I didn’t really like where the beginning of my essay was going or the sources I had on the question of what propagates false beliefs and why so many of these false beliefs go unquestioned for so long. I tried to remedy this by looking for better sources, but  even after looking for different sources that more adequately discussed false beliefs I still couldn’t find any that I thought I could build an essay on. Since my sources are a mess and sources are the basis of this essay, I thought it might be better for me to start from scratch. Therefore I am updating these two blog posts with four new sources that apply to a new question that I formulated for Dan Gilbert’s “Reporting Live From Tomorrow”. Since I am getting four brand new sources, I have decided to get all scholarly sources as it isn’t really any extra work and the extra quality will pay off when I actually start to write this essay. This new question that I am going to look into is sort of the science behind money and happiness. What are their correlations. Is it true that money cannot by happiness or is Bill Gates just about the happiest man in the world simply because he can buy whatever he wants.

My new first source is: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/staff/ajoswald/marchwindfallsgo.pdf

This source states that our economy is situated on the idea that money can in fact buy happiness, and that the more money you have the happier you will be. According to this source however, that is not completely true. This source explains that, “While… reported happiness is positively correlated with income, that is not a persuasive reason to believe that more money leads to greater wellbeing. This source looks at people who gain a lot of money all at once for pretty much nothing. For instance, people who win the lottery. It says that in the year after the winnings people report less stress and higher happiness overall. It also shows a correlation of how much the increased happiness is, in relation to how much money the individual won. After winning the lottery or receiving a large inheritance people’s scores went down on both the stress and unhappiness tests.

My second new source is: http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=money%27s+relation+to+happiness&btnG=&as_sdt=1%2C22&as_sdtp=

This source has a different approach than the first. Again investigation whether or not money can bring us happiness, this cite suggests that how we spend the money we get has as much as an effect on our happiness as how much money we actually have. This cite experimented with the idea that specifically spending money on others bring us more happiness than spending money on ourselves. In the experiment conducted researchers gave one group of participants money and tasked them with spending that money on themselves, they did the same thing but told the people that they gave the money to, to spend the money on other people. As the researchers hypothesized the group that was chosen to spend money on other people reported greater amounts of happiness than the group that got to spend the money on themselves. This source agrees with my first source that once basic needs are met extra earned money doesn’t add much to happiness overall. The explanation offered for this in this source is that people spend their extra earned money in pursuits that aren’t likely to add to happiness at all. People get extra money and buy fancier things but that doesn’t correlate with lasting happiness. Studies that this source is based on show that investing money in others is a much better way to get lasting happiness out of disposable income.

Third source: http://www.langleygroup.com.au/images/Money-Happiness-2002.pdf

According to this source, there are mostly small correlations between happiness and prosperity within nations. The correlation that is there basically just shows that poor countries and therefore poor people, are at greater risk  to be unhappy. This doesn’t mean that poor countries or poor people can’t be happy, it just makes it harder for them to be happy. This makes sense, because if it is tough for you to provide for you and your families basic needs you probably are not going to be as happy as someone whose family is well cared for. This source says that people who are motivated by material goals are substantially less happy, even if they’re rich. So happiness might increase with increased prosperity if it means that they are going to provide for their family, but if a wealthy person is just getting wealthier, then it does little to increase his happiness. This source doesn’t necessarily say that more money will mean more happiness, but it does claim that more happiness can lead to higher incomes. This assertion makes sense because if you are just really happy overall then you will be more productive and thus more successful. So this source sort of flips the question around. Perhaps money doesn’t buy happiness at all and instead happiness buys money.

Fourth source: http://www-2.rotman.utoronto.ca/facbios/file/DeVoe%20and%20House,%20JESP.pdf

This source is different from all the rest. This source says that putting a dollar value on our time decreases happiness. That is to say that while thinking about how much one can make hourly, happiness levels go down while a subject is leisurely surfing the web. So because we feel like we know what our time is worth it makes us less happy to not be spending it wisely. You might not be happy working for twenty dollars an hour but at the same time you don’t think spending an hour on the internet is worth twenty dollars, so it becomes a waste of your time and you aren’t as happy doing it. Time became measured with money after the industrial revolution and then everything changed, “And the employer must use the time of his labor, and see it is not wasted: not the task but the value of time when reduced to money is dominant. Time is now currency: it is not passed but spent.” Things weren’t so much what needed to be done anymore, but rather things need to be done efficiently so as to not waste time, and therefore money. So this source does not say directly whether or not money buys happiness but it does put into perspective how money changes us. When we think about our time being wasted as money wasted, we are immediately less happy with what we are doing. If you think about this information, it makes sense as the reason why more money doesn’t necessarily buy us more happiness. If one makes a lot of money fast, you could say their time is extremely valuable, therefore when they aren’t on the job making money they are not happy because as far as they are concerned they aren’t spending their time wisely.

I hope its cool that I totally changed up my essay like this without running it by you first. I figured it would be fine because it is just the rough draft due tomorrow so I will still have time to get feedback from you and be able to work it in for the final draft.