 meals a day for example may mean you need to earn $10 a week in one place or $1000 in another depending on pricing and tax levels.

And that is what many would consider roughly a minimum level of worldly comforts needed to enjoy life.

#1 J.T. Wenting on 2014-01-27 03:11 (Reply)

Being retired and traveling to national parks and other remote and not so remote wilderness areas I often encounter young people who are "tramping" around the country or hiking one of the many major trails. They seem to have two consistent traits; they are happy and they are poor/broke. Often they are intelligent people and many have some college or finished college. They are broke by choice. It would be interesting to bale to meet and talk to these same people 20 years later and see what they have done with their lives and what choices they have made. It is after all, our choices that make us wealthy, and/or happy or poor and/or unhappy.

#2 GoneWithTheWind on 2014-01-28 12:26 (Reply)

Add Comment

Name
Email	(Your e-mail will not show in your comment)
Homepage
In reply to
Comment	By commenting on this site you agree to the site rules listed here. Email addresses will not be displayed and will only be used for email notifications. Quick reference guide: [i] italics [/i], [b] bold [/b], [u] underline [/u], [url] (web address) [/url]. More tips here. Enclosing asterisks marks text as bold (word), underscore are made via _word_. E-Mail addresses will not be displayed and will only be used for E-Mail notifications. To prevent automated Bots from commentspamming, please enter the string you see in the image below in the appropriate input box. Your comment will only be submitted if the strings match. Please ensure that your browser supports and accepts cookies, or your comment cannot be verified correctly. Enter the string from the spam-prevention image above: BBCode format allowed
	Remember Information? Subscribe to this entry

Maggie's Farm

Our Recent Essays Behind the Front Page

Categories

Quicksearch

Links

Blog Administration

RSS Readers

Sunday, January 26. 2014

Money and Happiness