WEBVTT - Happiness, Part 2: Does Money Make You Happy? 0:00:01.280 --> 0:00:03.920 Hello, it's or Hee. Before we get started, I wanted 0:00:03.920 --> 0:00:06.280 to tell you that my new book, Oliver's Great Big 0:00:06.360 --> 0:00:10.760 Universe Evolution Changes Everything, is coming out September sixteenth. It's 0:00:10.760 --> 0:00:13.960 a great read for smart kids and smart adults with 0:00:14.080 --> 0:00:17.240 lots of science, humor and heart. Check it out at 0:00:17.280 --> 0:00:25.200 Great Big Universe dot net. Thanks a lot. Hey, welcome 0:00:25.239 --> 0:00:30.000 to sign Stuff. Reproduction of iHeartRadio. I'm Poritchhim and Doday 0:00:30.080 --> 0:00:34.640 were answering the question does money make you happy? Now? 0:00:34.720 --> 0:00:37.120 This is the second part of a two part series 0:00:37.159 --> 0:00:40.000 on happiness, so be sure to listen to part one. 0:00:40.520 --> 0:00:43.400 In this episode, we're going to continue our conversation with 0:00:43.520 --> 0:00:46.879 a couple of experts about what science says are the 0:00:46.960 --> 0:00:51.000 factors that affect our happiness. We're going to talk about purpose, 0:00:51.320 --> 0:00:56.120 stoicism and money. Does money make you happy? Or is 0:00:56.160 --> 0:01:00.880 it the case as they say that more money means problems? 0:01:01.160 --> 0:01:08.959 The answer is coming up. Hey everyone, all right. In 0:01:09.000 --> 0:01:11.319 the last episode, we talked about some of the main 0:01:11.400 --> 0:01:15.160 factors that affect our happiness. Genetics is one of them, 0:01:15.480 --> 0:01:18.319 and in a study that tracked the happiness of hundreds 0:01:18.319 --> 0:01:22.000 of thousands of people, doctor Matt Killingsworth at the University 0:01:22.000 --> 0:01:25.720 of Pennsylvania found three main factors that play a role 0:01:26.040 --> 0:01:29.560 in how happy we feel. One living in the moment, 0:01:30.080 --> 0:01:35.560 two having in person interactions with others, and three staying 0:01:35.640 --> 0:01:39.320 physically active. But these are not the only things that 0:01:39.360 --> 0:01:45.080 make us happy. Here's more of my conversation with doctor Killingsworth. Now, 0:01:45.120 --> 0:01:47.680 I wonder these three factors you mentioned. Are those the 0:01:47.680 --> 0:01:50.520 three main factors because they have the highest impact on 0:01:50.560 --> 0:01:53.200 our happiness? But do you mention these because these are 0:01:53.240 --> 0:01:54.960 three that we have some control over. 0:01:55.280 --> 0:01:57.080 It's some of both, but I think those are some 0:01:57.120 --> 0:02:00.040 of the biggest and most unified things I see, And 0:02:00.280 --> 0:02:03.000 there are things that we could conceivably control. But you know, 0:02:03.120 --> 0:02:04.560 there's other stuff that matters too. 0:02:05.920 --> 0:02:08.080 Okay, we're going to spend the rest of the episode 0:02:08.120 --> 0:02:12.040 talking about some of the other factors that affect our happiness, 0:02:12.520 --> 0:02:16.160 starting with having a purpose in life? Does that make 0:02:16.200 --> 0:02:19.120 you happy? Here's my friend and co author of the 0:02:19.160 --> 0:02:22.800 book Out of Your Mind, Professor Dwayne Godwin of Wake 0:02:22.840 --> 0:02:28.480 Forest University. Let's talk about purpose, this idea that finding 0:02:28.560 --> 0:02:31.480 purpose in your life will somehow lead to your happiness. 0:02:31.680 --> 0:02:33.680 What do we know from psychology about purpose? 0:02:33.880 --> 0:02:37.280 Well, purpose is important to a sense of well being. 0:02:37.320 --> 0:02:41.760 For the most part, our psychology is wired to seek purpose. 0:02:41.960 --> 0:02:45.480 There is a story about Victor Frankel, and Victor Frankel 0:02:45.600 --> 0:02:48.840 famously wrote A Man's Search for meeting. He was in 0:02:48.919 --> 0:02:52.280 a concentration camp during World War Two, you know, held 0:02:52.400 --> 0:02:56.079 captive by the Nazis, and while he was imprisoned there, 0:02:56.400 --> 0:03:00.960 he noticed that the people who survived often had some reason, 0:03:01.240 --> 0:03:03.960 some purpose in their life to live, whether it was 0:03:04.080 --> 0:03:07.080 taking care of a loved one, taking care of unfinished business, 0:03:07.320 --> 0:03:10.680 or you know, their spiritual beliefs. And he wrote that 0:03:10.720 --> 0:03:13.919 those who have a why to live can bear almost 0:03:14.160 --> 0:03:18.560 me How so, you know that idea of being able 0:03:18.600 --> 0:03:22.200 to find purpose even in the context of suffering is important. 0:03:22.320 --> 0:03:25.120 How would you define purpose as it'sychology. 0:03:24.760 --> 0:03:28.080 You know, helping others, you know, working on projects that 0:03:28.160 --> 0:03:33.480 I find personally very satisfying. From a neuroscience perspective, purpose 0:03:33.840 --> 0:03:38.400 activates again the brain's reward system. It does so more 0:03:38.440 --> 0:03:43.960 consistently than something like a fleeting pleasure. Purpose driven individuals 0:03:43.960 --> 0:03:48.360 tend to show higher activity in the prefrontal cortex because 0:03:48.400 --> 0:03:51.320 again that's the place where you're doing these sorts of 0:03:51.360 --> 0:03:55.760 assessments of positive emotional valance, and that's associated with things 0:03:55.800 --> 0:04:00.920 like long term planning, moral reasoning, and overall levels of satisfaction. 0:04:02.240 --> 0:04:05.440 In other words, the idea of purpose, when your actions 0:04:05.480 --> 0:04:08.320 align with a greater goal that you think has value, 0:04:08.720 --> 0:04:12.520 is one way to activate your brains reward center, because 0:04:12.640 --> 0:04:16.159 that's kind of how your brain is wired. This doctor 0:04:16.200 --> 0:04:21.760 Garmin speculates probably came from how our brains evolved. But 0:04:21.800 --> 0:04:24.520 I think what you're saying is that somehow our brain 0:04:24.920 --> 0:04:28.039 evolved to need purpose to be happy. 0:04:28.360 --> 0:04:30.960 Well, our brain found a way to be happy when 0:04:30.960 --> 0:04:33.960 we were being purposeful. You know, it could be that 0:04:34.040 --> 0:04:37.560 from an evolutionary perspective, that having purpose. If you think 0:04:37.600 --> 0:04:40.960 about now communities of early humans, Now that was a 0:04:41.080 --> 0:04:44.839 trait that was selected for because having a purpose and 0:04:45.120 --> 0:04:49.640 contributing to the community was obviously a great survival benefit 0:04:49.720 --> 0:04:53.040 for the collective. And you can imagine that the opposite 0:04:53.040 --> 0:04:56.680 of that, not having a purpose, would be somewhat counterproductive 0:04:56.760 --> 0:04:57.599 to the community. 0:04:57.960 --> 0:05:00.720 But I guess sometimes in our modern lives we can 0:05:00.760 --> 0:05:03.479 get kind of stuck because we don't have a purpose. 0:05:03.720 --> 0:05:06.560 I think that's right. I think that a real danger 0:05:06.600 --> 0:05:09.600 in our society when we have become so disconnected from 0:05:09.640 --> 0:05:12.440 one another. You're not going to, you know, be scrolling 0:05:12.480 --> 0:05:16.120 through Facebook and necessarily find your purpose. 0:05:17.200 --> 0:05:20.760 I asked doctor Killingsworth if purpose was something he's seen 0:05:20.839 --> 0:05:23.680 in the data from the thousands of people who sign 0:05:23.800 --> 0:05:28.440 up on Track Yourhappiness dot org. People mention things like 0:05:28.640 --> 0:05:32.000 purpose a lot. Does that volunteer your non objective category. 0:05:32.360 --> 0:05:34.960 Yeah, I mean I think to me, that's almost more 0:05:35.000 --> 0:05:37.600 like an outcome than a predictor. I think a lot 0:05:37.640 --> 0:05:40.080 of the things that bring us happiness, like living a 0:05:40.080 --> 0:05:42.359 purposeful life, for a meaningful life, for all kinds of 0:05:42.400 --> 0:05:46.000 other things to some degree or kind of satisfying fundamental 0:05:46.120 --> 0:05:49.680 human needs because we're a social species, and so you know, 0:05:49.720 --> 0:05:52.400 when you engage with other people, when you feel respected 0:05:52.400 --> 0:05:54.400 by them, when you have all of these other like 0:05:54.600 --> 0:05:56.800 social features, that would show up on all these other 0:05:56.960 --> 0:05:58.960 different forms of happiness outcomes as well. 0:06:00.040 --> 0:06:02.839 What doctor Killingsworth is saying is that a happy life, 0:06:03.080 --> 0:06:06.599 in a way will have its own purpose. Meaning you 0:06:06.640 --> 0:06:09.480 can think of having a purpose or aligning your actions 0:06:09.480 --> 0:06:12.960 to your values as making you happy, or you can 0:06:13.000 --> 0:06:16.719 think that finding things that make you happy aligns your 0:06:16.800 --> 0:06:20.680 actions with your values, giving you a purpose. It's all 0:06:20.680 --> 0:06:23.640 a feedback loop in your brain, so you can look 0:06:23.640 --> 0:06:26.719 at it both ways. And this brings up another factor 0:06:26.800 --> 0:06:30.720 that affects your happiness, which is how your brain reacts 0:06:30.839 --> 0:06:34.880 to events. Let's talk about stoicism. What is that. 0:06:35.320 --> 0:06:40.640 Yeah, Stoicism is one of my favorite philosophical concepts. It 0:06:40.720 --> 0:06:44.840 was popularized by Marcus Aurelius, and for people who don't know, 0:06:44.960 --> 0:06:49.080 he was the emperor in Gladiator, So at the beginning 0:06:49.080 --> 0:06:51.840 of Gladiator he was the guy that was in charge 0:06:51.960 --> 0:06:54.600 of Rome. So he was a Roman emperor. Russian here, 0:06:54.839 --> 0:06:57.800 not Russell Crowe. They were buddies, you know, at least 0:06:57.800 --> 0:07:02.320 that's my memory of Gladiator. Marcus Aurelius was a Roman 0:07:02.360 --> 0:07:06.719 emperor and he was a Stoic philosopher, and he was 0:07:07.040 --> 0:07:11.720 very much into self regulation and how to regulate his 0:07:11.800 --> 0:07:15.200 own emotions and his responses to things, because he felt, hey, 0:07:15.680 --> 0:07:19.480 I have this important position. I need to be on 0:07:19.560 --> 0:07:22.200 top of my game. And so he wrote down a 0:07:22.240 --> 0:07:25.680 lot of reflections in the form of a journal. He 0:07:25.840 --> 0:07:28.720 to remind himself how to deal with the world, how 0:07:28.800 --> 0:07:32.080 to accept pain, how to accept change, and how to 0:07:32.120 --> 0:07:34.840 deal with things like loss. He lived during a time 0:07:34.880 --> 0:07:39.720 of plagues war, he lost several of his children that 0:07:39.800 --> 0:07:44.320 his writings are filled with reminders to welcome challenges and 0:07:44.680 --> 0:07:48.280 to focus on what is within one's own control. 0:07:49.280 --> 0:07:52.560 Okay, you might be wondering what does ay Roman philosopher 0:07:52.760 --> 0:07:55.360 have to do with science, and the answer is that 0:07:55.560 --> 0:08:00.240 Stoicism and Marcus Aurelis's writing have become the base is 0:08:00.480 --> 0:08:04.160 for something called cognitive behavioral therapy. 0:08:05.680 --> 0:08:10.080 Yeah. Kinditive behavioral therapy is really one of the most popular, 0:08:10.200 --> 0:08:15.520 i would say, and most widely subscribed counseling therapies where 0:08:16.000 --> 0:08:19.680 you assess the world and what happens in the world 0:08:19.920 --> 0:08:26.080 somewhat dispassionately, and negative self talk is diminished in your perception. 0:08:26.360 --> 0:08:28.480 I think we an example. You know what happens if 0:08:28.520 --> 0:08:31.160 you lost one hundred dollars out, Well, if I lose 0:08:31.240 --> 0:08:33.600 this money, you know, there are two responses to it. 0:08:33.600 --> 0:08:36.960 One is, oh, I'm stupid. I shouldn't have lost that money. 0:08:37.040 --> 0:08:40.040 I really needed that money. I'm not going to be 0:08:40.040 --> 0:08:42.160 able to make my rent, or I'm not going to 0:08:42.160 --> 0:08:44.320 be able to buy those shoes that I really wanted. 0:08:44.800 --> 0:08:48.200 Those sorts of things, those sorts of negative self talk 0:08:48.679 --> 0:08:52.720 bits that can help to really drive our mood and 0:08:52.760 --> 0:08:55.280 our emotions to a negative place. But the other way 0:08:55.320 --> 0:08:58.120 to look at it is, hey, you know it is money. 0:08:58.360 --> 0:09:01.200 It's replaceable in the ground scheme of things. You will 0:09:01.200 --> 0:09:03.439 probably get that one hundred dollars back through some way 0:09:03.520 --> 0:09:06.960 or another. And yes, I lost one hundred dollars, but 0:09:07.040 --> 0:09:10.240 someone else, perhaps someone who really needed that money, will 0:09:10.320 --> 0:09:12.880 will find that money. Now, it doesn't really blunt the 0:09:12.880 --> 0:09:15.160 fact that you lost a hundred bucks. But what it 0:09:15.200 --> 0:09:18.160 does do is allows you the emotional space to process 0:09:18.240 --> 0:09:24.240 that and not allow it to drive your total emotional response. 0:09:24.720 --> 0:09:27.600 It's about taking a step back and that that gives 0:09:27.600 --> 0:09:31.120 you the power to kind of choose how you're going 0:09:31.200 --> 0:09:32.720 to interpret what happened. 0:09:32.920 --> 0:09:34.440 I think that's a good way to put it. 0:09:35.679 --> 0:09:38.560 If you've been to therapy, this idea of changing the 0:09:38.600 --> 0:09:41.120 way you look at things might be familiar to you. 0:09:41.520 --> 0:09:44.400 And this is important because you might remember from the 0:09:44.520 --> 0:09:50.240 Happiness Tracking project that mind wandering, especially mind wandering negative thoughts, 0:09:50.640 --> 0:09:55.120 is highly correlated with unhappiness. Well, according to doctor Godwin, 0:09:55.280 --> 0:09:58.560 the solution is not to stop having negative thoughts, but 0:09:58.679 --> 0:10:03.080 to train your brain to change how you view those thoughts. 0:10:04.240 --> 0:10:06.680 You know, if you talked about the neuroscience of cognitive 0:10:06.720 --> 0:10:09.440 behavioral therapy. I think that there are two elements to it. 0:10:10.040 --> 0:10:13.880 One is engaging these sort of logical based areas of 0:10:13.920 --> 0:10:17.840 the brain, areas like prefrontal cortext but it's also the 0:10:17.880 --> 0:10:21.160 process of slowing things down so that you have time 0:10:21.200 --> 0:10:25.280 to process. We know from the neuroscience literature that activity 0:10:25.520 --> 0:10:29.480 and patterns of activity actually are capable of rewiring the brain. 0:10:29.760 --> 0:10:34.079 So learning to take a step back and providing different 0:10:34.120 --> 0:10:38.320 thought patterns that can effectively change your response should the 0:10:38.400 --> 0:10:41.000 same set of circumstances arise in the future. 0:10:41.679 --> 0:10:44.640 In other words, you can train your brain to see 0:10:44.640 --> 0:10:47.920 things on the bright side, which the data shows will 0:10:47.920 --> 0:10:50.520 make you happier. All right, Now, we're going to get 0:10:50.520 --> 0:10:53.280 to the question of money. And here I'm going to 0:10:53.320 --> 0:10:57.240 guess you believe one of two things, One that money 0:10:57.360 --> 0:11:01.040 doesn't really make you happy, or two that money does 0:11:01.080 --> 0:11:04.720 make you happy, but only up to a certain point. Well, 0:11:04.760 --> 0:11:07.400 if you believe either of those things, I'm here to 0:11:07.440 --> 0:11:11.600 tell you that the size of happiness says you're wrong. 0:11:12.240 --> 0:11:15.920 We're going to get into that after the break, will 0:11:15.960 --> 0:11:27.880 be right back and we're back right. We're talking about 0:11:27.880 --> 0:11:30.680 the different factors that affect your happiness, and now we 0:11:30.720 --> 0:11:36.640 get to the topic of money. Does money make you happy? Well, 0:11:36.679 --> 0:11:40.160 According to doctor Killingsworth, for a long time, the conventional 0:11:40.200 --> 0:11:44.920 wisdom in scientific circles was that the answer was no. 0:11:46.360 --> 0:11:48.400 So if you go back to the state of the 0:11:48.440 --> 0:11:51.960 scientific literature, I think the kind of common narrative amongst 0:11:52.040 --> 0:11:55.480 happiness researchers is that money doesn't really matter very much 0:11:55.480 --> 0:11:58.360 for happiness, like especially given how much people seem to 0:11:58.400 --> 0:12:01.080 care about it. While there's something that's true about that 0:12:01.080 --> 0:12:03.320 that I'll mention in a minute, I think we actually 0:12:03.320 --> 0:12:06.240 got that kind of wrong. It turns out that people 0:12:06.320 --> 0:12:10.240 who make more money are pretty consistently happier. You know, 0:12:10.440 --> 0:12:13.280 on average, people who earn more tend to be happier. 0:12:13.480 --> 0:12:15.560 You could be rich and miserable, you could be poor 0:12:15.600 --> 0:12:18.720 and very happy, but on average, flipping the money switch 0:12:18.800 --> 0:12:21.680 up without making other things worse probably is going to 0:12:21.760 --> 0:12:24.480 nudge you in a positive rather than a negative direction. Least, 0:12:24.520 --> 0:12:27.560 that's kind of the shape of the correlation that I observe. 0:12:28.480 --> 0:12:30.839 Now I know what you're thinking at this point, which 0:12:30.880 --> 0:12:34.000 is yes or Hey, of course money helps make you happy. 0:12:34.160 --> 0:12:36.960 He need some money to survive, to have something to eat, 0:12:37.120 --> 0:12:39.880 and to have a roof over your head. But surely 0:12:39.920 --> 0:12:43.240 at some point money stops being useful, And that's what 0:12:43.320 --> 0:12:46.680 I thought too, So I asked doctor Killyesworth this question. 0:12:47.760 --> 0:12:50.280 Is there an amount after which money will not make 0:12:50.320 --> 0:12:53.000 you happier? Or is having more money always better? 0:12:53.200 --> 0:12:55.520 Well, that's a good question. You've hit on one of kind 0:12:55.559 --> 0:12:58.640 of the key topics here. Starting around twenty ten, there's 0:12:58.720 --> 0:13:02.280 this very famous paper by Dannykanneman and ingus student where 0:13:02.280 --> 0:13:05.800 they found that while cognitive aspects of well being seemed 0:13:05.800 --> 0:13:09.079 to keep rising with income, they argued that the emotional 0:13:09.160 --> 0:13:13.600 component of happiness rises up to around seventy five thousand 0:13:13.600 --> 0:13:16.600 dollars a year in income, and then it plateaus. And 0:13:16.760 --> 0:13:18.880 when I run into regular people, if they know like 0:13:18.960 --> 0:13:21.280 one thing about the signs of happiness or what is 0:13:21.280 --> 0:13:24.200 the data show, it's probably that finding. That's like the 0:13:24.240 --> 0:13:26.240 one thing that probably the most people know. 0:13:27.320 --> 0:13:29.320 Yeah, you might have heard about it in the news. 0:13:29.520 --> 0:13:33.440 The study from Dustin and ten supposedly found that making 0:13:33.480 --> 0:13:36.760 more money makes you happier, but only up to about 0:13:36.880 --> 0:13:40.280 making seventy five thousand dollars in income a year, and 0:13:40.360 --> 0:13:43.080 after that it doesn't make you any happier. And this 0:13:43.160 --> 0:13:46.120 finding was very popular, I think because it confirms what 0:13:46.200 --> 0:13:50.720 we all want to believe, which is that money isn't everything, 0:13:51.240 --> 0:13:54.520 that rich people are not necessarily happier than the rest 0:13:54.600 --> 0:13:58.040 of us. But actually, when doctor Killingsworth looked into it, 0:13:58.120 --> 0:14:00.840 this turned out to be not quite true. 0:14:01.480 --> 0:14:02.960 One of the things that I've been working on in 0:14:02.960 --> 0:14:05.720 the last few years is kind of unpacking this relationship. 0:14:05.840 --> 0:14:08.320 So I've now run this big set of using experience 0:14:08.360 --> 0:14:10.680 sampling a really really great way to measure how people 0:14:10.720 --> 0:14:13.640 are actually feeling. And it turns out in my big study, 0:14:13.640 --> 0:14:16.120 when I look at the relationship between how much money 0:14:16.120 --> 0:14:18.520 people earn and how happy they really feel in the 0:14:18.520 --> 0:14:21.040 moments of their lives, happiness in the moment just keeps 0:14:21.040 --> 0:14:24.400 going up. There wasn't an inflection point at seventy five 0:14:24.480 --> 0:14:28.160 thousand dollars or any other particular level of income. There 0:14:28.200 --> 0:14:31.560 didn't seem to be any threshold where that relationship change. 0:14:31.600 --> 0:14:34.840 It just sort of kept going modestly but steadily. 0:14:34.440 --> 0:14:38.360 Upward, meaning people with more money have fewer negative in 0:14:38.400 --> 0:14:40.080 the moment happiness. 0:14:39.760 --> 0:14:42.120 Yeah, just kind of their average moment gets a little 0:14:42.160 --> 0:14:44.400 bit better and a little bit better the more money 0:14:44.400 --> 0:14:47.640 they tend to be earning. So people are more satisfied 0:14:47.680 --> 0:14:51.120 and more fulfilled and find life more meaningful on average 0:14:51.160 --> 0:14:53.320 to a modest degree. When they earn more money, I 0:14:53.360 --> 0:14:55.880 see and their day to day experiences seem to be 0:14:55.880 --> 0:14:56.480 better as well. 0:14:56.560 --> 0:14:59.920 So more money, not more problems, More money, fewer problem 0:15:00.600 --> 0:15:05.080 on average. What doctor Klein'sworth found was that an average, 0:15:05.280 --> 0:15:09.520 having more money always makes you happier. That's true if 0:15:09.520 --> 0:15:13.520 you're poor or if you're already rich. Getting more money 0:15:13.640 --> 0:15:17.360 in general will make you even happier. This doesn't just 0:15:17.360 --> 0:15:20.960 show up in doctor Kleinsworth data. There have been natural 0:15:21.040 --> 0:15:22.920 experiments that prove this. 0:15:23.920 --> 0:15:25.960 Money is hard to experiment with compared to lots of 0:15:25.960 --> 0:15:28.400 other things, but we have pretty good evidence that when 0:15:28.480 --> 0:15:31.960 people are like randomly assigned more money, they actually become 0:15:32.280 --> 0:15:36.240 substantially happier as well. There are some nice natural experiments, 0:15:36.360 --> 0:15:40.000 for example, called lotteries, So there are some great studies 0:15:40.000 --> 0:15:41.880 that have been done where they've looked at people who 0:15:41.880 --> 0:15:44.800 play the lottery a similar amount. But then some people 0:15:44.800 --> 0:15:47.840 win and some people don't. Uh, and when you follow 0:15:47.880 --> 0:15:50.480 those people up later, the people who want and got 0:15:50.520 --> 0:15:53.520 more money actually turn out to be happier and sometimes 0:15:53.600 --> 0:15:55.480 quite a bit and sometimes for quite a long time. 0:15:55.480 --> 0:15:57.320 There was a great study I think it was in 0:15:57.360 --> 0:16:00.320 Sweden where they looked at people ten years later after 0:16:00.360 --> 0:16:03.479 they won. It's a pretty decently sized effect. 0:16:04.240 --> 0:16:07.400 Now, to be fair, one thing that doctor Kellingsworth found 0:16:07.680 --> 0:16:11.160 that doesn't get better with more money is stress. 0:16:12.520 --> 0:16:14.440 However, when I look at like, what is like the 0:16:14.480 --> 0:16:17.240 emotional profile of people who are earning more money, they're 0:16:17.240 --> 0:16:20.520 not necessarily less stressed. That's kind of the one emotion 0:16:20.800 --> 0:16:23.040 that doesn't really get better when you earn more and 0:16:23.040 --> 0:16:26.640 more and more money. So if you think, hmm, it'll 0:16:26.680 --> 0:16:28.600 be great, you know, when my income is doubled, you 0:16:28.680 --> 0:16:31.240 might not be any less stressed. But pretty much every 0:16:31.360 --> 0:16:33.920 aspect of kind of your emotional life, at least my 0:16:34.000 --> 0:16:36.520 data would predict, are probably going to be better. 0:16:37.480 --> 0:16:40.560 In other words, if someone offers you money, you should 0:16:40.560 --> 0:16:44.720 take it. On average, having money will only increase your happiness, 0:16:45.000 --> 0:16:48.440 even if it doesn't make you less stressed. Now, of course, 0:16:48.560 --> 0:16:52.800 there are several caveats here. Number one, this relationship between 0:16:52.960 --> 0:16:57.520 money and happiness is on average, having more money doesn't 0:16:57.600 --> 0:17:01.520 guarantee you're going to be happier. And number two, money 0:17:01.600 --> 0:17:04.800 isn't everything. It's just one of the many things that 0:17:04.920 --> 0:17:06.639 contribute to your happiness. 0:17:07.600 --> 0:17:10.000 It's just one of the many leavers. So I think 0:17:10.040 --> 0:17:12.760 the part that's really true and importantly true is that 0:17:12.960 --> 0:17:15.760 tons of things matter for happiness, and money and income 0:17:15.880 --> 0:17:18.719 is just one of them. So if you sacrifice all 0:17:18.800 --> 0:17:21.000 kinds of other sources of happiness and make more money, 0:17:21.119 --> 0:17:24.040 you're probably going to be less happy, even if money 0:17:24.080 --> 0:17:24.560 is helpful. 0:17:25.640 --> 0:17:28.680 Now, one interesting fact about money and happiness is said 0:17:28.720 --> 0:17:32.040 having more money on average will make you happier, but 0:17:32.119 --> 0:17:35.240 having friends or neighbors that make more money than you 0:17:35.640 --> 0:17:39.879 will tend to make you unhappier. In one study, researchers 0:17:39.880 --> 0:17:42.880 from the London School of Economics look at data from 0:17:42.880 --> 0:17:45.920 a survey of Americans from nineteen seventy two to two 0:17:46.000 --> 0:17:49.639 thousand and eight that ask three questions, how happy are you? 0:17:50.040 --> 0:17:52.200 How much money do you make? Do you think you 0:17:52.320 --> 0:17:56.560 make more or less money than other Americans? The analysis 0:17:56.640 --> 0:17:59.320 found that people who tended to think they made less 0:17:59.359 --> 0:18:03.160 money than others also tended to be unhappier, no matter 0:18:03.200 --> 0:18:07.360 how much money they actually made. In general, making more 0:18:07.359 --> 0:18:10.560 money than your friends and neighbors will make you happier, 0:18:10.640 --> 0:18:15.240 and making less will make you unhappier. There is good news, though, 0:18:15.520 --> 0:18:18.800 which is what happens when you think about why money 0:18:18.960 --> 0:18:20.040 brings us happiness. 0:18:21.680 --> 0:18:24.400 When I look at why is there this positive relationship 0:18:24.480 --> 0:18:27.760 between money and happiness, and what I find is that 0:18:27.880 --> 0:18:31.720 about eighty percent of that relationship, even for that emotional component, 0:18:31.840 --> 0:18:34.440 can be explained by the fact that as people earn 0:18:34.480 --> 0:18:37.080 more money, they feel more in control of their lives. 0:18:37.720 --> 0:18:39.800 So if you have someone with a low income but 0:18:39.840 --> 0:18:42.840 feels very in control of their life, they psychologically look 0:18:42.880 --> 0:18:44.679 a lot like a very well off. 0:18:44.600 --> 0:18:48.520 Person Whoah, it comes down to control and not having 0:18:48.560 --> 0:18:49.680 to worry about the future. 0:18:49.720 --> 0:18:52.000 I haven't necessarily looked at it in terms of like 0:18:52.359 --> 0:18:55.400 the future in quotes, but yeah, the more money you have, 0:18:55.480 --> 0:18:57.440 the more you tend to feel in control of your life, 0:18:57.480 --> 0:19:01.520 and that seems to be uniquely able to explain this relationship. 0:19:02.320 --> 0:19:05.840 In other words, doctor Killingsworth also asks people, how in 0:19:05.920 --> 0:19:09.000 control of your life do you feel? And the people 0:19:09.000 --> 0:19:11.159 who said they felt more in control of their lives 0:19:11.440 --> 0:19:14.080 tended to be the people who had more money, and 0:19:14.119 --> 0:19:16.840 they also tended to be the people who were happier, 0:19:17.400 --> 0:19:20.199 which tells you that most of the value of having 0:19:20.240 --> 0:19:23.160 money is just having more control of your life. 0:19:24.440 --> 0:19:26.920 So I looked at lots of other factors as well, 0:19:27.280 --> 0:19:29.720 and it's kind of fueling in control of your life. 0:19:29.760 --> 0:19:33.000 That's the biggest one. Another one is the simply the 0:19:33.000 --> 0:19:35.560 more money you earn, the less likely you are to 0:19:35.600 --> 0:19:38.440 have trouble paying bills. So when I look at the 0:19:38.480 --> 0:19:42.080 lowest income people in my study, almost half of them say, yeah, 0:19:42.160 --> 0:19:44.240 I had trouble paying a bill in the last two weeks, 0:19:44.520 --> 0:19:46.760 Whereas if you go to the people with very high incomes, 0:19:46.840 --> 0:19:49.159 it's like seven percent of them. So you get a 0:19:49.200 --> 0:19:51.960 seven x difference in the likelihood that bills are a 0:19:51.960 --> 0:19:55.200 source of uncertainty and riskiness for you. So those two 0:19:55.200 --> 0:19:57.480 things together are at least within the set of things 0:19:57.520 --> 0:19:59.840 that I measured, those were kind of the biggest expl 0:20:00.040 --> 0:20:00.880 natory factors. 0:20:02.000 --> 0:20:04.960 Now, this is probably not surprising to you. If you 0:20:05.000 --> 0:20:07.200 have money, you don't have to worry as much about 0:20:07.240 --> 0:20:08.960 what's going to happen to you or how are you 0:20:09.040 --> 0:20:11.760 going to pay your bills. But the point doctor Killingesporre 0:20:11.800 --> 0:20:14.920 says is that once you know that's the real reason 0:20:15.320 --> 0:20:18.640 money affects your happiness, you can work around it. 0:20:19.800 --> 0:20:21.720 However, and I think this is part of what is 0:20:21.760 --> 0:20:24.359 a little bit empowering. While if you look at this 0:20:24.480 --> 0:20:27.199 relationship between money and happiness, about eighty percent of that 0:20:27.240 --> 0:20:29.960 can be explained by people who earn more money feel 0:20:30.000 --> 0:20:32.560 more in control of their lives, but the flip side 0:20:32.560 --> 0:20:35.320 of that is that only about twenty percent of how 0:20:35.359 --> 0:20:37.680 in control of you feel of your life is due 0:20:37.680 --> 0:20:38.119 to money. 0:20:38.240 --> 0:20:41.360 What what do you mean? What do you mean? 0:20:41.560 --> 0:20:43.960 What I think that points to is the fact that, well, 0:20:44.200 --> 0:20:47.600 what money brings us perhaps is control over our life. 0:20:47.640 --> 0:20:49.480 There are ways that we can get control over our 0:20:49.560 --> 0:20:51.439 life that have nothing to do with money. And so 0:20:52.040 --> 0:20:55.200 you could kind of have a workaround for money itself 0:20:55.600 --> 0:20:58.280 by finding ways to kind of take control of your life, 0:20:58.320 --> 0:21:00.800 like what kind of life do you want to live? 0:21:01.520 --> 0:21:05.200 And how could you reorient your life to live that life? 0:21:05.320 --> 0:21:08.080 And so the more you find the ways to do that, 0:21:08.320 --> 0:21:12.320 perhaps suggestively, speculatively, it might be possible that you could 0:21:12.359 --> 0:21:15.080 end up kind of getting the life of someone who's 0:21:15.200 --> 0:21:18.240 richer without necessarily having to earn more money. 0:21:18.400 --> 0:21:21.840 What doctor Killy Sporth is saying is that, yes, having 0:21:21.840 --> 0:21:25.119 more money will make you happier. That's mostly because it 0:21:25.200 --> 0:21:28.760 gives you the feeling of being in control of your life. 0:21:29.040 --> 0:21:31.600 So if you can figure out other ways to get 0:21:31.600 --> 0:21:34.919 that feeling, then maybe you don't need as much money. 0:21:36.040 --> 0:21:38.200 All Right, when we come back, we're going to tackle 0:21:38.240 --> 0:21:40.840 the last piece of the happiness puzzle, and then I'm 0:21:40.840 --> 0:21:43.600 going to ask each of our experts if they're happy. 0:21:43.880 --> 0:21:54.600 So stay with us, we'll be right back. Welcome back. 0:21:56.720 --> 0:21:59.159 One thing that we should talk about is depression. There 0:21:59.160 --> 0:22:03.359 are certainly a case of individuals with treatment resistant depression. 0:22:04.040 --> 0:22:06.719 And as much as we can affect the way our 0:22:06.760 --> 0:22:10.040 brains work by how we think, there are individuals who 0:22:10.359 --> 0:22:13.280 cannot do that or are their brains are not wired 0:22:13.359 --> 0:22:16.440 in such a way that will allow them to take 0:22:16.480 --> 0:22:19.000 these tools and do something with them. So that we 0:22:19.160 --> 0:22:22.240 have to really step back a little bit to say 0:22:22.280 --> 0:22:26.320 that disorders of brain circuits, like disruptions in how areas 0:22:26.440 --> 0:22:29.679 like the frontal lobes or the amygdala and the hippcamp 0:22:29.720 --> 0:22:33.080 is how they communicate. If those are disrupted, then it's 0:22:33.160 --> 0:22:35.600