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: Now two new studies shed further light on the relationship between wealth and happiness. Their findings suggest that money doesn’t fulfill basic psychological needs, like belonging and competence. That’s why making more of it will not increase your happiness, even if you value money above other things. In fact, it may do the opposite. What money can and can’t do for you
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In one study, University of Buffalo researcher Lora Park and her colleagues investigated what happens when people tie their self-worth to financial success, scoring high on the “Financial Contingency of Self-Worth” scale, or FCWS. The researchers found that doing so made people engage in more social comparisons, experience more stress and anxiety, and feel less autonomy than those who didn’t tie their self-worth to income, regardless of their actual economic status. “People in this society are often focused on pursuing money, and they don’t think there is anything bad about that,” says Park. “ But in terms of your psychological well-being, there are all kinds of negative consequences.” It also might affect your problem-solving ability. Park and her colleagues randomly assigned participants to write about their dissatisfaction with either an aspect of their financial situation—like not having enough money to pay rent—or their academic performance, like getting a bad test grade.