Exploring the Correlation Between Money and Happiness

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CAN MONEY BUY HAPPINESS?
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CAN MONEY BUY HAPPINESS?
Introduction
The central debating point in today’s world is the economies of money that tends to make people
happy. The importance of relationship among what a person earns and how it makes him/her
happy at times is rising significantly. This is mainly because of the fact that the link between
income and happiness is rising across the nations and psychologists are working on things to
understand about what makes a person when it comes down to earning some good hard cash. The
debate is going on for over decades as most of them are supporting the cause as money is the
medium through which they can easily feel happy and money is being treated as the material
factor through which happiness can be brought in. This is a short term perspective but cannot be
easily used in log term process as money is not the ultimate thing that will change the
perspective of life (Carter, 2015). There are certain other factors which need to be looked upon
also. This depends on the choice of the individual where he/she can find happiness as some feel
happy with their financial status where as other feel happy about their progression in their
careers and various other things as well. According to various researches that are being
conducted tend to suggest that happiness gained through money solely depends on the spending
pattern and how it is being utilized. On the other hand, the confusion still remains as many
people tends to be more happy without having good financial status. Thus, the debate continues
as to whether money can buy happiness or not.
This research shall focus on this aspect as to whether money can buy happiness or not. Different
views on this issue shall be analyzed and self reflection shall be provided about the group
performance.
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Different views on the topic
According to the research conducted by Connors et al., (2016) which states that it is very much
tough to say whether money can buy happiness or not as it is very much difficult to judge the
factors that leads to happiness but is not impossible. It can be observed that money can provide
the human beings with much needed basic comforts like shelter, food, healthcare and various
other things which are very much essential to sustain life and the perquisites to stay and
experience happy life. On the other hand, it is found from the research work of Peñagarikano,
(2016) that happiness is a complex thing which is based upon certain emotions and is being
heavily influenced by personality of an individual. Thus, money is not the sole determinant of
happiness in an individual’s life although possessing certain amount wealth might help the
individual to lead a healthy and happy life. Further, the research work of Bartolini, Mikucka and
Sarracino, (2017) suggest that money might bring some sort of security and comfort in life but it
does not bring the eternal peace when an individual needs certain care from his/her family during
the time of need. For instance, an individual might be richer in terms of possessing money but
may not have friends or co-workers during his/her need or during any bad moments faced by the
individual. Hence, money could not bring him/her any happiness during the actual time of need.
According to the research conducted by De Vries, (2016) which states that scientific evidences
show that money does buy happiness but to certain point or degree and has limit to it. This
happiness is not unlimited. It goes on to explain that emotional well being increases steadily up
to an income level of $75000 per year for an individual. Further, it suggested that after this
income level it does not have much effect on the emotional well being of the individual. In
addition to this, researches have shown that lower income families are more likely to face
problems in terms of having bad marriage relationship which lead to divorce. This is one the
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CAN MONEY BUY HAPPINESS?
major issues of low income and the happiness that might have been provided by money. Thus,
the conflict level increases among the lower income groups which leads to unhappiness and
higher divorce rates than the higher income people where these types of problems are negligible.
This leads to certain types of uncertainties in life where the family experiences greater emotional
distress from unfortunate events in life that is taking place due to lower income rate (Whillans,
Weidman and Dunn, 2016). For instance, it seems clear that $75000 is not that big amount of
money for a family. Therefore, two persons of same family may earn $37000 each per year
which comes to same (which works out to around $18 per hour per parent working 40 hours per
week). Thus, it is very much clear that a single earning member may tend to earn far below the
“happiness mark” which will lead to greater financial troubles and the family will experience a
low income thus creating disturbances in leading a happy life Mogilner and Norton, (2016). It
concludes on the fact that money can buy an individual some sort of happiness if that individual
is really struggling with poverty. This will certainly eradicate some sort of unhappiness that the
family is experiencing in the form of stress and martial conflict over the issues of finance.
However, once the individual is free to pay any sort of money against the fixed expenses such as
mortgage, rent, bills, gas, groceries and other things and other luxury things such as movies,
vacations etc. then things could be sorted out and money will have a some sort of impact on the
life of the individual and his/her family De Vries, (2016).
According to the research conducted by Matz, Gladstone and Stillwell, (2016) which states about
the fact that happiness totally depends on the level of earning when money is concerned. The
research goes on to explain about the fact that money is one of the basic levels which defines a
major portion of happiness that an individual may experience. For instance, it is very decidedly
happiness which may be experienced after paying the medical bills of the children when they
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might suffer from bad diseases or paying the rent of the house for providing the much needed
roof over the head of the child. Further, it also goes on to explain that as we find happiness
through money the desire increases which can add more happiness. Mogilner and Norton, (2016)
argues through the research work that the basic problem with society about the happiness is that
when it is met at one level, the desire and actions of happiness continues to grow. This goes on to
become more and more complex in nature and soon the capacity of money to provide the
growing desire of happiness is stretched largely and it outstrips the nature of the happiness that
an individual has dreamt off. In short money does buy an individual the much needed happiness
but his/her growing desire of fulfilling more and more needs tends to hamper the happiness level.
It goes on to explain and concentrate on the fact it helps in fulfilling the basic, fundamental and
necessary levels which includes education and securing a well paid job. According to the
research work Carter, (2015) which states that an individual is the one who decides what things
will make a person happy. Further, the author also states that the decision would lead to various
aspects of security that might make an individual happy but it won’t provide the ultimate
happiness that will make bring sustainability in life in the most effective. Thus, the above
discussion points the various aspects of money and happiness where both negative and positive
aspects can be found.
Conclusion
From a long time, the main objective a human being have been always revolving around the
main activities of being happy and making sure that everyone around him or her is happy.
However, as life progresses and different situations make their way into the bigger picture of life,
money plays a very significant part as it is the only way by which essential resources can be
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brought. In this case, the concept of happiness plays a major part as it can be said that happiness
of a person depends on different aspects such as health conditions, personal state of mind,
position of life in terms of reaching objectives etc. However, it is true that in order to guarantee
all this situations, one has to have effective amount of monetary back up. The main conclusion
that can be drawn is – “happiness is dependent upon situations and desirable situations can be
guaranteed by resources which is the result of having money”. Therefore, money can buy
happiness in an indirect manner.
However, it also must be taken into account that happiness of certain people dose not a have a
particular benchmark. Often happiness is generated when a human being is able to obtain his or
her desires and there are situations where desires can change from time to time. Therefore, it can
be said that happiness is a concept that can have different definitions to different human beings at
different points of time and thus it is obvious that money is essential in order to guarantee that a
person is happy at a particular point of time in his or her life. In this situation, there can be case,
where the desires can reach a certain level which can’t be reached by the person’s purchasing
power. In this situation, the money that he or she has will be of no use.
Money can buy happiness if happiness is related to monetary aspects, however, if happiness for
certain human beings is generated from emotions that are related with other aspects from both
the external and internal environment, then money loses its capabilities of making someone
happy. The emotional prosperity of a particular person in that case is the reason for his or her
happiness.
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Reflection on the group performance
As the main objective was to understand if money is the main reason for happiness, the team
decided to make sure that information was gathered from a lot of different sources so that the
study can be executed easily. For effective gathering all the information, the main objective was
to take into account every primary and secondary source that was available. The activities were
also divided in between the teams so that it could be effectively completed in the given time
frame. The main topic was related to financial status and other aspects of individuals and groups
and thus the data collection process was very much lengthy and necessary. In this case we
followed Bruce Tuckman’s Group Development Model. The different stages in this model were
executed in the following way.
Forming
In this stage, the team was mainly focused on making sure that all duties were clearly defined
and there were no confusion among team members about their roles. Our team was consisting of
6 participants and in the primary stages, we got divided into two teams of three and one team
made sure it reviewed all the primary data sources while the other team was busy in gathering
secondary data. For primary data, the objective was to make sure that individuals answer
questionnaires. However, in terms of secondary data, the team made sure that all relevant data
sources such as journals and articles were reviewed. In this process we had a teacher as our guide
and at the beginning of every activity we would seek advice from ours teacher to makes sure that
we are on the right track as far as this assignment is concerned. We also decided upon the ground
rules which will direct the activities of this particular team.
Storming
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In the second phase of this model, the activities got defined more clearly due to the fact that there
were conflicts arising from day to day activities. The main factor to be considered in this case is
that different individuals can have different sorts of operating processes and thus if the roles that
has been assigned to them is contrary to their desires or style of operations, then conflicts can
arise. However, we were very keen to make sure that the team operates together in an effective
manner and all the objectives were met. Thus, when few team members were unhappy due to
fact that they were allocated extra workload, collectively we made a decision that we would
distribute work amongst us effectively and equally. Although the storming process gave rise to
an issue, but it also helped us to clearly define each roles and responsibilities effectively.
Norming
In the third stage of Norming it can be said that our team witnessed a strong sense of
development and understanding among the team members, in this phase, we saw that the team
members were very effective in collaborative activities. It can be said that as time passed and the
team members worked with each other, they got used to how others operate towards the group
objectives. As a result of this understanding and collaboration, the team moved rapidly through
each objective and in that process it was seen that the process of gathering information was
easily understood by every member. The team moved to mores secured state and in this process
it was seen that the feedback from our teacher was also incorporated in the activities.
Performing
In the last stage of this model our team was very much ready to execute all the activities that
were related to this particular assignment. It can be said that as a result of the previous stages, the
team members were able to understand the different activities as far as team objectives were
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CAN MONEY BUY HAPPINESS?
concerned. In the first stage, the groundwork was laid as we understood the different activities
and duties that we as individuals had to execute. In this process, some disputes occurred and in
the second phase of this model, collectively we addressed all the issues n made sure that all team
members are happy and comfortable. The third stage witnessed the positive results of the first
two stages and in the last stage we had to make sure that individually we perform effectively and
make sure that the activities are on path and aligned with the team objectives.
According to Cottrell, motivation must be a factor that should drive all team members to an
effective direction and in this process, the objective and the thinking of all team members must
be very aligned with each other. The members in our case were motivated by the collective
efforts to help each other out as far as activities are concerned. We wanted to make sure that the
team operated in a friendly and collaborative environment which made it easy for the team
members to get motivated. As per Cottrell’s book, we obtained skills that helped us make sure
that we are aware of the different conditions we can face at a workplace. Thus the assignment
was very much helpful for the team members.
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References
Bartolini, S., Mikucka, M. and Sarracino, F., 2017. Money, trust and happiness in transition
countries: evidence from time series. Social indicators research, 130(1), pp.87-106.
Carter, K.R., 2015. Move Your Stuff, Change Your Life: How to Use Feng Shui to Get Love,
Money, Respect and Happiness. Simon and Schuster
Connors, S., Khamitov, M., Moroz, S., Campbell, L. and Henderson, C., 2016. Time, money,
and happiness: Does putting a price on time affect our ability to smell the roses?. Journal of
Experimental Social Psychology, 67, pp.60-64.
De Vries, M.F.K., 2016. Sex, Money, Happiness, and Death: The Quest for Authenticity.
Springer.
Matz, S.C., Gladstone, J.J. and Stillwell, D., 2016. Money buys happiness when spending fits our
personality. Psychological science, 27(5), pp.715-725.
Mogilner, C. and Norton, M.I., 2016. Time, money, and happiness. Current Opinion in
Psychology, 10, pp.12-16.
Peñagarikano, O., 2016. Money doesn’t bring happiness.... Or does it?. Science Translational
Medicine, 8(353), pp.353ec137-353ec137.
Tang, N., Chen, J., Zhang, K. and Tang, T.L.P., 2018. Monetary wisdom: How do investors use
love of money to frame stock volatility and enhance stock happiness?. Journal of Happiness
Studies, 19(6), pp.1831-1862.
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Whillans, A.V., Dunn, E.W., Sandstrom, G.M., Dickerson, S.S. and Madden, K.M., 2016. Is
spending money on others good for your heart?. Health Psychology, 35(6), p.574.
Whillans, A.V., Weidman, A.C. and Dunn, E.W., 2016. Valuing time over money is associated
with greater happiness. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 7(3), pp.213-222.
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