Does Money: Can Money Bring Happiness?

Superior Essays
There are many arguments whether money can buy happiness or not. However, along our lives, we will find that money and happiness have a relationship in certain aspects in our lives such as education, work, and success. As stated by Gretchen Rubin, I believe that money can bring happiness only if spent wisely on important factors in our lives such as family or health. I also believe that our happiness is in direct correlation between our attainments and our aspirations as stated by Diener and Biswas-Diener. In the following passage, I will be elaborating on the claims made by Gretchen Rubin and Diener and Biswas-Diener to ultimately show that money does not harm our happiness or our lives in general. In this passage I will be covering the perspectives …show more content…
They come up with a very unique equation that represent the correlation between money and happiness. The equation shows that happiness is equal to what we have (attainments) divided by what we want (aspirations). As stated by Diener, “This formula makes sense. It means that it doesn’t so much if you make $20,000 a year or $100,000, if you drive a new BMW or an old Chevrolet, what matters more is that your income is sufficient for your desires” (170). What Diener and Biswas-Diener is trying to say is that money doesn’t affect happiness, it’s one’s aspirations. Someone can make $200,000 a year but if that person’s aspirations are expensive like expensive living, cars, and vacations, the income won’t be enough to support their aspirations. However when someone who only makes $50,000 a year and their aspirations are minimal, then their income is sufficient for their aspirations and thus more happiness. If our aspirations is more than our income, we will be stressing over not having enough money to meet our desires. If however our income is sufficient for our aspirations, we will have a feeling of satisfaction rather than

Related Documents

  • Superior Essays

    First of all, Americans should realize that seeking money is not the best way to happiness as the Bhutanese, people who are happier than other countries, do. Some American people may argue that people in an economic system cannot make a living without money, and Weiner actually said, “If our basic needs are not met, we’re not likely to be happy. ”(17) Nonetheless, money is just a minimum requirement but not conditions sufficient to become happy. According to recent research that Weiner quoted, “money does indeed buy happiness.…

    • 1133 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Happiness is a word that is seen in a multitude of different ways by a multitude of different people. Everyone has their own idea of what happiness means to them, but it is a word that has no set definition. The author of “Happiness and Its Discontents”, Daniel Haybron views happiness as an entire emotional spectrum that is affected by several factors such as life satisfaction and being exposed to both pain and pleasure. Whereas Ed Diener and Robert Biswas-Diener the authors of “Can Money Buy Happiness”, describe happiness as the emotion someone feels when they obtain an object they believe will improve their life and can be acquired within their means. An example of this would be the joy someone might feel when they are able to buy a car…

    • 911 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    As part of her research Rubin underwent a year-long experiment where she examined her behaviors as well as her interactions with others and documented them by months. The focus of her month of July was to find out if people could, in fact, buy happiness. Early in this chapter Rubin says, “I asked myself, ‘Can money help buy happiness?’ The answer: yes, used wisely, it can. Whether rich or poor people make choices about how they spend money, and those choices can boost happiness or undermine it” (293).…

    • 1071 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    In the article, “Yes, Money Can Make You Happy,” Cass R. Sunstein, a professor at Harvard Law, breaks down and summarizes psychology professor Elizabeth Dunn and associate professor of business administration Michael Norton’s “Happy Money: The Science of Happier Spending.” In Sunstein’s attempt to illuminate individuals and their perception of money, he applies Dunn and Norton’s most pertinent gathered intelligence into this article. In a society where capitol is often anticipated as a hideous commodity whose existence has only compromised humans’ morality; Sunstein takes it upon himself to introduce and inform readers of the beneficial affects money can have, including an increase in happiness. In his work, Sunstein expressed a personal belief…

    • 1227 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the article of “Money: The Real Truth about Money” (2005), Gregg Easterbrook expands the idea about how money cannot buy happiness. He explains how money is not a major source of happiness as it was ranked the 14th when surveys were made. Moreover, he explains the effect of money on people chasing after it. Easterbrook explains about his experience in mid 50s about how wealth and non-wealth did not have much importance. Gregg Easterbrook is an American writer.…

    • 697 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the essay, “In Pursuit of Happiness” by Mark Kingwell, the author references John Ralston Saul, a “contemporary critic,” (Kingwell). In the text, Kingwell mentions Saul’s notion that nowadays happiness is more commonly represented by a person’s wealth or “material comfort”. Saul’s statement is true; think about all the convenience or luxury items a person will buy during their lifetime. Today in the age of technology, many people are comforted in the fact that their new touchscreen phone is waterproof, scratch resistant, and for an added measure, protected with the longest lasting insurance plan.…

    • 293 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Contrary to the popular belief that money can’t buy happiness, money does in fact contribute to happiness. First, researchers have found that wealthier nations reported overall higher life satisfaction than poorer nations. Psychologists Ed Diener and Robert Biswas-Diener present evidence showing that “the correlation between income and happiness is .82,” revealing that the two are obviously linked (163). Also, money undeniably allows people to satisfy their basic needs, which is imperative to attaining happiness. Although we often take our security for granted, living with a lack of money would adversely affect our current lives.…

    • 1762 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    However, in reality, the affluence can not make people happy as they thought. Money just does solve the problem but does not create happiness. Arccoding to " Who Say Money Cannot Buy Happiness," author Dwight R. Lee say money cannot bring the happiness for people. In the article, economist believe that money cannot buy happiness; they have a statistic that the income of American increase double since 1950, but the percentage of happy people is not increase, and they also say that the happiness, create by money, is momentary. Moreover, affluence cannot create happiness, so it just change people…

    • 1017 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    The articles of authors Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Ed Diener and Robert Biswas-Diener all talk about how money affects the feeling of happiness. Csikszentmihalyi’s article mostly focuses on the topic about those who are rich and why they are not happy, whereas the Diener’s article mostly focuses on the topic whether or not money can buy happiness. Contemporary author, Mihaly Csikszentmihaly, in her text, “If We Are So Rich, Why Aren’t Happy?” discusses the ambiguous relationship between material and subjective well-being. She explains how…

    • 82 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Decent Essays

    “Pursuing the Science of Happiness” by Andrew Guest was published in the Fall/Winter 2010 edition of Oregon Humanities, a triannual magazine published by an independent, nonprofit affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Andrew explains the quote “I just want to be happy” which may be the answer that everyone may say. Yet, how can you really answer the question of how you want to be. As it says in the essay “The modern science of happiness often goes by the name “positive psychology” and presents itself as an evolution away from psychology’s historical focus on dysfunctional”. The belief of positive psychology is that science will lead the way.…

    • 193 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Superior Essays

    In chapter 5 of The Happiness Hypothesis, Jonathan Haidt discusses how wealth does not have a substantial impact on happiness. The results in Ed Diener’s survey did show a slight difference in happiness between the rich and the poor, but it was almost insignificant. However, the study performed by psychologists Leaf van Boven and Tom Gilovich proved otherwise. In their experiment, half the group was asked to recall a time when they spent over a hundred dollars on a material possession whereas the other group was asked to pick an experience or activity they had spent over a hundred dollars on. The group that chose the activity or experience seemed happier with what they paid for than those who chose the possession.…

    • 1662 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Decent Essays

    CRITIQUE 1: “Does Money Buy Happiness?” (331) The essay “Does Money Buy Happiness?” by Don Peck and Ross Douthat which was originally published as the January/February 2003 issue of the Atlantic discusses how wealthier countries tend to be happier than non wealthy countries, but there are exceptions. In paragraph 2, Peck and Douthat wrote the claim as “[M]oney does buy happiness-but only to a point” and justifies by using Robert E. Lane’s argument and charts to support their claim (use of logos).…

    • 232 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Money does not bring true happiness. So many people says money brings happiness but it is not true because if you are a millionaire, you would change your mind and would use the money to harm people but you can bring happiness by caring from each other and loving and helping each other. Also, because money is not the most important thing in your life. Money and material possession is only more items to distract yourself with to enjoy it. The more insanely expensive items you don’t need would most likely not be use or thrown away.…

    • 845 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Happiness What is happiness? There can be many different definitions of the word happiness. My definition of happiness is when you have a good emotion towards something. To be happy you need to work hard to get to where you want to be.…

    • 1089 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Money Doesn’t Always Buy Happiness Today in our day and age, there has been one topic that comes up that has been a controversy for people all over the world: money. Scientist have studied that, “Money does buys happiness, but it buys less than most people think,” (Dunn, Gilbert, Wilson, 2011, pg. 115). Some people believe that the more money that they have, the happier they will be. Others believe that money is the epitome of unhappiness because it can cause a barrier between them and those around them. Depending on how he or she use the money, happiness is determined on how the person decides to spend it.…

    • 1914 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Improved Essays

Related Topics