Money can’t buy happiness. Or can it? The TierneyLab blog from The New York Times recently conducted an informal survey. Based on Spent: Sex, Evolution, and Consumer Behavior, a new book from Dr. Geoffrey Miller, readers were invited to:
List the ten most expensive things (products, services or experiences) that you have ever paid for (including houses, cars, university degrees, marriage ceremonies, divorce settlements and taxes). Then, list the ten items that you have ever bought that gave you the most happiness. Count how many items appear on both lists.
Yesterday’s TierneyLab column examined the responses. The results are fascinating. Things appearing much more often on ‘expensive’ lists than ‘happy’ lists include:
- children
- marriage ceremonies
- divorces
- taxes
- most cars
- boats
Items that were on far more ‘happy’ lists than ‘expensive’ lists included:
- meals with friends
- alcohol
- bicycles
- pets
- hobbies
- adult education
- church and charity
- books, music, artwork
- quality beds
And, finally, there was some overlap where things were both expensive and fulfilling. These include:
- houses
- higher education
- travel
- electronics
- certain vehicles
Obviously, these results are not scientific in any way. But they’re interesting.
For myself, I was hard pressed to list ten items on each side. I just listed six or seven. Believe it or not, my Mini Cooper makes both lists. So does our current home. (If I had paid for college, that would have definitely made both lists; I was fortunate to attend on scholarship.) Other than that, though, there’s not a clear relationship between money spent and happiness received.
Dr. Miller offered a brief analysis of the survey results, noting a handful of trends, including:
- For many, there is an overlap between expensive purchases and happiness.
- Many people — including myself — find that paying for experiences is more likely to bring happiness than buying physical Stuff.
- Many commenters emphasized the value of thrift in daily life so they could afford to spend on the things that mattered.
- Some people noted that the act of saving money for the future brings them happiness.
If you find this topic as interesting as I do, I recommend you read the full post, which contains a lot of additional information and a fuller analysis. Also, the comments on the article are quite good.
[TierneyLab at The New York Times: When money buys happiness, via e-mail from Robin B.]
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i find it odd that people find happiness in material things vice family and friends. There is no real human factor in the list that overlaps. how sad
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@Tim (#51)
I think there’s a “human” element to the material possessions. For instance, nobody is born wanting a BMW. It’s learned. And why would anyone want a status-symbol car like a BMW? The answer is in the question itself: it’s a status symbol.
But what assigns value to a “status symbol?” People. If nobody thought BMW’s were cool, would you still want one? If cruising down Main Street in a Lamborghini didn’t turn heads, would we covet it as much? If people’s jaws didn’t drop when they walked into your 6,000 sq. ft. mansion, would you desire it as much?
A lot of the things on the “possessions” list simply serve to elevate someone above their peers, or evoke envy or class distinction, which themselves are emotions and experiences. If you bought a Rolex, would you remember how accurate it was, or would you remember the 10 comments per day it elicited? People crave attention, and some of these expensive status symbol purchases are at least partially motivated by a desire for attention moreso than an actual legitimate desire for the object itself.
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@kevin, i think you mistake what i meant by human factor.
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Kevin, you know what I find interesting? Take your example of the Rolex watch as a status symbol. It used to be that only the rich could afford one. Now they hand them out to any dork with a credit card. With all the easy credit that has been pumped into the economy in recent years, you don’t have to be rich to have things that are beyond your means anymore. So is it really correct to say that a Rolex is a status symbol, a sign of wealth? How can we call it a luxury if anyone can have one?
In fact, if nine out of ten of them that you see don’t even belong to someone who really is wealthy, then nine out of ten times the person wearing a Rolex is someone who lacks self-discipline with money and has problems abusing credit. That would actually put a negative spin on the person wearing the Rolex – it makes them look like a wannabe.
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@ Tim: The question was about things that were PURCHASED.
I’m sure friends and family make people happy, but as they are not possessions or experiences that people bought they didn’t make it on the lists.
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What shallow people to consider kids an expense and not an incredible source of happiness. I guess the parent of the year award is safe with these readers.
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“What shallow people to consider kids an expense and not an incredible source of happiness.”
Why is that shallow? Is it shallow to prefer zucchini to tomatoes? I consider kids an expense and not a source of happiness, which is why I’m not having any. That doesn’t make me ‘shallow,’ it’s just a matter of preference. No way am I spending that much for something that spends so much time screeching. I think raising kids sounds boring and repetitive at best, and migraine-inducingly annoying at worst. There are plenty of parents who will tell you exactly the same thing. Sorry if you don’t like the truth, bud, but don’t criticize people who aren’t afraid to tell it.
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Wow, the issue of children here really polarizes people, doesn’t it?
I’ve found that children are great mirrors for seeing a reflection of how you feel and act. Frightened children have worried or scary parents. Noisy children often have parents that are noisy, or ignore them until they get noisy…
I love my son – he’s smart, playful, energetic, and talkative to the point of being annoying. We’re having another child soon. But I perfectly understand people who don’t want them, for now or forever.
As a wise Scotsman once said, “If we all liked the same thing, there’d be a shortage of haggis.” :-O
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The children thing is pretty interesting. To put people in the catagory of have’s and have nots, does not do anything to examine those people. To assume something about people with children (they are happy/unhappy) is the same as assuming something about those without (lonely, self-centered).
No way around it, children are expensive. They may bring more joy to some then they do to others. There are a million things I could do without children, but a million things I couldn’t. To convince one side that the other is right is not the right approach.
BTW, I thought Kevin’s comment was good. If no one found wealth impressive, what would you do with it? Does a large home make you happy if no one is in it? By the same thought, if you are a family of 8, would you be happier in a larger home?
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@ Tim — the reason these lists contain material things is because of the question (i.e. things that are bought). My friends and family bring me lots of happiness, but I didn’t buy them.
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“As a wise Scotsman once said, “If we all liked the same thing, there’d be a shortage of haggis.””
omg – my new favorite quote!!!! awesome! And so completely true… my choices make ME happy but are unlikely to do the same for someone else.
thanks for sharing, jeremy!
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I like the David Lee Roth quote of “Money can’t buy happiness, but it can buy a boat big enough to sail up beside it”.
Typically, for the unprepared, bigger money buys bigger problems. Just 10% more money will solve all their problems, which it might very well do. But they don’t realize that it comes with another set of largely unique problems for them to deal with.
A high school classmate of mine won the Powerball, to the tune of $50m, of which they got $17m. Being a machinist and sort of solidly in the middle of the clue spectrum, he was doomed from the beginning. Suddenly he was “the rich guy” and didn’t fit in with his blue collar friends any longer, not to mention being asked to pay for everything. But he was also not in a social position to handle living in a world befitting his wealth. I’m sure he was a fish out of water when it came to hanging out with “the rich folk”. At our reunion there was a profound sadness in his eyes that showed that he was in limbo. Thankfully his classmates were simply his classmates and expected nothing more, nothing less. A coupla years later he ended up dying of leukemia, a problem his money could not fix.
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Hi,
interesting question!
I believe that it’s not possible to make a general statement on whether money makes people more or less happy. Money comes with a whole set of new elements that may have good or bad impact on our happiness, and depending on how susceptible we are to every one of them, the conclusion will go one way or the other (i.e. different from person to person).
I recently made an effort to provide a more comprehensive picture of what these ad- and disadvantages are. I invite you to have a look at http://www.spreadinghappiness.org/2009/08/money-how-much-should-we-strive-for-it-to-become-happy/ and tell me what you think!
Thank you,
Nick
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If you read the article, the author lumped child related expenses under a category called children. This includes child care, furnishings, toys, clothing, etc.
Of course those don’t show up on “our” happiness list. That has no bearing on whether children makes us happy or not since the author only asked to list items that were purchased and most didn’t purchase their children. However I will note that adoption was listed on the happiness list.
I think people are making illogical assumptions or didn’t read the article that JD linked to.
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