Lottery winners aren’t any happier than the rest of us, you know
What gives? Behavior experts have a couple theories. One is simply that we humans just tend to get used to stuff — the good and the bad. The psychological concept is called “happiness adaptation,” and Michael Norton, associate professor at Harvard Business School, co-authored a 2007 paper that sought to uncover why hitting major life goals — including the dreamlike goal of winning the lottery and the more down-to-earth goal of getting married — don’t end up making us as happy as we expect them to.
“The idea of adaptation seems like a negative thing — it’s a shame that we have to get used to the good things in our life, from lottery winnings to ice cream. But adaptation also helps us when bad things happen to us, making the impact of losing our job or getting divorced less painful over time,” explains Norton, who is also the coauthor of the forthcoming book, “Happy Money: The Science of Smarter Spending.”
He continues, “Big positive and negative events can have a lasting impact on our happiness, but this impact tends to decrease over time. In some sense, because people have so many facets of their life – from their job to their friends to their family to their hobbies – the impact of a change in any one of those facets is less extreme than we think, because many of the other things in our lives stay the same. (We win the lottery but we are still stuck with our same siblings, for example.) As a result of this, people tend to adapt to life events and end up closer to where they were than they think they’d be.”
Blowback
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Lottery winners who aren’t happy either don’t know what they want, and thus spend oodles on random crap, or are too stupid/irresponsible for any amount of money to cure.
I’d take enough of the winnings to live at the standard of my dear old dad, accounting for my GF’s likely medical expenses. The rest goes up as a prize to the red state that can come up with the best anti-Obama/liberal policies, deadline 2016.
MelonCollie on November 28, 2012 at 10:04 PM
Yeah, but they ain’t any sadder neither.
Show me the moneeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeey!
Rocks on November 28, 2012 at 10:04 PM
I’d rather be miserable AND rich.
Daemonocracy on November 28, 2012 at 10:04 PM
Yeah, but you can buy stuff, though. If I won the lottery, I’d get a new vacuum cleaner, ’cause the one I have now sucks. I could also afford a new hair dryer, since my current one blows.
…
Thanks, and good night!
Dongemaharu on November 28, 2012 at 10:06 PM
I’ll let you know after I win that $550,000,000 Powerball!
Ladysmith CulchaVulcha on November 28, 2012 at 10:07 PM
I do not really see this in my life.
Money does not buy happiness, but it does give infinitely more opportunities to enjoy happiness.
astonerii on November 28, 2012 at 10:09 PM
Poor people in America have big screen TVs and are fat and like to whine a lot. They are the envy of the poor elsewhere and are totally unaware of how lucky they are.
Rich brats in America are often drunken unhappy idiots who like to whine a lot. They also do not realize how lucky they are and are the envy of those overweight ‘poor’ Americans.
School kids, college students, and assorted professional and semi-professional victims like to walk around feeling sorry for themselves, thinking how terrible their life burdens are.
There is no level of success, or wealth that will make you happy. People were never meant to be content with what they have and thus they keep striving for something more. That has a good side and a darker side to it.
That said I would still like to win the lottery.
sharrukin on November 28, 2012 at 10:12 PM
Yeah, good point. When you’re miserable and poor – and not because of an emotional swing or a temporary setback – there’s not a whole lot you can do besides sit around and be miserable.
Misery is 100x harder when you can’t even ease the pain by buying a Snickers bar from the vending machine. And it’s 1,000,000x harder when the jewelry store a stone’s throw from your min-wage job reminds you every day that you’ll never be able to afford to marry. I speak from direct experience on both of these.
MelonCollie on November 28, 2012 at 10:13 PM
+1. A t-shirt I saw awhile back in a mall said “If you think money doesn’t buy happiness, you don’t know where to shop.”
There’s a grain of truth to that, and I mentally came up with a similar statement: “If you think money doesn’t buy happiness, you should talk to a Cuban couple who can’t afford to have their child’s asthma inhaler refilled.”
MelonCollie on November 28, 2012 at 10:15 PM
My daughter went into a store to buy $20 worth of tickets for tonight’s Powerball. On the way in she passed a bell ringer. She only bought $10 worth of tickets and put the other $10 in the red kettle. She said, “If I’m gonna throw my money away, I might as well do some good, too.”
I hope she wins tonight. She’s a good person.
Fallon on November 28, 2012 at 10:16 PM
From the song “Happiness”.
Ask the rich man, he’ll confess
Money can’t buy happiness.
Ask the poor man and he’ll shout
He’d rather be miserable with than without.
Really it only exchanges one set of problems for another set that are frequently harder to live with. Still I’m willing to try.
countrybumpkin on November 28, 2012 at 10:16 PM
+1 for your daughter and +1 to you for raising her right.
MelonCollie on November 28, 2012 at 10:17 PM
I’ve been rich; I’ve been poor. But when poor, I knew we wouldn’t stay that way.
Ladysmith CulchaVulcha on November 28, 2012 at 10:28 PM
Please let me win the lottery, and I promise to always be happy.
And if I am going to be unhappy at times, I would rather be unhappy with $100 million than unhappy with a lot less.
bluegill on November 28, 2012 at 10:50 PM
This lottery player is not any happier than 10 minutes ago…
astonerii on November 28, 2012 at 11:07 PM
A long time ago I was struck by a car while waiting to cross the street. It severed my leg above the knee and blood was gushing out into the gutter. Over a liter. A man in an old van stopped, got out and used his belt as a tourniquet unti paramedics arrived. Then he left. I received a good sized (low 7 figure) settlement, but I’ve never felt the satisfaction that that man must feel in his normal life.
Money doesn’t make any of us better people.
RINOs are people too on November 28, 2012 at 11:08 PM
I want my four dollars back
. I did not match any numbers.
aebloo on November 28, 2012 at 11:19 PM
What an extraordinary story. You were fortunate to have a hero, and his karma is worth more than a lottery ticket. Continued health and happiness.
Ladysmith CulchaVulcha on November 28, 2012 at 11:26 PM
It all comes with the unknown relatives that show up, that you did not know you had. The do not just ask for money but hound you at every turn for money.
tjexcite on November 28, 2012 at 11:38 PM
This is why I’d put all the extra into the “Outfox Obama” prize, preferably administered by other people so it wasn’t just me holding the keys.
“Sorry, all I have is my ‘salary’, those millions aren’t mine anymore. Go call this number.” The number leading to an answering machine that is never attended.
MelonCollie on November 29, 2012 at 12:03 AM
10% to God.
Pay off all my debts (about $75,000.00)
Buy a NEW car for myself
Give 1 million to each my mother & my father (they’re long since divorced)
Maybe buy a tract of land that is being developed near my apartment complex and have a house.
Invest the rest and earn dividends/interest
Continue working my min wage job and going through school to finish and teach high school.
SgtSVJones on November 29, 2012 at 12:25 AM
I’ve been American poor for my whole life, as has been both sides of my family for as far back as it can be traced. Worked crappy jobs to scrape by since the 10th grade. Had a stroke a few months ago and it looks like we’ll get evicted before someone decides I should get disability.
Nearly 43 now, and I’ve finally made peace with myself – about as happy and mature as I’ve ever been. Figure I have the emotional/mental side down pat. I have no desire to be a big shot or impress others. What I really long for is some material stability. Money doen’t change you, just makes you more of what you already are. At this point a butt load of money would just give me peace of mind, and it would be worth every dollar.
Boogeyman on November 29, 2012 at 12:37 AM
17 of us in our office put in $10 each today…we won $16 back. Woohoo! $.94!
cptacek on November 29, 2012 at 1:10 AM
Instant money can’t buy the brains to use it.
But a few have been prepared.
Luck to all.
Since it’s all luck, ultimately.
profitsbeard on November 29, 2012 at 3:55 AM
Somebodies in Arizona and Missouri are happy campers today. Congratulations!!!
Ladysmith CulchaVulcha on November 29, 2012 at 4:24 AM
Money can’t buy happiness, but you can go to happy places.
Money can’t buy love, but it does put you in a better bargaining position.
Money CAN buy you a way to avoid the fiscal cliff in many nice places around the world. I’m thinking Belize, St Maarten or any of several other places.
And money can’t buy you poverty, but you can help those who are impoverished.
ProfShadow on November 29, 2012 at 7:28 AM
And of course, it USED to be that money could buy into a business and make it prosper and become profitable. Not so much anymore in the US.
ProfShadow on November 29, 2012 at 7:30 AM
I’ve been poor. Got very well off to the point of living a very lavish life style. Then I got upper middle class and then really, really poor. Just about homeless. Now I’m struggling lower middle class with no retirement funds and way to old to create any. I’ll die at my desk at work. That’s if I’m lucky enough to keep a job that long.
I have to tell you that the very well off was the best time of my life. I could be very happy retired with a couple of million in the bank.
Frank Enstine on November 29, 2012 at 7:33 AM
You can’t buy happiness… but you can rent it.
Axion on November 29, 2012 at 8:38 AM
You can try to find happiness, but if you weren’t looking for it before the money, you won’t find it with the money. You don’t know how.
You can do things; I’ve learned to fly a plane, raced cars, met a lot of girls. But it gets to be like that scene in The Jerk, it’s Tuesday, must be knife throwing lessons. Those weren’t things that made me happy (maybe one or two of the girls), they’re just things to do.
Twelve years later I realize that somewhere in there you have to be passionate about something and do that. But you know what? You could do that without the money. Unless, of course, it’s politics.
RINOs are people too on November 29, 2012 at 9:17 AM