Looking Up
Dark Contrasts: The Paradox of High Rates of Suicide in Happy Places
Mary Daly et al.
Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, forthcoming
Abstract:
Suicide kills more Americans than die in motor accidents. Its causes remain poorly understood. We suggest in this paper that the level of others' happiness may be a risk factor for suicide (although one's own happiness likely protects one from suicide). Using U.S. and international data, the paper provides evidence for a paradox: the happiest places tend to have the highest suicide rates. The analysis appears to be the first published study to be able to combine rich individual-level data sets - one on life satisfaction in a newly available random sample of 1.3 million Americans and another on suicide decisions among an independent random sample of about 1 million Americans - to establish this dark-contrasts paradox in a consistent way across U.S. states. The study also replicates the finding for the Western industrialized nations. The paradox, which holds individual characteristics constant, is not an artifact of population composition or confounding factors (or of the ecological fallacy). We conclude with a discussion of the possible role of relative comparisons of utility.
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If money doesn't make you happy, then you probably aren't spending it right
Elizabeth Dunn, Daniel Gilbert & Timothy Wilson
Journal of Consumer Psychology, April 2011, Pages 115-125
Abstract:
The relationship between money and happiness is surprisingly weak, which may stem in part from the way people spend it. Drawing on empirical research, we propose eight principles designed to help consumers get more happiness for their money. Specifically, we suggest that consumers should (1) buy more experiences and fewer material goods; (2) use their money to benefit others rather than themselves; (3) buy many small pleasures rather than fewer large ones; (4) eschew extended warranties and other forms of overpriced insurance; (5) delay consumption; (6) consider how peripheral features of their purchases may affect their day-to-day lives; (7) beware of comparison shopping; and (8) pay close attention to the happiness of others.
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Francesco Drago
Journal of Economic Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Recent research in economics suggests a positive association between self-esteem and earnings. Using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY), which administered the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale during its 1980 and 1987 interviews, I provide further evidence for the existence of a self-esteem premium by exploiting variation in these measures between the two years. I show that self-esteem in 1980 has a sizeable impact on wages 8 years later, controlling for a wide set of individual characteristics and addressing problems of omitted variable bias and reverse causality. The instrumental variables estimate of the effect of self-esteem in 1987 on earnings is about two times greater than previous OLS estimates would imply. The main explanation for this discrepancy is that the previous OLS estimates are biased downward as a result of measurement error in the reported self-esteem measure.
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Social and monetary reward learning engage overlapping neural substrates
Alice Lin, Ralph Adolphs & Antonio Rangel
Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, forthcoming
Abstract:
Learning to make choices that yield rewarding outcomes requires the computation of three distinct signals: stimulus values that are used to guide choices at the time of decision making, experienced utility signals that are used to evaluate the outcomes of those decisions and prediction errors that are used to update the values assigned to stimuli during reward learning. Here we investigated whether monetary and social rewards involve overlapping neural substrates during these computations. Subjects engaged in two probabilistic reward learning tasks that were identical except that rewards were either social (pictures of smiling or angry people) or monetary (gaining or losing money). We found substantial overlap between the two types of rewards for all components of the learning process: a common area of ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) correlated with stimulus value at the time of choice and another common area of vmPFC correlated with reward magnitude and common areas in the striatum correlated with prediction errors. Taken together, the findings support the hypothesis that shared anatomical substrates are involved in the computation of both monetary and social rewards.
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Is Life Nasty, Brutish, and Short? Philosophies of Life and Well-Being
Michael Norton, Lalin Anik, Lara Aknin & Elizabeth Dunn
Social Psychological and Personality Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Three studies examine the extent to which laypeople endorse Hobbes's (1651/1960) view of life as "nasty, brutish, and short" and explore the relationships between this philosophy and well-being. Participants answered two binary choice questions: Is life short or long? And, is life easy or hard? Across a series of studies, the majority of participants indicated that they believed that life is short and hard, while the opposite philosophy, that life is long and easy, was least popular. In addition, these philosophies were correlated with participants' views of their lives: the short-hard philosophy was associated with lower levels of well-being (Studies 1 through 3), civic engagement (Study 2), and optimism about the future (Study 3), compared to the long-easy philosophy.
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Life Satisfaction and Political Participation: Evidence from the United States
Patrick Flavin & Michael Keane
Journal of Happiness Studies, forthcoming
Abstract:
Are people who are more satisfied with their lives more likely to participate in politics? Although the literature on political participation in the United States is one of the most theoretically and methodologically developed in political science, little research has sought to incorporate subjective life satisfaction into models of political participation. Instead, life satisfaction has been studied nearly exclusively as a dependent variable. By turning to life satisfaction as an independent variable, we contribute to the literatures on both political participation and life satisfaction. Using survey data, we find that individuals who are more satisfied with their lives are more likely to turn out to vote and participate in the political process through other avenues, and that the magnitude of this relationship rivals that of education. We also find that the relationship between life satisfaction and political participation is confined to "non-conflictual" forms of participation, and exhibits no relationship with the decision to engage in political protest.
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The photosynthetic President: Converting sunshine into popularity
Alexander Cohen
Social Science Journal, forthcoming
Abstract:
This paper tests the proposition that public opinion can be measurably influenced by sunlight. Specifically, it hypothesizes that sunlight should boost Presidential approval ratings because sunlight generally makes people happy and optimistic. Analysis reveals that, in spring and winter, survey respondents are indeed more likely to indicate approval of the President on sunny days than on cloudy days, even after controlling for demographic, ideological, and geographic predictors of approval. This paper is organized into three sections. The first draws on academic literature from sociology, economics, psychology, psychiatry, and political science to explain how sunlight should affect survey response. Section 2 describes the data employed to test the proposition that sunlight boosts Presidential approval. Results and conclusions are discussed in Section 3.
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Happiness and Tax Morale: An Empirical Analysis
Diego Lubian & Luca Zarri
Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, forthcoming
Abstract:
This paper presents empirical evidence that tax morale - taxpayers' intrinsic motivation to pay taxes - constitutes a new determinant of happiness, even after controlling for several demographic and socioeconomic factors. Using data on Italian households for 2004, we assess the strength of tax morale by relying on single items as well as composite multi-item indices. Our main result that fiscal honesty generates a higher hedonic payoff than cheating is in line with Harbaugh et al. (2007)'s neuroeconomic finding. Further, it sheds light on the well-known puzzle of compliance, that is the fact that many individuals pay taxes even when expected penalty and audit probability are extremely low: tax compliance is less puzzling once we show that not only it is materially costly, but also provides sizeable non-pecuniary benefits that make it rewarding in itself.
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Harvey James
Kyklos, May 2011, Pages 193-212
Abstract:
This paper uses data from the 2005-2006 wave of the World Values Survey to answer the question of whether ethical decision-making affects a person's happiness. Regression analyses focusing on the four largest economies in North and South America (the United States, Canada, Mexico and Brazil) reveal a generally positive relationship between ethics and happiness. In particular, respondents who do not justify unethical actions have higher reported well-being than those who are more accepting of such actions, after controlling for factors identified in the literature as important correlates of happiness and well-being. The effect of ethics on happiness is roughly similar to that of a modest increase in income, being married and attending church, while the effect is smaller than that of having poor health or being dissatisfied with one's personal finances.
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Impact of Business Cycles on US Suicide Rates, 1928-2007
Feijun Luo et al.
American Journal of Public Health, forthcoming
Objectives: We examined the associations of overall and age-specific suicide rates with business cycles from 1928 to 2007 in the United States.
Methods: We conducted a graphical analysis of changes in suicide rates during business cycles, used nonparametric analyses to test associations between business cycles and suicide rates, and calculated correlations between the national unemployment rate and suicide rates.
Results: Graphical analyses showed that the overall suicide rate generally rose during recessions and fell during expansions. Age-specific suicide rates responded differently to recessions and expansions. Nonparametric tests indicated that the overall suicide rate and the suicide rates of the groups aged 25 to 34 years, 35 to 44 years, 45 to 54 years, and 55 to 64 years rose during contractions and fell during expansions. Suicide rates of the groups aged 15 to 24 years, 65 to 74 years, and 75 years and older did not exhibit this behavior. Correlation results were concordant with all nonparametric results except for the group aged 65 to 74 years.
Conclusions: Business cycles may affect suicide rates, although different age groups responded differently. Our findings suggest that public health responses are a necessary component of suicide prevention during recessions.
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Erin O'Mara, James McNulty & Benjamin Karney
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
To promote optimal mental health, is it best to evaluate negative experiences accurately or in a positively biased manner? In an attempt to reconcile inconsistent prior research addressing this question, we predicted that the tendency to form positively biased appraisals of negative experiences may reduce the motive to address those experiences and thereby lead to poorer mental health in the context of negative experiences that are controllable and severe but lead to better mental health in the context of controllable negative experiences that are less severe by promoting positive feelings without invoking serious consequences from unaddressed problems. In 2 longitudinal studies, individuals in new marriages were interviewed separately about their ongoing stressful experiences, and their own appraisals of those experiences were compared with those of the interviewers. Across studies, spouses' tendencies to form positively biased appraisals of their stressful experiences predicted fewer depressive symptoms over the subsequent 4 years among individuals judged to be facing relatively mild experiences but more depressive symptoms among individuals judged to be facing relatively severe experiences. Furthermore, in Study 2, these effects were mediated by changes in those experiences, such that the interaction between the tendency to form positively biased appraisals of stressful experiences and the objectively rated severity of initial levels of those experiences directly predicted changes in those experiences, which in turn accounted for changes in depressive symptoms. These findings suggest that cognitive biases are not inherently positive or negative; their implications for mental health depend on the context in which they occur.
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Extraversion and its positive emotional core - Further evidence from neuroscience
Michael Hermes et al.
Emotion, April 2011, Pages 367-378
Abstract:
Converging evidence from self-report data demonstrated that extraversion and dispositional positive affect are systematically related. Several authors therefore considered positive affect as the conceptual core of extraversion. Because the ventral striatum is regarded as a core region in the physiological basis of extraversion, the present study examines the importance of this neural substrate with a special focus on positive affect. Baseline cerebral blood flow was measured in 38 participants and regressed to the extraversion and dispositional positive affect scales. Partial correlational and indirect-effects analyses indicated that striatal blood flow was no longer associated with extraversion when positive affect was statistically controlled. In contrast, when extraversion was statistically controlled, striatal blood flow was still associated with positive affect. This finding suggests that the striatal region is not a biological basis of extraversion per se. Rather, this region sustains positive affect, which in turn appears to be a core feature of extraversion.
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Does government ideology affect personal happiness? A test
Axel Dreher & Hannes Öhler
Economics Letters, May 2011, Pages 161-165
Abstract:
We investigate the impact of government ideology on left-wing as compared to conservative individuals. We find that conservative people are happier, on average. In a sample excluding the richest countries left-wing people are happier under the tenure of left-wing governments.
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Feeling Like You Know Who You Are: Perceived True Self-Knowledge and Meaning in Life
Rebecca Schlegel et al.
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, forthcoming
Abstract:
The essence of who a person really is has been labeled the "true self," and an emerging area of research suggests that this self-concept plays an important role in the creation of a fulfilling existence. Three studies investigate the role of the subjective feeling that one possesses knowledge of one's true self in meaning in life judgments. Consistently, the perception of availability of true self-knowledge (operationalized as the metacognitive experience of ease in describing one's true self) predicted meaning in life judgments over and above other potentially related constructs such as mood and self-esteem. Conversely, the subjective availability of knowledge of how one actually behaves (i.e., one's actual self) was unrelated to meaning in life judgments. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.
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Nostalgic recollections of high and low narcissists
Claire Hart et al.
Journal of Research in Personality, April 2011, Pages 238-242
Abstract:
Two functions of nostalgia are consistently documented in the literature: self-positivity and social connectedness. These reflect agency and communion, respectively. Such dimensions are polarized no more than in narcissists, who are high in agency and low in communion. In three studies we tested whether high and low narcissists differ in the content of nostalgic recollections, whether they become nostalgic about different objects, and whether nostalgia serves different functions for them. High (versus low) narcissists made more agentic references in their narratives and manifested nostalgic proclivity toward agentic objects. Furthermore, nostalgia served a self-positivity function, but not a social connectedness function, for high (versus low) narcissists. Findings highlight the relevance of personality - narcissism, in particular - for the experience of nostalgia.
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Are Happier People Better Citizens?
Cahit Guven
Kyklos, May 2011, Pages 178-192
Abstract:
This paper offers new findings which support the hypothesis that a causal link from happiness to social capital might exist. The paper exploits the very long German socio-economic panel of around 15000 people. Using the prospective study methodology, it finds that happier people contribute more to social capital. Both parametric and nonparametric results suggest that there exists an inverted-U shape relationship between happiness to social capital. Moreover, optimism appears to be an important channel through which happiness is linked to social capital. The paper also presents residual happiness as a measure of optimism which might be a valuable tool for empirical researchers. The results are robust to inclusion of various controls including the initial level of social capital, random sampling, non-linearity, different measures of social capital, and estimation techniques.
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Sonja Lyubomirsky et al.
Emotion, April 2011, Pages 391-402
Abstract:
An 8-month-long experimental study examined the immediate and longer term effects of regularly practicing two assigned positive activities (expressing optimism and gratitude) on well-being. More important, this intervention allowed us to explore the impact of two metafactors that are likely to influence the success of any positive activity: whether one self-selects into the study knowing that it is about increasing happiness and whether one invests effort into the activity over time. Our results indicate that initial self-selection makes a difference, but only in the two positive activity conditions, not the control, and that continued effort also makes a difference, but, again, only in the treatment conditions. We conclude that happiness interventions are more than just placebos, but that they are most successful when participants know about, endorse, and commit to the intervention.
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Self-esteem moderates affective reactions to briefly presented emotional faces
Anne Richter & Nathan Ridout
Journal of Research in Personality, forthcoming
Abstract:
According to the sociometer hypothesis individuals with low self-esteem experience increased negative affect in response to negative social stimuli, even when these stimuli are not perceived consciously. Using an affective priming paradigm, the present study examined whether trait self-esteem would moderate mood following briefly presented facial expressions. Results from 43 undergraduates revealed that, after controlling for baseline mood, anxiety and depression, the degree of negative affect experienced by the participants following exposure to expressions of anger and disgust varied as a function of their self-esteem. Implications for individuals with low-self esteem and our understanding of the link between self-esteem and negative affect are discussed.
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The nicotinic acetylcholine receptor gene CHRNA4 is associated with negative emotionality
Sebastian Markett, Christian Montag & Martin Reuter
Emotion, April 2011, Pages 450-455
Abstract:
Knock-out studies in mice suggest a role of the CHRNA4 gene in anxiety. In the present study we extend this finding to humans by means of a genetic association study. In a sample of N = 574 healthy White participants, the CHRNA4 rs1044396 polymorphism is related to the common variance of several conceptualizations of negative emotionality. Compared to carriers of at least one T-allele, carriers of the homozygous C/C genotype described themselves as more anxious and emotionally unstable on various psychometric personality questionnaires. The scope of the genetic effect is remarkable because other prominent genetic markers for anxiety show specificity for the diagnostic tool used. The present study is the first study that demonstrates the relevance of the CHRNA4 gene for negative emotionality in humans and sets a starting point for further investigations that could inform on the treatment of various affective psychiatric disorders.