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A Bigger Bank Account Isn’t Going to Buy You Happiness, Study Says

By Jamie Talan, Newsday
June 30, 2006

MELVILLE, N.Y. — A psychologist at Stony Brook University on Long
Island, collaborating with scientists at other institutions, has
discovered what philosophers have long known: Money doesn’t make people
happier.

Yet the perception that it does continues to motivate people to want more and do more to get more.

In a study that appears today in the journal Science, Arthur Stone,
vice chairman of Stony Brook’s department of psychiatry and behavioral
sciences, working with scientists at Princeton University, the
University of Michigan and UC San Diego, explore the intangible
relationship between money and happiness.

"It’s
mostly illusory," Stone said. "When you look at people’s actual
experience, the rich are not happier than others. And if they are, it
has little to do with the money they have."

    Did the researchers read passage 9 from the Tao Te Ching?

Forcing it fuller and fuller
can’t compare to just enough,
and honed sharper and sharper
means it won’t keep for long.

Once it’s full of jade and gold
your house will never be safe.
Proud of wealth and renown
you bring on your own ruin.

Just do what you do, and then leave:
such is the Way of heaven.