Lessons From Cloud Nine

The Wall Street Journal:

In recent years, economists and psychologists have joined forces to unravel the secrets of human happiness. “The Happiness Equation” is one researcher’s attempt to share his field’s discoveries with a broad audience. Nick Powdthavee, an economist at the University of York, deftly explains the main determinants of happiness: the small effect of money, the great effect of marriage and friends, the massive effect of personality. Even extremely good news (such as winning the lottery) and extremely bad news (such as losing a spouse) rarely changes an individual’s happiness for more than a couple of years. Mr. Powdthavee also explores the effect of happiness on success: Happiness today predicts higher job performance, better relationships and more years of health in the future.

One problem with studying what makes people happy, though, is that you can’t just ask them. Mr. Powdthavee unmasks the role of “focusing illusions”: Thinking about something’s expected effect on our happiness makes us overrate it. If you specifically ask people whether more money would make their life happier, he explains, most would say yes—on the assumption that they would spend the money doing things they like, “such as driving nice cars, watching a big-screen TV, or playing golf.” But in fact, richer people don’t change their activities very much and even tend to be slightly more stressed.

Read the whole: The Wall Street Journal