In a time of economic crisis, looks like the answer to this question should be “yes”, we saw many people have decreased their profits, and other are in trouble because of the money, also since the crisis started, more people decided to visit a psychologist. All these might prove that economic wealth also brings wellness, but many studies made during the last years don’t proved that.
The social psychologist David G. Myers and Ed Diener have run a long list of statistical studies, in search of what brings us happiness, of course they tried to answer the question “Being richer, makes us happier?” These studies show that money has a relation with well- being only until a certain level, where all our basic needs are covered, but far over, the idea that being richer will make us happier doesn’t seem to be true. In their studies Myers and Diener tried to consider not only the subjective feeling of happiness, they also took the opinions of the relatives and friends of this people, and found that subjective feeling and objective impression, were similar.
Some of the studies followed people that have earn big amounts of money in lottery, of course this unexpected income made them happy, but it didn’t last long. After only two years the level of happiness before and after wining the lottery was more or less the same. Even if it’s hard to believe, people got used to having that amount of money and after a while it doesn’t matter, so once we have stable incomes or a certain economic level, we get used to it and then the money doesn’t count to our happiness.
When our economy improves we feel happier, but that feeling doesn’t last long, and even if a loss of money comes side by side with unhappiness, and the negative situations are difficult to handle, once we get use to that change, earning less money doesn’t interfere in our wellness. This probably happens because having less incomes help us to start appreciating other sides of our life we didn’t realized before. Of course, this happens only if the incomes cover our basic needs without any doubt, if not money helps a lot.
Many inquires show that countries with an economic improvement didn’t have a similar raised in the levels of happiness, in the United States, for example, since the 60’s the average incomes multiplied for six, but the levels of happiness stayed the same during these years. Other inquires show that the economic development doesn’t guarantee the happiness of it’s population, Japan, for examples it’s usually at the top of the most rich countries and with a balanced distribution of wealth, but it’s often in the last position in the studies about happiness.
Most of the psychologists that studied what makes us happy agree in the fact that the actual believes, the consumerism and the importance we give to our material possessions set wrong goals to reach happiness. In fact, all these behaviours doesn’t help to appreciate all we have and enjoy it, far than that, they lead us to frustration and dissatisfaction, cause we spend many time trying to obtain the things we don’t have.
So if there’s been an increase in the visits to the psychologists it might be ‘cause of the feeling of uncertainty, but not because the crisis makes us unhappier.
While we are sure to have food in our tables and a roof above our head, the loss of incomes doesn’t require us to be unhappy, it might be an opportunity to see that what makes us happy it’s much easier to get than we never thought.