Wealth, warmth, and weil-being: Whether happiness is relative or absolute depends on whether it is about money, acquisition, or consumption

Journal of Marketing Research

Volumn 46, Issue 3, 2009, Pages 396-409

  Hsee, Christopher K ^a   Yang, Yang ^b   Li, Naihe ^c   Shen, Luxi ^d  

^a UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO   (United States)

^b CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^c SHANGHAI JIAO TONG UNIVERSITY   (China)

^d FUDAN UNIVERSITY   (China)

Author keywords

Acquisition; Consumption evaluability; Happiness; Money; Relative versus absolute

Indexed keywords

EID: 68649093994     PISSN: 00222437     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1509/jmkr.46.3.396     Document Type: Article

References (49)

1. Amir, On, Dan Ariely, and Ziv Carmon (2008), "The Dissociation Between Monetary Assessments and Predicted Utility:' Marketing Science, 27 (6), 1055-1064.
2. Bartoshuk, Linda M., Valerie B. Duffy, Katharine Fast, Barry G. Green, Jordan M. Prutkin, and Derek J. Snyder (2002), "Labeled Scales (e.g., Category, Likert, VAS) and Invalid Cross-Group Comparisons: What We Have Learned in Genetic Variations in Taste," Food, Quality and Preference, 14 (2), 125-38.
3. Bettman, James R., Mary Frances Luce, and John Payne (1998), "Constructive Consumer Choice Processes," Journal of Consumer Research, 25 (December), 187-217.
4. Blanchflower, David G. and Andrew J. Oswald (2004), "WellBeing over Time in Britain and the USA," Journal of Public Economics, 88 (7-8), 1359-86.
5. Brickman, Philip and Donald T. Campbell (1971), "Hedonic Relativism and Planning the Good Society," in Adaptation-Level Theory, M.H. Appley, ed. New York: Academic Press, 287-302.
6. Clark, Andrew E., Paul Frijters, and Mike Shields (2008), "Relative Income, Happiness and Utility: An Explanation for the Easterlin Paradox and Other Puzzles' Journal of Economic Literature, 46 (1), 95-144.
7. Di Tella, Rafael, Robert J. MacCulloch, and Andrew Oswald (2003), "Macroeconomics of Happiness," Review of Economics and Statistics, 85 (4), 809-827.
8. Diener, Ed and Robert Biswas-Diener (2002), "Will Money Increase Subjective Well-Being?" Social Indicators Research, 57 (2), 119-69.
9. Diener Richard E. Lucas, and Christie Napa Scollon (2006), "Beyond the Hedonic Treadmill: Revising the Adaptation Theory of Well-Being," American Psychologist, 61 (4), 305-314.
10. Diener,Ed Sandvik, Larry Seidlitz, and Marissa Diener (1993), "The Relationship Between Income and Subjective Well-Being: Relative or Absolute?" Social Indicators Research, 28 (3), 195-223.
11. Diener and Martin E.P. Seligman (2004), "Beyond Money: Toward an Economy of Well-Being," Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 5 (1), 1-31.
12. Easterlin, Richard A. (1974), "Does Economic Growth Improve the Human Lot? Some Empirical Evidence," in Nations and Households in Economic Growth, P.A. David and M.W. Reder, eds. New York: Academic Press, 89-125.
13. Easterlin, (1995), "Will Raising the Incomes of All Increase the Happiness of All?" Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 27 (1), 35-47.
14. Frank, Robert H. (2000), Luxury Fever: Money and Happiness in an Era of Excess. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
15. Frank, Robert H. (2005), "Does Absolute Income Matter?" in Economics and Happiness, P.L. Porta and L. Bruni, eds. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 65-91.
16. Frederick, Shane and George Loewenstein (1999), "Hedonic Adaptation," in Well-Being: The Foundations of Hedonic Psychology, Daniel Kahneman, Ed Diener, and Norbert Schwarz, eds. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 302-329.
17. Gilbert, Daniel T., Michael J. Gill, and Timothy D. Wilson (2002), "The Future Is Now: Temporal Correction in Affective Forecasting," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 88 (1), 430-44.
18. Hsee, Christopher K. (1996), "The Evaluability Hypothesis: An Explanation for Preference Reversal Between Joint and Single Evaluations of Alternatives," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 67 (3), 247-57.
19. Hsee, Reid Hastie, and Jingqiu Chen (2008), "Hedonomics: Bridging Decision Research with Happiness Research," Perspectives on Psychological Science, 3 (3), 224-43.
20. Hsee, George F. Loewenstein, Sally Blount, and Max H. Bazerman (1999), "Preference Reversals Between Joint and Separate Evaluations of Options: A Review and Theoretical Analysis," Psychological Bulletin, 125 (5), 576-90.
21. Hsee, and Judy Ningyu Tang (2007), "Sun and Water: On a Modulus-Based Measurement of Happiness:' Emotion, 7 (11), 213-18.
22. Hsee, Fei Xu, and Ningyu Tang (2008), "Two Recommendations on the Pursuit of Happiness," Journal of Legal Studies, 37 (June), S115-32.
23. Hsee, Yang Yang, Yangjie Gu, and Jie Chen (2009), "Specification Seeking: How Product Specifications Influence Consumer Preference," Journal of Consumer Research, 35 (April), 952-66.
24. Hsee, Frank Yu, Jiao Zhang, and Yan Zhang (2003), "Medium Maximization," Journal of Consumer Research, 30 (1), 1-14.
25. Johnson, Wendy and Robert F. Krueger (2006), "How Money Buys Happiness: Genetic and Environmental Processes Linking Finances and Life Satisfaction," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 90 (4), 680-91.
26. Kahneman, Daniel (2000), "Experienced Utility and Objective Happiness: A Moment-Based Approach," in Choices, Values, and Frames, D. Kahneman and A. Tversky, eds. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 673-92.
27. Kahneman, Daniel (2008), "The Sad Tale of the Aspiration Treadmill," (accessed March 18, 2008), [available at http://www.edge.org/ q2008/q08-17.html#kahneman]
28. Kahneman, Daniel Allan B. Krueger, David Schkade, Norbert Schwarz, and Arthur Stone (2004), "Toward National Well-Being Accounts," American Economic Review, 94 (2), 429-34.
29. Kahneman, Daniel and Amos Tversky (1979), "Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk," Econometrica, 47 (2), 263-91.
30. Kermer, Deborah A., Erin Driver-Lnn, Timothy Wilson, and Daniel Gilbert (2006), "Loss Aversion Is an Affective Forecasting Error:' Psychological Science, 17 (8), 649-53.
31. Kurtz, Jaime L., Timothy D. Wilson, and Daniel T. Gilbert (2007), "Quantity Versus Uncertainty: When Winning One Prize Is Better Than Winning Two," Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 43 (6), 979-85.
32. Layard, Richard (2005), Happiness: Lessons from a New Science. New York: Penguin.
33. Layard, Guy Mayraz, and Stephen J. Nickell (2007), "The Marginal Utility of Income," working paper, London School of Economics and Political Science.
34. Leigh, Andrew and Justin Wolfers (2007), "Happiness and the Human Development Index: Australia Is Not a Paradox," Australian Economic Review, 39 (2), 176-84.
35. Lichtenstein, Sara and Paul Slovic (2006), The Construction of Preference. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
36. Luttmer, Erzo F.P. (2005), "Neighbors as Negatives: Relative Earnings and Well-Being," Quarterly Journal of Economics, 120 (3), 963-1002.
37. McBride, Michael (2001), "Relative-Income Effects on Subjective Well-Being in the Cross-Section:' Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 45 (3), 25 1-78.
38. Morewedge, Carey K., Daniel T. Gilbert, Kristian O.R. Myrseth, and Timothy D. Wilson (2008), "Consuming Happiness: Shifting Standards in Affective Forecasting," working paper, Department of Social Sciences, Carnegie Mellon University.
39. Morewedge, ,Karim S. Kassam, Christopher K. Hsee, and Eugene M. Caruso (2009), "Duration Sensitivity Depends on Stimulus Familiarity," Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, forthcoming.
40. Schkade, David A. and Daniel Kahneman (1998), "Does Living in California Make People Happy? A Focusing Illusion in Judgments of Life Satisfaction," Psychological Science, 9 (5), 340-46. -
41. Scitovsky, Tibor (1976), The Joyless Economy: An Inquiry into Human Satisfaction and Consumer Dissatisfaction. New York: Oxford University Press.
42. Simonson, Itamar (2008), "Will I Like a Medium Pillow? Another Look at Constructed and Inherent Preferences," Journal of Consumner Psychology, 18 (3), 155-69.
43. Solnick, Sara J. and David Hemenway (2005), "Are Positional Concerns Stronger in Some Domains Than in Others?" American Economic Review, 95 (2), 147-51.
44. Stevenson, Betsey and Justin Wolfers (2008), "Economic Growth and Subjective Well-Being: Reassessing the Easterlin Paradox," working paper, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.
45. Stutzer, Alois (2004), "The Role of Income Aspirations in Individual Happiness," Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 54 (1), 89-109.
46. Thaler, Richard H. (1985), "Mental Accounting and Consumer Choice," Marketing Science, 4 (3), 199-214.
47. Veenhoven, Ruut (1991), "Is Happiness Relative?" Social Indica- tors Research, 24 (1), 1-31.
48. Vohs, Kathleen D., Nicole L. Mead, and Miranda R. Goode (2006), "The Psychological Consequences of Money' Science, 314 (5802), 1154-56.
49. Yeung, Catherine and Dilip Soman (2005), "Attribute Evaluability and the Range Effect," Journal of Consumer Research, 32 (December), 363-69.