Category: Happiness

Money increase the sense of control over life.

More money does indeed make people more happy, the latest U.S. research finds.

Well-being related to income does not level-off at around $75,000 a year as previous studies have found.

Instead, it keeps increasing in proportion to income.

This includes the two main forms of happiness: being satisfied with life overall and moment-by-moment happiness.

This means that someone who earns $50,000 a year is measurably happier than someone who earns $25,000 a year.

It also means someone earning $200,000 is happier than someone earning $100,000.

The research might come as a surprise to some psychologists who have maintained that money only makes people happier up to a point — usually around $75,000 a year.

Dr Matthew Killingsworth, the study’s author, said:

“It’s a compelling possibility, the idea that money stops mattering above that point, at least for how people actually feel moment to moment.

But when I looked across a wide range of income levels, I found that all forms of well-being continued to rise with income.

I don’t see any sort of kink in the curve, an inflection point where money stops mattering.

Instead, it keeps increasing.”

The study included 33,000 people and 1.7 million data points.

Participants were asked about their moment-by-moment feelings and their general satisfaction with life.

Dr Killingsworth said:

“This process provided repeated snapshots of people’s lives, which collectively gives us a composite image, a stop-motion movie of their lives.

Scientists often talk about trying to get a representative sample of the population.

I was trying to get a representative sample of the moments of people’s lives.”

The reason that richer people are happier is partly down to a greater sense of control over life.

Dr Killingsworth said:

“When you have more money, you have more choices about how to live your life.

You can likely see this in the pandemic.

People living paycheck to paycheck who lose their job might need to take the first available job to stay afloat, even if it’s one they dislike.

People with a financial cushion can wait for one that’s a better fit.

Across decisions big and small, having more money gives a person more choices and a greater sense of autonomy.”

It is better to avoid thinking of success in monetary terms, though, said Dr Killingsworth:

“Although money might be good for happiness, I found that people who equated money and success were less happy than those who didn’t.

I also found that people who earned more money worked longer hours and felt more pressed for time.”

Overall, money only plays a modest part in the equation of happiness:

“If anything, people probably overemphasize money when they think about how well their life is going.

Yes, this is a factor that might matter in a way that we didn’t fully realize before, but it’s just one of many that people can control and ultimately, it’s not one I’m terribly concerned people are undervaluing.”

Whether or not these findings apply to people outside the United States is not clear.

Certainly, though, Americans have seen changes in the connection between money and happiness.

For example, recent research from the U.S. concludes that in the last fifty years, money has become more strongly linked to happiness.

The benefits of more money to people’s happiness, instead of tailing off, may have increased over the last fifty years.

In effect, the rich are not just getting richer, they are getting happier.

At the same time, the poor are getting more unhappy.

This has created a happiness gap between rich and poor.

The study was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (Killingsworth, 2021).

Many people have taken up novelty activities during the pandemic.

Doing meaningful activities is the key to boosting happiness while social distancing and lockdown rules are in effect, a new study finds.

In contrast, keeping busy just for the sake of it does not boost happiness.

Indeed, mindless busywork tends to leave people feeling unsatisfied and unsettled.

It is better to continue with activities that were enjoyable before the pandemic — only in a a different form.

For example, dinner parties can be done virtually as can group exercise classes.

Dr Lauren Saling, study co-author, said:

“Busyness might be distracting but it won’t necessarily be fulfilling.

Rather, think about what activities you miss most and try and find a way of doing them.”

Researchers asked almost 100 people about their level of well-being before and during lockdown.

The results revealed that when people took up novelty lockdown activities, like baking and painting, just to keep busy, this was linked to more extreme emotions.

On the other hand, meaningful activities made people feel calmer.

Dr Saling said:

“Extreme emotions are not necessarily a good thing.

Emotions are a mechanism to make you change your behaviour.

But when you’re doing what you love, it makes sense that you feel more balanced — simply keeping busy isn’t satisfying.”

Simply being busy is not enough to stave off sadness.

Dr Saling said:

“The study showed positive and negative affect worked together, not as opposites.

Respondents who simply stayed busy during lockdown reported an increase in both positive and negative emotions.

This heightened emotionality will tend to shift you away from activity in general and towards meaningful activity.”

The study also revealed that people under 40 experienced the largest changes to their positive emotions after lockdown.

This might be because younger people have more difficulty finding suitable substitute activities.

The study was published in the journal PLOS ONE (Cohen et al., 2020).

The drink activates the ‘feel-good’ dopamine receptors in the brain.

A component found in beer, quite apart from alcohol, also stimulates the brain’s reward centre, new research finds.

Hordenine, which is found in beer and malted barley, stimulates the brain’s dopamine receptors in the same way as dopamine.

Dopamine is the neurotransmitter that gives us that feel-good effect.

It makes us want to carry on consuming a food or beverage long after we are satiated.

The conclusions come from research that went through a database of 13,000 chemicals to find those that stimulate the dopamine pathway.

Out of all these chemicals, hordenine was found to be the most promising.

Professor Pischetsrieder, one of the study’s authors, said:

“It came as a bit of surprise that a substance in beer activates the dopamine D2 receptor, especially as we were not specifically looking at stimulant foodstuffs.”

The researchers are now looking at whether the levels of hordenine are sufficient to account for some of the mood-enhancing effects of drinking beer.

For the future, the advantage of hordenine may be that its effects are more long-lasting than other ways of boosting dopamine.

Drugs that stimulate dopamine could eventually be used to treat conditions like Parkinson’s and schizophrenia.

The study was published in the journal Scientific Reports (Sommer et al., 2017).

…and the 12 linked to the least satisfaction with life.

The clergy are the happiest and most satisfied workers in America, a large US survey finds.

87% of them reported being very satisfied with their work.

They are closely followed by physical therapists, 80% of whom were very satisfied with their work and firefighters, 78% of whom were very satisfied.

Dr Tom W. Smith, the study’s author, explained the common thread in these different jobs:

“The most satisfying jobs are mostly professions, especially those involving caring for, teaching, and protecting others and creative pursuits.”

Here is the full list of the top 12 most satisfying jobs:

1. Clergy
2. Physical Therapists
3. Firefighters
4. Education Administrators
5. Painter, Sculptors, Related
6. Teachers
7. Authors
8. Psychologists
9. Special Education Teachers
10. Operating Engineers
11. Office Supervisors
12. Security & Financial Services Salespersons

Rev. Cynthia Lindner, Director of Ministry Studies at the University of Chicago’s Divinity School, said:

 “Persons engaged in ministry have great opportunity to live and work out of their deepest convictions, oftentimes in the midst of communities of faith who share their concern for meaning, compassion and justice.

This congruence of belief, values, and actions in one’s daily work can be immensely satisfying.”

Across all the occupations, 47% of people reported being very satisfied with their jobs and 33% said they were very happy with their lives in general.

Down at the bottom of the list, the 12 least satisfying jobs were:

1. Roofers
2. Waiters/Servers
3. Laborers, Except Construction
4. Bartenders
5. Hand Packers and Packagers
6. Freight, Stock, & Material Handlers
7. Apparel Clothing Salespersons
8. Cashiers
9. Food Preparers
10. Expediters
11. Butchers & Meat Cutters
12. Furniture/Home Furnishing Salespersons

These jobs are generally low-paid and often involve manual labour.

Customer service and food/beverage preparation was also particularly unsatisfying, according to the survey.

Over 27,000 people were interviewed for the survey across a wide variety of social classes and occupations.

The study was published by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago (Smith, 2007).

Why Americans are getting unhappier and the 10 happiest countries in the world.

Norway is the happiest country in the world, closely followed by Denmark and Iceland.

The United States, though, has become 5% unhappier over the past 10 years, despite people earning more money.

The trend in happiness is the reverse for most countries, which have become happier.

The US came 14th on the list and the United Kingdom ranked 19th.

Canadians lived up to their reputation by ranking at number 7 on the list, while Australia came 9th.

Dr John Helliwell, the study’s first author, said the problem for the US was too much focus on money and not enough on social factors:

“It’s the human things that matter.

If the riches make it harder to have frequent and trustworthy relationship between people, is it worth it?

The material can stand in the way of the human.”

Dr Jeffrey Sachs, study co-author, also thinks the US has a problem:

“We’re becoming more and more mean spirited.

And our government is becoming more and more corrupt. And inequality is rising.

It’s a long-term trend and conditions are getting worse.”

Meik Wiking, chief executive officer of the Happiness Research Institute in Copenhagen, commented on Norway beating Denmark (the previous number 1):

“Good for them.

I don’t think Denmark has a monopoly on happiness.

What works in the Nordic countries is a sense of community and understanding in the common good.”

Here is the full list of the 10 happiest countries in the world:

1. Norway 7.54
2. Denmark 7.42
3. Iceland 7.5
4. Switzerland 7.49
5. Finland 7.47
6. Netherlands 7.38
7. Canada 7.32
8. New Zealand 7.321
9. Australia 7.28
10. Sweden 7.28

And here are the saddest countries:

• Yemen 3.59
• South Sudan 3.59
• Liberia 3.53
• Guinea 3.51
• Togo 3.49
• Rwanda 3.47
• Syria 3.46
• Tanzania 3.35
• Burundi 2.91
• Central African Republic 2.69

It is no accident that the unhappiest countries in the world are also the poorest.

But many researchers agree that above a certain level, more money doesn’t equal more happiness.

The research was published in the World Happiness Report 2017.