What Can Economists Learn from Happiness Research?

Frey, Bruno S.; Stutzer, Alois

doi:10.2139/ssrn.271816

Cited by 181 publications

(114 citation statements)

References 145 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

106

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…For most people, the pursuit of subjective well-being, or broadly defined happiness, is an ultimate goal of life. In recent years, both psychologists and economists have made significant contributions to the understanding of happiness (e.g., Argyle, 1987;Diener, 2000;Diener, Scollon, & Lucas, in press;Diener, Suh, Lucas, & Smith, 1999;Diener, Tamir, Kim-Prieto, Scollon, & Diener, 2003;Easterlin, 1974Easterlin, , 2001Frank, 1997;Frey & Stutzer, 2000, 2002a, 2002bKahneman, 2000;Kahneman, Diener, & Schwarz, 1999;Myers, 1993;Ryan & Deci, 2001;Scitovsky, 1976;Seligman, 2002;Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000;Strack, Argyle, & Schwarz, 1991).…”

Section: Implications For Happiness Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Distinction Bias: Misprediction and Mischoice Due to Joint Evaluation.

Hsee¹,

Zhang²

2004

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

231

151

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This research identifies a new source of failure to make accurate affective predictions or to make experientially optimal choices. When people make predictions or choices, they are often in the joint evaluation (JE) mode; when people actually experience an event, they are often in the single evaluation (SE) mode. The "utility function" of an attribute can vary systematically between SE and JE. When people in JE make predictions or choices for events to be experienced in SE, they often resort to their JE preferences rather than their SE preferences and overpredict the difference that different values of an attribute (e.g., different salaries) will make to their happiness in SE. This overprediction is referred to as the distinction bias. The present research also specifies when the distinction bias occurs and when it does not. This research contributes to literatures on experienced utility, affective forecasting, and happiness.

show abstract

Section: Implications For Happiness Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Distinction Bias: Misprediction and Mischoice Due to Joint Evaluation.

Hsee¹,

Zhang²

2004

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

231

151

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…More recently, the study of SWB has focused on its relationship to personality, and sufficient research has been conducted to permit several meta-analyses (Ozer & Benet-Martı ´nez, 2006). In particular, DeNeve and Cooper's (1998) work, which summarizes the correlations of SWB with 137 traits, has been cited close to 200 times in fields ranging from economics (Frey & Stutzer, 2002) to gerontology (Isaacowitz & Smith, 2003). They have shown that personality is one of the foremost predictors of SWB, which underscores the importance of using personality to understand happiness.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Refining the relationship between personality and subjective well-being.

Steel

Schmidt

Shultz

2008

Psychological Bulletin

1,461

177

1,154

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Understanding subjective well-being (SWB) has historically been a core human endeavor and presently spans fields from management to mental health. Previous meta-analyses have indicated that personality traits are one of the best predictors. Still, these past results indicate only a moderate relationship, weaker than suggested by several lines of reasoning. This may be because of commensurability, where researchers have grouped together substantively disparate measures in their analyses. In this article, the authors review and address this problem directly, focusing on individual measures of personality (e.g., the Neuroticism-Extroversion-Openness Personality Inventory; P. T. Costa & R. R. McCrae, 1992) and categories of SWB (e.g., life satisfaction). In addition, the authors take a multivariate approach, assessing how much variance personality traits account for individually as well as together. Results indicate that different personality and SWB scales can be substantively different and that the relationship between the two is typically much larger (e.g., 4 times) than previous meta-analyses have indicated. Total SWB variance accounted for by personality can reach as high as 39% or 63% disattenuated. These results also speak to meta-analyses in general and the need to account for scale differences once a sufficient research base has been generated.

show abstract

“…There is a positive correlation between SWB and income. For example, the research on developed countries (Frey & Stutzer, 2002) and the research on developing countries (Graham & Pettinato, 2002) all found that the rich have higher SWB than the poor. Moreover, the income effect of developing countries is greater than that of developed countries (Clark et al, 2005).…”

Section: Absolute Income and Subjective Well-beingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Study on the Relationship between Residents' Income and Subjective Well-being (SWB) in Chinese Context

Qiu¹

2022

BCPBM

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In recent years, the economic research on SWB has developed rapidly. A large number of academic achievements have emerged to explore the influencing factors of SWB. In view of this, this study has collated and reviewed the domestic and foreign literature on the relationship between income and SWB, and then summarized and commented on the impact of absolute income, relative income and income gap on SWB. The research results show that: in the context of China, absolute income and relative income have a positive impact on residents' Well-being in general, and income gap reduces residents' Well-being; Compared with absolute income, relative income exerts a greater impact on SWB; Compared with high-income groups, absolute income and relative income demonstrate a greater influence on the SWB of low-income groups. On this basis, this study has put forward specific policy proposals.

show abstract

What Can Economists Learn from Happiness Research?

Cited by 181 publications

References 145 publications

Distinction Bias: Misprediction and Mischoice Due to Joint Evaluation.

Distinction Bias: Misprediction and Mischoice Due to Joint Evaluation.

Refining the relationship between personality and subjective well-being.

Study on the Relationship between Residents' Income and Subjective Well-being (SWB) in Chinese Context

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About