Science Confirms: You Really Can't Buy Happiness
From washingtonpost.com :
When Warren Buffett announced last week that he will be giving away more than $30 billion to improve health, nutrition and education, people all over America reflected on his remarkable generosity, pondered all the noble things the gift would achieve and asked themselves what they would do if someone were to give them that kind of dough.
Halt that daydream: Turns out the Oracle of Omaha is a wizard at more than investing.
When it comes to money, giving may buy a lot more happiness than getting.
A wealth of data in recent decades has shown that once personal wealth exceeds about $12,000 a year, more money produces virtually no increase in life satisfaction.
In part, said Richard Layard of the London School of Economics, who has studied the phenomenon closely, people feel wealthy by comparing themselves with others.
When incomes rise across a nation, people's relative status does not change.
When people win lotteries, for example, Layard said, "initially there is a big increase in happiness, but then it reverts to its original level.
The journal Science reported last week yet more evidence and another theory about why wealth does not make people happy: "The belief that high income is associated with good mood is widespread but mostly illusory," one of its studies concluded.
"People grossly exaggerate the impact that higher incomes would have on their subjective well-being," said Alan Krueger, a professor of economics and public affairs at Princeton University and an author of the study.
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