Money giveth, money taketh away: the dual effect of wealth on happiness.

J. Quoidbach*, Elizabeth W. Dunn, K. V. Petrides, Moïra Mikolajczak

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Indexed journal article Articlepeer-review

107 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

This study provides the first evidence that money impairs people's ability to savor everyday positive emotions and experiences. In a sample of working adults, wealthier individuals reported lower savoring ability (the ability to enhance and prolong positive emotional experience). Moreover, the negative impact of wealth on individuals' ability to savor undermined the positive effects of money on their happiness. We experimentally exposed participants to a reminder of wealth and produced the same deleterious effect on their ability to savor as that produced by actual individual differences in wealth, a result supporting the theory that money has a causal effect on savoring. Moving beyond self-reports, we found that participants exposed to a reminder of wealth spent less time savoring a piece of chocolate and exhibited reduced enjoyment of it compared with participants not exposed to wealth. This article presents evidence supporting the widely held but previously untested belief that having access to the best things in life may actually undercut people's ability to reap enjoyment from life's small pleasures.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)759-763
Number of pages5
JournalPsychological Science
Volume21
Issue number6
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jun 2010
Externally publishedYes

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