money and happiness

Often people wonder if money can buy happiness. Most people I think would say yes, although some may qualify their answer a bit. Yes is definitely the answer a consumer society favors. Furthermore, consumer societies work hard to instill this "value" into their citizens. The more time these citizens spend pursuing money and wealth, the more the overall economy and hence the collective power grows. And societies are often ruled by those with an unhealthy appetite for power. 

Unfortunately, we all know that the answer to money and happiness is not as simple as that. There are very many rich but distinctly unhappy people. And the happiest nation on earth is not the richest, although it is clearly a first world country -the current winner is Denmark, but Norway, Switzerland, and others have also won the title in recent memory.

Which brings us to a minority of "hard core" people who will tell you they firmly believe that money does not buy happiness. That is of course easy to say when one lives in a wealthy country where all basic needs are taken care of. One only needs to imagine transporting these happy people to some of the more destitute areas on the planet to see that their beliefs are problematic. A few would merely need to be transported out of their protected neighborhoods to make the same point.

In comes the "yes, but" view. A qualified view that claims a certain amount of wealth or money is needed to take care of basic needs. Any money beyond that does not correlate with happiness these folks would argue. That begs the question, what is a basic need? Are cellphones and cars basic needs? Or is it just limited to food and shelter? If so, does food include restaurant meals and does shelter mean a 4,000 sq ft home? 

It occurred to me that the answer is rather simple. "Can money buy happiness?" is an ill-posed question. Money and happiness have some relationship but it is not a linear or even a smoothly evolving one. It isn't even a fixed one that holds across all societies and time periods. And it certainly is not a causal relationship. "Can money buy happiness" is simply the wrong question to ask. There is no good answer for it. Sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn't.

Psychological studies have show that two factors are key to happiness. One is the perception of being in control of one's life and destiny. The more people feel in control, the happier they tend to be. Events beyond anyone's control, so-called "acts of god" definitely play a role in happiness. If fate hits it can put a pronounced damper on one's enthusiasm.

Surveys in Money magazine consistently find that biologists are among the happiest professions, even though their compensation is low, and few biologists are rich. However, as anyone who is familiar with the current situation in academic biology will tell you, biologists are in charge of their careers. They can run their labs like despots if they like. They answer to nobody -within reason of course. They don't have to collaborate unless they desire to do so. They are free to pursue their interests. In short, unlike many other scientists or the majority of employed workers, biologists have nearly absolute control of their little kingdom. And that makes for happy people.

The second factor is perceived success within a peer group. Humans compare their success with that of their peers. That is why we always want to keep up with the Joneses, or do better than the neighbors. We judge our success based on what we perceive in others. But not just any others. We can be quite picky when it comes to selecting peers. And we can also be quite selective when it comes to measures of success. So your neighbor may outdo you in having a fancier car, or a bigger house, but you feel you have better behaved children. Or children that do better in school. Or a better looking partner. Or a nicer yard. Or you may beat the neighbor in a race.

Success and control over one's destiny are closely related. They are but aspects of a single core value. A value that judges how well you are doing compared to others. These are universal correlates of happiness and they have nothing to do with money or wealth per se. Although, in a first world society, there can be some correlation.

As would be expected there is a spread around a mean for these values. A few people grow very obsessed with power and the size of their peer group. They want power over everything. A similarly small group care very little for power and are happy to bob around on the current and ignore most others. Some have a very small and select peer group, while others try to outdo everyone they bump into in one way or another. Some have many interests and can find many ways to achieve success, while others are dead-set and focused on one item, eg. money, partners, cars, etc.

And as is often the case in biology, the ones in the middle are doing best. They are the happiest of all.