

Does Education Make You Happy? - tokenadult
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/18/does-education-make-you-happy/

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mattiss
What are the results of Education vs. Income and Income vs. Happiness?

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msluyter
Here's my reverse causality analysis: perhaps it's that those
predispositionally disposed towards happiness -- optimistic, for example --
tend to go to college more often (and finish) than unhappy people.

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tokenadult
A variety of studies that I have read suggest that the causation is that
wealthier people (of a given level of ability) go to and complete college much
more than poor people.

[http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/03_27/b3840045_...](http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/03_27/b3840045_mz007.htm)

<http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ffp0621.pdf>

<http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ff0615S.pdf>

<http://www.tcf.org/Publications/Education/carnrose.pdf>

[http://www.tcf.org/Publications/Education/kahlenberg-
affacti...](http://www.tcf.org/Publications/Education/kahlenberg-
affaction.pdf)

<http://harvardmagazine.com/2005/05/a-thumb-on-the-scale.html>

[http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200511/financial-aid-
leveragi...](http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200511/financial-aid-leveraging/4)

<http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=510012>

<http://www.equaleducation.org/commentary.asp?opedid=1240>

[http://www.jkcf.org/assets/files/0000/0084/Achievement_Trap....](http://www.jkcf.org/assets/files/0000/0084/Achievement_Trap.pdf)

<http://www.reason.com/news/show/123910.html>

And most other things being equal, it's easier to be happy as a rich person
than as a poor person.

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vinhboy
Funny... Because the more I listen to NPR and get more "educated", the worst I
feel about humanity...

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pavs
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect>

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jseliger
I would guess "no," regardless of the answer in cities, but education probably
does make me more right, or at least more right than not.

And once I have enough education, I can read books like Daniel Gilbert's
Stumbling on Happiness: [http://jseliger.com/2009/04/23/stumbling-on-
happiness-daniel...](http://jseliger.com/2009/04/23/stumbling-on-happiness-
daniel-gilbert/) and hopefully (re?)learn about happiness.

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harshpotatoes
"See how close those dots are to the line of best fit?"

data is roughly elliptical, R^2 is .464 hmmm...

after reading I'm still left wondering, is there a correlation between
education and happiness?

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mcantor
I love how, as "Correlation does not prove causation" becomes more and more
well-known, it is frequently added on to the end of an article with the basic
approach of: "Correlation is not causation, but gosh, isn't it tempting?!"

~~~
tokenadult
This is a subject for which the Wikipedia article is surprisingly good:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_caus...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_causation)

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tommorris
I reject the significance of the question, and I reject the purported method
used to answer it. First, defang it of the direction of causal fit problem.
Does being in a state of greater educational attainment dispose one towards
happiness? The answer? Irrelevant.

Let us say that it was not true in a concrete case: that Paris Hilton (or
someone equivalent) was happier than, say, W.V.O. Quine. Would that mean that
the late Professor Quine should have dropped all that logic lark, caught the
next plane to Hollywood and started snorting coke and appearing in sex tapes?
Of course not.

If the only goal we had in life was happiness, we would spend all day watching
TV, popping Prozac and engaging in mindless consumerist 'retail therapy' to
cover up for our lack of... oh, wait.

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JeffJenkins
Penelope Trunk has written a bunch of articles on people who are interested in
happiness vs living an interesting life. I can't speak to the validity of her
sources, but it's something interesting to think about:

[http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2010/01/14/do-you-
overemphasiz...](http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2010/01/14/do-you-
overemphasize-happiness/)

~~~
gcheong
Problem is, there seems to be at least 3 different kinds of "happiness", at
least according to Martin Seligman in this TED video:
[http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/martin_seligman_on_the_sta...](http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/martin_seligman_on_the_state_of_psychology.html)

It would seem that she is trying to move away from the first level of
happiness (simply trying to seek out "feel good" experiences) toward higher
level happiness that is achieved through flow experiences and meaning but may
not have a lot of pleasure attached.

