Can Money Buy Happiness?
Paul Piff’s research suggests that money makes you mean.// But many people seem to believe that money can buy happiness.// What do you think: Can money buy happiness?//
　　Since happiness is highly personal, the final answer to this old question may never be found.// Recent research provides a tentative answer: Yes, money can buy happiness, but only up to the point where it lifts you out of extreme poverty.//
　　People all over the world were asked in a survey to rate their sense of happiness from 1 to 7.// One meant “not at all happy” and 7 meant “completely happy.”// You will not be surprised to learn that on average millionaires gave their lives a score of 5.8.// And you will not be surprised that homeless Indians rated their happiness at 2.9.//
　　However, you may be surprised to learn that people living in Kolkata slums, just a step above being homeless, rated their happiness at 4.6.// Not only that, the Inuit people of northern Greenland, who have a very hard life in the Arctic, rated themselves at 5.8.// And the Masai, who are cattle herders in Kenya and live without running water, flushing toilets, or electricity, rated their happiness at 5.7.// Both the Inuit and the Masai gave themselves the same rating as American millionaires.//
　　Many happiness studies from around the world contradict the idea that money can buy happiness.// Take the United States, for example.// The gross domestic product (GDP) per person in the US has tripled since World War II.// Have Americans become happier?// No.// In fact, the sense of happiness has not changed much at all.// The same thing is true of Japan and of Western Europe.// Prosperity has increased dramatically while happiness levels have hardly changed.//
　　The conclusion of many happiness studies is that economic factors do not seem to predict happiness.// Even though people in the developed world have grown richer in recent decades, they seem to be no happier.// In fact, they seem to feel even more depression and distrust.//