available at: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/reprint/312/5782/1908.pdf Would You Be Happier If You Were Richer? A Focusing Illusion Daniel Kahneman, Alan B. Krueger, David Schkade, Norbert Schwarz, Arthur A. Stone The belief that high income is associated with good mood is widespread but mostly illusory. People with above-average income are relatively satisfied with their lives but are barely happier than others in moment-to-moment experience, tend to be more tense, and do not spend more time in particularly enjoyable activities. Moreover, the effect of income on life satisfaction seems to be transient. We argue that people exaggerate the contribution of income to happiness because they focus, in part, on conventional achievements when evaluating their life or the lives of others. ________________________________________________ Adam P. Coutts Post-doctoral fellow Center of Society, Human Development and Health, Harvard School of Public Health, 677 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA 02115-6096 http://www.esrcsocietytoday.ac.uk/ESRCInfoCentre/Minisite/adamcoutts/index.html UK address: Magdalene College, University of Cambridge, CB3 0AG. email: [log in to unmask] ------------------- Problems/Questions? Send it to Listserv owner: [log in to unmask] To unsubscribe, send the following message in the text section -- NOT the subject header -- to [log in to unmask] SIGNOFF SDOH DO NOT SEND IT BY HITTING THE REPLY BUTTON. THIS SENDS THE MESSAGE TO THE ENTIRE LISTSERV AND STILL DOES NOT REMOVE YOU. To subscribe to the SDOH list, send the following message to [log in to unmask] in the text section, NOT in the subject header. SUBSCRIBE SDOH yourfirstname yourlastname To post a message to all 1000+ subscribers, send it to [log in to unmask] Include in the Subject, its content, and location and date, if relevant. For a list of SDOH members, send a request to [log in to unmask] To receive messages only once a day, send the following message to [log in to unmask] SET SDOH DIGEST To view the SDOH archives, go to: https://listserv.yorku.ca/archives/sdoh.html