

Why We’re Still Happy  - veteran
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/27/opinion/27lyubomirsky.html?ref=todayspaper

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petercooper
_As the economists David Hemenway and Sara Solnick demonstrated in a study at
Harvard, many people would prefer to receive an annual salary of $50,000 when
others are making $25,000 than to earn $100,000 a year when others are making
$200,000._

I find it more surprising that everyone didn't choose the first option. Even
though $100,000 is more than $50,000, in terms of purchasing power it's all
about relativity. The more other people earn given the same productivity, the
higher prices will be overall and the less purchasing power you'll have.

For example, if you gave everyone $10m and I only got $2m.. I'd still be a
"millionaire" but inflation would go through the roof and I'd still end up
with rather little compared to everyone else.

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ShardPhoenix
I think it's assumed that these are "real" dollar values (ie in the latter
case the overall economy would be larger). The point of the study is that
people care more about relative status than absolute wealth.

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Herring
I must be missing something. Do people regularly turn down jobs paying double
their current salary ... because others in the new department are getting
more? I understand the cost of living in the new city might be higher, or that
they prefer shopping around for a better deal, but that's not what the study's
saying.

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yummyfajitas
I know of one example where someone turned down extra money out of jealousy,
albeit under slightly different circumstances.

A friend of mine was meeting a guy for a potential arranged marriage. She had
a good job working for a large investment bank. A deal killer for the
potential husband: the wife can't make more money than him. This was VERY
important to him, literally the second or third question he asked her.

(Him being a jackass was a deal killer for her.)

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pg
Obsession with status isn't the only explanation for this. A problem that
affects only you probably _is_ one that you should worry more about. Whereas
something that affects everyone is probably not something you can easily fix.

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ced
Social status is a zero-sum game, so if happiness correlates strongly with
it.... Then an egalitarian policy could be the best choice _even if everyone
would individually be worse off_.

I think this is a crucially missing point from most analyses about the income
gap.

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tl
So, basically this is the same point that 1984 made (make everyone's quality
of life suck to protect the inner party's welfare, even if they're not better
off than an above average person pre-Ingsoc) applied to at an individual
level?

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lallysingh
I'm not sure I see the real insight here, but the data point is nice.

AFAIK, Social standing, group health/status are all innately part of humans,
but our economic status is quite synthetic.

If it was all the food we had for 3 months instead of income, I think we'd see
something different.

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TweedHeads
This is a fake recession, an induced depression that won't last a year.

Wake me up when there isn't any bread in the bakery.

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jmtame
Makes sense, especially when you consider the example of racism in history.

