Title: How Does Valuing Money Affect Your Happiness?
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Society Articles & More
How Does Valuing Money Affect Your Happiness?
Two new studies find that tying your self-worth to financial success hampers happiness and well-being—even for the well-off.
What money can and can’t do for you
Affirming Important Values
Why community beats money
About the Author
Jill Suttie
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Content: Why would this be? Park believes that when people feel their self-concept is threatened in some way, they will become more self-protective so as not to experience low self-esteem. So, if your self-esteem is tied to money, a financial stressor will cause a lot more stress than it would for someone who doesn’t feel that way. Some support for her argument comes from another part of her experiment, where having participants high in FCSW remind themselves of their character strengths—like their intelligence or sense of humor—seemed to negate these avoidance effects. Affirming Important Values
When your self-image takes a hit, reflect on what matters
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“When people take a step back and have a broader perspective on their sense of self, that’s often enough to take them out of the self-esteem rumination/narrow focus they otherwise have,” says Park. As prior research suggests, it can also be the case that people simply want money to do something that it cannot. “ Self-esteem, like happiness, is a byproduct of meeting psychological needs—like meaning or purpose, feeling competent, having close relationships, or having a sense of autonomy—and basing your self-worth on financial success actually detracts from fulfilling those needs,” says Park. Why community beats money
Park’s findings mirror other recent findings from the University of San Francisco’s Matthew Monnot, who studied financial success and well-being in China. In his study, Monnot notes that, as China’s economy has grown, its citizens seem to be facing some of the same issues that Americans have faced. A growing number of people equate individual success with making more money and valuing money—an extrinsic reward—over other, more intrinsic rewards, like relationships or community.