Does Money Buy Happiness? Only if You Spend it on Leisure, Research Suggests
Can money buy happiness? It all depends on how well-off you consider yourself, and how you spend the cash.
Once you make more than $50,000 a year, there’s little relationship between income and satisfaction, according to University of Missouri law professors Nancy Levit and Douglas Linder. Instead, they say, the key is “the joy of downward comparison,” the Am Law Daily reports in a review of the professors’ new book, The Happy Lawyer.
People are more contented when they frame their success in terms of how well off they are when compared with others, Linder and Levit write. They explain with an example plucked from the Olympics. Bronze medalists report more happiness than silver medalists, because the third-place winners are just happy to be on the winner’s podium. Silver medalists, on the other hand, compare themselves to the gold medal winners, and they are less happy.
The book outlines other factors that help boost happiness. According to the book review, they include having some control over your life, stable relationships, congruence between values and work, job security, and work-life balance.
Meanwhile, the New York Times recently turned to the subject of how spending your money influences happiness. According to the newspaper, new research shows that “people are happier when they spend money on experiences instead of material objects, when they relish what they plan to buy long before they buy it, and when they stop trying to outdo the Joneses.”
A University of Wisconsin professor, Thomas DeLeire, studied nine categories of consumption and found only one had a positive effect on happiness: vacations, entertainment, sports and equipment like golf clubs and fishing poles. According to the newspaper, spending on leisure and services tends to strengthen social bonds, which in turn makes people happier.
University of Illinois psychology professor Ed Diener put the research to use when he and his wife bought a new home, he explained in an e-mail interview with the Times. The couple saw several homes with appealing features.
“One home was close to hiking trails, making going hiking very easy,” Diener said. “Thinking about the research, I argued that the hiking trails could be a factor contributing to our happiness, and we should worry less about things like how pretty the kitchen floor is or whether the sinks are fancy. We bought the home near the hiking trail and it has been great, and we haven’t tired of this feature because we take a walk four or five days a week.”
