Does money suck the fun out of life?

Maybe. The research is discussed on Jonah Leher's highly recommended blog.

Related musing: I suggested to friend that likes to penny pinch that it makes her unhappy. By spending cognitive resources and time trying to spend more effectively she has money on the brain more--which just means more worry and less time for fun things. This research also suggests that it makes it harder for her to savor things because of the priming effects. And what for gain? Having a little extra money to spend on . . .  I think living simply can help people enjoy the pleasure of life more, but being thrifty (ironically) makes it more difficult.

If you could invent one vaccine it'd be for . . .

AIDS? Carcer (pretend it's possible)? Heart attacks?

I was talking to friends yesterday and I said that the next frontier in human welfare is dealing with the problems that are all in people's heads. We've eliminated most communicable diseases in the United States and met our basic needs. Not a lot of people die young, and those that do often die in accidents that are hard to prevent. As the rest of the world develops (China and India will both be like the U.S. in 50 years or less, it appears) this will come to be true worldwide.

At that point we can continue to worry about marginal gains to life expectancy from inventing cancer drugs and treating heart disease. And we can worry about priming the engines of growth with education so that 50 years hence our grandchildren can each have $150,000 in income instead of $100,000. Or we could worry about ensuring that 10,000 people don't die prematurely from lack of health insurance.

Or we could look at what the next frontier. Here are projections for 2030 and statistics for today, restricted to the high income countries that most of the world will resemble in 50 years:

Note: I don't know how these numbers are calculated in details. I don't put a lot of stock in exact predictions like these, nor do I like the methology here in particular (I suspect). But I think the general pattern should ring true for anyone living in the United States or Europe and paying close attention. Also, I'd like to emphasize that, while the study thinks of "unipolar depressive disorders" are something that either affect or don't affect people, I think (esp. in the future) it's better to think of them as something to affect everyone to a greater or lesser extent. Some bridges are "unstable" but every bridge has a breaking point. Some roads are bumpy, but every road could be smoother. Some people are a wreak, but everyone gets down when they probably shouldn't.

Also, this doesn't fit anywhere but I know that just because something is a big problem doesn't mean it's the most important problem to work on. The best problems to work on are both big and tractable--is immunizing kids with coping strategies and a healthy outlook tractable? I think so. We immunized most kids against smoking and that alone probably accounts for 90% of the DALY drop we've caused in the past 40 years (in the U.S.)

Does living simply make you happy?

This is a good article that weaves the personal story of one woman into a report on positive psychology.

It also has a nice little gem that will serve as quote of the day:

Emboldened by a Web site that challenges consumers to live with just 100 personal items, Ms. Strobel winnowed down her wardrobe and toiletries to precisely that number. . . . She owns four plates, three pairs of shoes and two pots.

What is it with women and shoes?

I do have a few complaints about the article.

First, they oversell some of the correlations from the happiness research. Happiness economics is a new field and a lot of the survey data isn't that great. With one exception (the German Socio-Economic Panel)  the data is cross-sectional, meaning you don't get to see what happens to the same people over time, just how different people in two groups (married, unmarried) feel. Personally, though, I tend to trust the cross-section evidence as primarily unbiased.

Second, I think the story of the "hero," Ms. Strobel, is bit misleading. The article opens with a story about how she simplified her life and what the research shows is that that probably won't make her unhappy. But the article might leave you with a sense that downsizing and simplifying your life will make you happier. There isn't any research that shows that. What made Ms. Strobel happier is eliminating her commute (she works from home), changing her mindset to focus more on family and less on status symbols, and by spending the money she does have on things that she enjoys.

Question from Jon Haidt

Would you be happier if you had more meaningful conversations and spent less time shooting the bull? My guess is no but there is some evidence to the contrary.

With that in mind I submit this question, from Jon Haidt for discussion:

Suppose you faced this choice: if you choose option A, then tomorrow your life would become wonderful, full of happiness until you are 80, at which point you have 1 year of misery, feeling that your life was a mistake and a failure, and then you die unhappy. If you choose option B, you become miserable tomorrow, and until you are 80 you feel like a wretched failure. Then, at 80, you achieve a kind of epiphany, find meaning, and feel that your whole life was deeply worthwhile. Then you die. Whichever option you choose, your memory of choosing is wiped out, and you just live out the life that you chose without knowing why it is happening. Which option would you choose? Why?

Attachment

I like reflecting on how things change over the years. Yesterday, I was on the Authentic Happiness website and I took some of the tests. I knew I took a few of them 3 years ago and was wondering if anything had changed.

Things did. I went from 6.83/7 (100th percentile) to 5.83/7 (99th percentile) on "Attachment-related Avoidance." That's what college can do for your social skills.

My favorite test is the "Brief Strengths Test." I think it's pretty accurate. My main strengths are

1. Judgment / Thinking things through
2. Perspective / Wisdom
3. Self-regulation / Self-control
4. Prudence
5. Humor (and I thought my jokes were bad)

while my weak areas are

1. Vitality / Enthusiasm
2. Love
3. Leadership
4. Mercy / Forgiveness
5. Appreciation of art

I had the most dramatic declines in kindness (100th to 10th percentile), leadership (94th to 6th), and mercy (48th to 7th). I know why mercy declined; it did and its not a bad thing. Leadership is probably all in self-perception. I do wonder if I'm a much less kind person than I used to be.

Links

1. Is foreign aid bad? No

2. 1999 TIME story on AIDS drugs. (Related: UAEM.) Do health beat writers still have their heads that far up their ass?

3. Yes. These guys do. Leonhardt cleared some of this up a while back.

4. More on foreign aid, RCT edition.

5. If you think Arizona is cruel to immigrants, wait until your read about Mexico.

6. Does travel make people happy? No one knows. I suspect it doesn't. Vacations probably do.

7. An old TIME story about positive psychology

Social Intelligence

I found a book at the library by Daniel Goleman, the psychologist famous for studying emotional intelligence. The new book is about a related concept, social intelligence. But I don't like to commit to reading a book without reading some commentary first, so I did a search online.

I found this forum filled with comments criticizing the concept (and a test based on it). It turns out most of the posters had low scores, which seems to be the source of their gripes. Then I noticed the forum is for people autistic spectrum disorders, mostly Asperger's, which is characterized by:

Displaying unusual nonverbal communication, such as lack of eye contact, few facial expressions, or awkward body postures and gestures

Showing an intense obsession with one or two specific, narrow subjects, such as baseball statistics, train schedules, weather or snakes

Appearing not to understand, empathize with or be sensitive to others' feelings

Having a hard time "reading" other people or understanding humor

Engaging in one-sided, long-winded conversations, without noticing if the listener is listening or trying to change the subject

I've read a lot of stories about autism where people claim they are happy to be autistic, that is isn't really a disease, just a difference, at least in high-functioning variants. But Goleman's research suggests that these symptoms cause real harm by making it hard to bond with friends, a major determinant of happiness, and putting people at risk of depression.

I typed in all the reported scores (n = 81) and the average is 83.4, a little more than 1 standard deviation below the theoretical population average. The distribution is bi-modal (one around 78 and another near 100) but has the same standard deviation as the population. The comments are consistent with the possibility low scorers do tend to be unhappy. One person wrote that they scored low because "[b]ecause I'm depressed and am honest about my problems and limitations I am therefore [socially] retarded" and a number of others felt the test was a diagnostic for depression, seemingly acknowledging they have symptoms. On the whole, then, it seems probable that autism does make people unhappy, which should be the measure of whether any condition is a problem.

Worst Book Review of All Time

The worst book review I've ever read.

Ehrenreich drives me nuts. She thinks that, without having any background in a subject, she can do a little research and make novel insights that have someone escaped everyone else. In her new book, she takes on positive psychology despite knowing nothing about psychology.

She, as the review notes, doesn't understand regressions or statistical significance. (She's doesn't understand what a categorical variable is either.) She does know how to ask asinine questions about dimensional analysis and note that the functional form might be misspecified. But she doesn't understand non-parametric regression, which makes her criticisms moot. Somehow, the reviewer takes all of this as the mark of genius.

The worst part, though, is the reviewer's conclusion, a collection of platitudes about how knowing the truth is more important than being happy. It makes his ignorance about positive psychology to obvious. Does he know "[s]tudies indicate that depressed individuals have more realistic views than non-depressed people?" Is he saying we should all become depressed, lest (to paraphrase) fantasy take precedence over reality?