
If money doesn't make you happy, you probably aren't spending it right [pdf] - reledi
http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~dtg/DUNN%20GILBERT%20&%20WILSON%20(2011).pdf
======
reasonattlm
I recently wrote on the topic of the lack of overlap between zealotry for a
cause and wealth. I think that to become super-wealthy requires a certain
cluelessness when it comes to what to spend money on - or how to spend money
to best effect, or more fundamentally how to use money to change the world in
a way you believe in, or a lack of the vision needed to see how to spend
money.

This is a social evolution sort of a thing: if you are a zealot and you _know_
how to spend money to effect the change you want, then you aren't going to
stay on the money-accumulation train for anywhere near as long. You'll spend
it, and make some of that change happen.

You need something like this sort of effect to explain why there are any
wealthy people at all. Any one of the Forbes 100 could cure a couple of
diseases, get a fair way to demonstrating a cure for aging in mice ($1 billion
price tag), develop the tech to irrigate the Sahara, etc, etc. But they
largely do not, and remain within the process they have built for themselves.
Where they do go all out for philanthropy, there is usually a startling lack
of imagination - see the Gates Foundation, for example, which is doing nothing
more than business as usual in big philanthropy, or the Ellison Medical
Foundation which does nothing more than replicate the NIH.

Anyway. Knowing how to spend money "right" (meaning right for you, your
vision, having a vision, etc) is not compatible with accumulating money, and
only the outliers will fall into both camps.

[http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2012/02/one-wealthy-
zealo...](http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2012/02/one-wealthy-zealot-would-
make-a-20-year-difference.php)

~~~
MartinCron
_Gates Foundation, for example, which is doing nothing more than business as
usual in big philanthropy_

I wouldn't call things like the giving pledge "business as usual" in big
philanthropy. I can't think of any prior art for it.

<http://givingpledge.org/>

~~~
reasonattlm
It is in many ways a sign of the age - the focus on getting money, and the
comparative lack of interest in explaining how to be far better at spending it
to attain measurable results than the rest of big philanthropy.

Philanthropy done right looks much more like the Thiel model:

[http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2010/12/peter-thiel-
encou...](http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2010/12/peter-thiel-encourages-
radical-philanthropy.php)

[http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2012/04/breakout-labs-
ann...](http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2012/04/breakout-labs-announces-
first-grantees.php)

The Gates Foundation would do far more good in the world by splitting itself
up into a hundred or a thousand more directed and competing interests, focused
on bottom-up change one innovation at a time.

As it is, the majority of its funds will probably eventually evaporate in the
grind of top-down existing strategies that have solved nothing permanently -
but have instead led to government-bound institutions that do more to
perpetuate the problems they allegedly try to solve than generate good in the
world, or which have turned into jobs programs for comparatively privileged
individuals, disconnected from any need to achieve concrete results.

~~~
MartinCron
_As it is, the majority of its funds will probably eventually evaporate in the
grind of top-down existing strategies that have solved nothing permanently_

I agree with much of what you're saying, but my overall outlook isn't that
negative. There is a real chance that their work will help completely
eradicate malaria. If that's not solving something permanently, I don't know
what is.

------
WalterSear
I am sick and tired of the experience/possession paradigm that infects all
consumer happiness research. Yes, all the evidence so far supports it. But,
all the research so far has been looking for ways to support the paradigm.

I don't buy experiences, and I don't buy possessions. I buy camping gear,
musical instruments and other experiential possessions. But, this concept is
lost on consumer researchers, who skew young, female and IMHE, assume the
whole world is choosing between a pair of shoes or nice restaurant meal.

(FWIW, I just got my masters in research psychology.)

[Edited for spelling]

~~~
sliverstorm
Completely agree, IMO money invested in experiential possessions is an
excellent bang-for-the-buck.

~~~
acangiano
Yup. For example, you may buy a fancy camera, and then take tons of pictures
with it. You get both the possession and experience aspects.

------
NeutronBoy
Personally I think a better quote is, 'Money can't buy happiness, but it can
help solve all your problems'

~~~
not_chriscohoat
I like that a lot...and I've always heard: 'Money doesn't make you happy, but
it can make you less unhappy.'

~~~
adventureful
I've always heard: "money can't buy you happiness, but the lack of money can
buy you misery"

~~~
yashchandra
I have heard that "Money is not everything. But make sure you have enough of
it before you talk such nonsense"

~~~
adavies42
"If money can't buy happiness, I guess I'll have to rent it!"

------
GFischer
The #1 advice on this paper (experiences, not things) is very relevant for the
HN community.

A corollary is "Your startup needs to sell experiences, not features":

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2662671>

Previous discussions ("Money = Happiness, but when it buys experiences"):

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=482036>

"Spend money on experiences, not possessions"

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1825525>

~~~
skrebbel
> _"Your startup needs to sell experiences, not features"_

Eh,

What about B2B startups? What about any utility application? Say, internet
search? I'm going to kill Google (and Gabriel Weinberg) if they turn their
search engine into an "experience".

Seriously, guys, can we stop the "startup == social local friend to friend
mobile app thing" thing already?

~~~
seanp2k2
Search /is/ an experience, and it always has been. Google is just making that
experience suck lately.

UX is the most important feature. Canonical example: Apple. Apple "gets"
usability. No other pc manufacturer comes close. Their methods are dubious and
I don't agree with all of them, but their stuff works nicer than anything else
right now (for the latest number of lay people.)

Other pc mfgs don't even try to design beautiful, elegant hardware and market
it to everyone. They think that everyone wants cheap crap, so they deliver and
iterate on that. All of Apple's offerings are premium, and you can't argue
with their success. /people want nice stuff, not cheap plastic crap/ -- but it
gets harder and harder to find nice stuff outside of Apple.

Who still makes a laptop with a 1920x1200 display? Apple. HP and Lenovo did
too last I checked, but the industry has largely moved to the cheaper-and-
worse 16x9 panels. Apple also cares about obvious stuff that other mfgs
ignore. Example: trackpad texture. Even on a $3500 gaming laptop from a
specialty mfg, they don't get it and the trackpad is too grippy and hurts your
finer after 5 minutes.

BUILD QUALITY OR DON'T BUILD

~~~
gk1
Quality is just one corner of the triangle; speed and cost are the other two.
Many people value speed or cost in their products more than quality (I am not
just talking about computers). Your motto sounds great and all, but it's not
how business works.

------
DannoHung
The best way to spend money is to buy time with it.

~~~
ma2rten
This an academic article written by people who extensively studied this topic.
I feel that if you want to contradict them you should at least write a
sentence on why you think they are wrong.

~~~
melling
I'm not sure he is contradicting them. #1 is buying more experiences. The more
time, the more [potential] experiences you have time for. Take a cab vs the
bus. House cleaning, etc.

As for #2, I started backing more projects on Kickstarter. It does feel great
to see people doing all sorts of cool projects. For example, I wish I had time
[and skills] to make a movie with Blender, but since I can't I'll enjoy it
through the work of others.

[http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1331941187/the-tube-
open...](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1331941187/the-tube-open-movie)

Oh, and I'm helping to build a 10" rocket engine!

[http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hermesspace/hermes-
space...](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hermesspace/hermes-spacecraft)

------
greenwalls
I found it interesting how mentioning return policies in advance might
actually undermine happiness. Maybe it's better not to have that "30 day
refund" text on your product order page to keep your users happy.

"People seek extended warranties and generous return policies in order to
preclude the possibility of future regret, but research suggests that the
warranties may be unnecessary for happiness and the return policies may
actually undermine it."

~~~
d2vid
I found that interesting as well. The problem is that people predict that a
generous return policy will make them happy, and they are more likely to
purchase if you give them what they predict will make them happy, not what
will actually make them happy.

Perhaps they will be more likely to refer friends to your service if you don't
give them a return policy, since rationalization will kick in and they will
make themselves happier with your service if they're stuck with it.

------
rmontanaro
Oddly enough, #1(buy experiences, not goods) and #2 (help others) are
precisely the first topics tackled by "59 Seconds", by Richard Wiseman, which
is a formidable book.

------
NathanRice
This article is bullshit. Money can't buy achievement. Money can't buy
competence. Money can't buy respect. Money can't buy love. Money can't buy
wisdom. Money can't buy knowledge. Money can't buy creativity.

The things that make people truly happy are internal, and must be constructed
by the person experiencing them. Money can remove discomfort or provide
passing distraction from existential malaise, but it can never make you truly
happy.

~~~
uberPhil
Not sure why you getting downvoted. It appears that anyone with an opinion
which is not inline with the general consensus gets downvo... Nevermind..

In any case, I think the idea that true happiness comes from within, which I
think is what your describing, makes sense. True happiness cannot be
manufactured by buying "experiences". I don't think a laundry list, created by
someone other then you, of things to do with your money can make you happy
with yourself. If your not happy with yourself nothing you experience will
just make you happy.

It starts with you and I'm not sure that money can buy you internal happiness.

A better idea would be to find out how people without money are able to be
truly happy. I'd love to see that list...

~~~
lutorm
_Not sure why you getting downvoted_

Because he takes a scientific study based on actual data, calls it "bullshit",
and substitutes his own pet theory of happiness, maybe?

~~~
NathanRice
Their whole hypothesis is that money can buy happiness, but there is a weak
correlation because people have poor consumption patterns, and if people just
had better consumption patterns, money would correlate strongly with
happiness. There are a couple of assumptions baked into this hypothesis that I
can tear apart on the spot:

1\. This assumes that consumptive happiness is additive and unbounded, i.e. if
consuming A makes you X points happier, and consuming B makes you Y points
happier, consuming A and B makes you (X + Y) happier, ad infinitum. There is
no evidence of this, and this is such a strong assumption that to assume it in
the absence of evidence is fallacious.

2\. Their data surrounding giving does not control for interpersonal
interactions, and personality characteristics. Since these two variables are
both strongly confounding, their results are weak at best.

Beyond that, this is a review paper containing no new data. They are
essentially taking isolated data points and playing connect the dots to
generate their own pet hypothesis.

My "pet theory" of happiness is actually the distillate of the idea of
happiness as established in a variety of neutral literature (from Aristotle to
moderns like Layard and Lyubomirsky), informed to a degree by evolutionary
biology. Do you really trust the impartiality of people publishing in journals
for "Consumer Psychology"? That reminds me of health studies commissioned by
cigarette companies.

Down-vote away, it only saddens me to the degree that it makes people less
likely to be exposed to a dissenting but informative viewpoint. I don't care a
whit for the popularity contest aspect of it.

------
zerostar07
There is an overarching idea that people want to be numbed into a form of
happiness (by using their money, but it could equally be something else).
People like a challenge too, am i the only one who doesn't want to be happy
all the time?

~~~
lutorm
It seems to me that if you _like_ the challenge, you _are_ in fact happy being
challenged...

------
mverwijs
There was a TED talk on that: "How to buy happiness "
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsihkFWDt3Y>

------
blafro
This all makes sense. But having read through it, am I the only one who feels
this reads more like an advice column disguised as science than the real deal,
even with all the cited double blind studies.

------
maeon3
Thousands of years ago it was written there is nothing better than for a man
to find joy in his labor. Work and stress bring unhappiness in exchange for
money. If labor brings you happiness, then you are probably doing better than
most in the happiness dept. Don't purchase happiness, Eliminate the
unhappiness, and save money by not having to spend money on getting back to
equilibrium.

------
Dubplate
This is our ethos, we're Blink Collective: Experience Marketplace for the UK

Check us out: <http://blinkcollective.com/>

