Tag: happiness
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The Sandra Bullock Trade
New York Times: The Sandra Bullock Trade Two things happened to Sandra Bullock this month. First, she won an Academy Award for best actress. Then came the news reports claiming that her husband is an adulterous jerk. So the philosophic question of the day is: Would you take that as a deal? Would you exchange…
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People are happiest at 74
Ananova: People are happiest at 74 Seventy-four year-olds are the most contented people in the population, according to a new study. Fewer responsibilities, financial worries and more time to yourself leads to greater contentment, reports the Daily Telegraph. According to the report from the teenage years until 40 happiness declines. It levels off until 46…
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Money Buys Happiness Only to a Point (About $60,000)
BoingBoing: CNN: Ten Big Ideas from TED "Psychologist and Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman says millions of dollars won't buy you happiness, but a job that pays $60,000 a year might help. Happiness levels increase up to the $60K mark, but "above that it's a flat line," he said. "Money does not buy you experiential happiness…
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Easy = True (Cognitive Fluency)
The Boston Globe: Easy = True How ‘cognitive fluency’ shapes what we believe, how we invest, and who will become a supermodel. … One of the hottest topics in psychology today is something called “cognitive fluency.” Cognitive fluency is simply a measure of how easy it is to think about something, and it turns out…
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Why Aren’t Americans Happier?
Becker Posner Blog: Why Aren’t Americans Happier? On December 14, Becker and I blogged about the shortcomings of GDP (Gross Domestic Product) as a welfare measure. A related question is the relation between GDP or other measures of economic prosperity and happiness, or what utilitarians and welfare economists refer to as “utility.” The great utilitarian…
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The economics of happiness
Washington Post: The economics of happiness … For the past 10 years, I have been studying happiness around the world, in countries as different as Afghanistan, Chile and the United States. It has been an amazing foray into the complexity of the human psyche and the simplicity of what makes us happy. What is most…
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The Effect of Children on Happiness: The Latest from the Research Frontier
Library of Economics and Liberty: The Effect of Children on Happiness: The Latest from the Research Frontier … A recent paper in the Journal of Happiness Research ("Children and Life Satisfaction" by Luis Angeles) suggests that I'm overly pessimistic. Contrary to most of the literature, it finds that kids often increase overall life satisfaction. I…
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What’s Happening to Women’s Happiness?
Oprah.com: What's Happening to Women's Happiness? … First, since 1972, women's overall level of happiness has dropped, both relative to where they were forty years ago, and relative to men. You find this drop in happiness in women regardless of whether they have kids, how many kids they have, how much money they make, how…