Would you be happier if you were richer?

Would you be happier if you were richer?

Now, if somebody had asked you that question most of you probably wouldn't even need more than a second to respond with an answer 'Well, Duh! Of course I'll be happier if I am richer!'

Fair enough. How about would you be miserable if you were disabled?

Again, what a stupid question.

We have it fixed in our brains that winning lottery = happiness and becoming disabled = unhappiness even without having to experience it before. We use our pre-feelings as a rule of thumb for how we should be feeling if we win a lottery or becoming disabled. We also use it to try and second guess other peoples' experiences as well. When prompted to answer how happy do we think lottery winners and paraplegic are with their lives, we'll first imagine ourselves winning the lottery or becoming disabled and then give our answers accordingly.

But research on lottery winners and paraplegics have shown that their levels of happiness are in fact not that much different from the control groups. In other words, lottery winners are not much happier than those who did not win the lottery, whilst the disabled are not much unhappier compared to those who are not disabled.

What explains the gap between what is predicted (paraplegic should be miserable!) and what is actually measured then?

Well, as explained by Daniel Kahneman and David Schkade (1998), lottery winners and paraplegic have many experiences that are not directly related to their special status. Once the situation they find themselves is no longer novel, people in these circumstances usually think of other things, such as the food they eat or the gossip they hear. However, a judge who tries to imagine the life of a lottery winner or a paraplegic will naturally focus attention on the special circumstances of these cases and, as a result, tend to exaggerate the importance of such events. They called this mismatch in the allocation of attention the focusing illusion.

Focusing illusion is very common, mind you. We normally imagine that we'll be much happier if we were richer because the allocation of our attention is on using the money rather than actually earning it. This leads to us slaving ourselves away today for richer tomorrow. But when we get there, we usually find what we thought we were looking for slightly - if not largely - disappointing...

Reference

Schkade, D.A., and Kahneman, D. (1998). Does living in California make people happy? A focusing illusion in judgements of life satisfaction. Psychological Science, 9(5), 340-346.