If you’ve ever wondered if those must-have acquisitions you just had to have or whether those choices you spent significant portions of your life fretting over have resulted in a quantifiable surge in happiness, read on:
A new study conducted by Dr. Geoffrey Miller, an evolutionary psychologist and author of “Spent: Sex, Evolution and Consumer Behavior” in an effort to determine once and for all the age old question if money does, indeed, buy happiness, he posed this question to readers:
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. (This last point designating which items appeared on both lists proved to be both fascinating and revealing).
On the “most expensive” lists, the most distinctive items were:
• “Drugs”
• “Psychotherapy”
• “A week at a mental hospital”
• “Wine cellar filled, then emptied. Repeat.”
On the “happiness” lists, the most distinctive items were:
• Thrift store shopping
• Eyeglasses
• Liposuction
• Pilot’s license
• Social club dues, memberships
• Beach house rentals
• Yoga retreat
• Adoption of child
• $25 plain gold wedding band that lasted through a 46-year marriage
• Coffeemaker with auto settings for waking up to fresh coffee
• “Shack in the woods”
• “Studio apartment in Paris”
• “Upgrade to business class on international flights”
• “Girlfriend”
• “Weekend delivery of NY Times”
• “Tire swing”
• “Spleefs” (marijuana)
• “Ant colony”
While Dr. Miller was impressed with participants’ “good insights, self-revelations and vigorous debate,”on their choices, there were some rather startling revelations. For example, one might expect a certain uniformity in items appearing on both lists, like houses, higher education, travel and cars, but who would have thought that under items appearing much more on the ‘expensive’ than on the ‘happy’ lists were: children, marriage and boats!
But take heart, trends bode future happiness, as well as a discernible upswing in narcissism. But didn’t we know that?
Continue reading ‘Happiness is …’