Money may buy happiness, but often so little that it doesn’t matter

Abstract

First paragraph: Whether money buys happiness or not is a question of enduring individual and societal interest that has justifiably attracted considerable attention from researchers across the social sciences (Clark, Frijters, & Shields, 2008;Kahneman & Deaton, 2010). Consistently, research points toward a weak relationship between money and happiness (Lucas & Dyrenforth, 2006), which has led many researchers to conclude that people will have to go beyond focusing on money in order to improve their lives (Diener & Seligman, 2004). However, one interesting research stream suggests that the weak relationship between money and happiness arises because people do not spend their money wisely (Dunn, Gilbert, & Wilson, 2011). The implication is that more money would translate into greater happiness if people spent it “right”; for example, on experiences rather than possessions (Van Boven & Gilovich, 2003) or on other people rather than themselves (Dunn, Aknin, & Norton, 2008).