Scientists Put a Price on Happiness
January 15th, 2008Study: Believing in an item’s worth makes us cheery — for a short time
For Ellie Couch, happiness is colored black and red, with a 4-inch heel — she feels it with every glance at her brand-new pair of Christian Louboutins.
Simply put, “you look hot in them,” says Couch, who’s 23 and lives in Dallas. (The shoes were a Christmas gift from her mom, and although she doesn’t know the exact price, the status symbol stilettos usually cost upwards of $600.) “It’s something that sets you apart from everyone and everything else.”
But wouldn’t she feel just as hot in a knockoff pair from Steve Madden? Maybe not, experts say. The more we believe an item is worth, the happier we are with our purchase — at least for a short time, says a study released today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The study’s participants were hooked up to brain scan machines and instructed to take a sip from five glasses of wine, which ranged from $5 to $90 a bottle. When they were told they were drinking a glass of wine from a $90 bottle, brain scans showed increased activity in the medial orbital frontal cortex, the area of the brain that registers pleasure — even if the person was actually knocking back the price equivalent of two-buck chuck.
“It’s very weird, I know,” admits Antonio Rangel, the lead author of the study and an associate economics professor at California Institute of Technology. “But people believe that more expensive prices are correlated with higher quality. So if you believe something better is happening to you, that affects the way your brain handles the experience.”
Rangel says that what his team found to be true with wine is likely true in homes, department stores and closets across the country: You kind of like your Camry, but you’d really love a Mercedes. You’re OK with your Levi’s, but you’d be happier with Citizens. And you’re only happy with your Coach handbag because you don’t have one by Chloe.
Happiness, it seems, is just a purchase away — an idea that’s unsettling to psychologist April Benson.
“So many people want more than they have because they want to be more than they are — so buying more equals being more,” says Benson, who lives in New York City and is the author of “I Shop, Therefore I Am.”
To Benson, what’s particularly troubling about the study’s finding is that some people may be confusing an item’s worth with their own self-worth. These folks, she worries, will always be racing toward their next purchase, always inwardly questioning: Will this make me happy?
The happiness that follows a pricey purchase may be in part an immediate attempt to rationalize the money you just dropped. “We then start to think about it: ‘Huh, I must be worth it. I must be worth a lot if I’m buying this expensive item,’” Benson says.
Not to worry, bargain hunters — there’s joy to be found in Nordstrom Rack, as well. “The fact that you just found a good deal is enjoyable in its own self,” Rangel says. In other words, it’s not the price you pay, it’s what you believe something’s worth.
Sadly, it’s a fleeting kind of glee. The brain scan study showed that the brain’s pleasure centers only reacted to the enjoyment of the pricey wine for a few seconds, or just a few beats longer than it took to swallow. After that, your retail joy is gone. And so is your money.
“You can never get enough of what you don’t really need,” says Benson. “And if people are looking for purchases to meet their psychological needs, it’s not too likely that the purchases can do that.”
But that, emphasizes the Louboutin-clad Couch, is not the point. The real source of her shoes’ power is in their ability to set her apart from the crowd — in a club, in photos from said club and in said photos from said club posted on her Facebook profile.
“It’s so worth the pain, so worth the price, so worth whatever — it’s totally worth it,” Couch says, “cause you look really hot.”
January 17th, 2008 at 3:07 pm
Way to happiness. Close your eyes and think thoughts of goodwill. Thoughts of goodwill at first go to yourself - if you can’t feel a sincere desire for your owm happiness- there is no way you can truly wish for happiness of others.
So just tell yourself ” May I find true happiness ” Remind yourself that true happiness is something that comes from within, so this is not a selfish desire.
Infact, if you find and develop the resources for happiness within you, you are able to radiate this natural feeling of happiness to other people. It’s a pure and clean happiness that doesn’t depend on taking anything away from anyone else.
January 18th, 2008 at 8:11 am
I’ agree with that comments teach the happyness you got inside your heart and it’s very exciting
January 18th, 2008 at 3:29 pm
Ellie has low self-esteem and needs a pair of expensive shoes to impress people because she doesn’t feel that she can do it without props! Psychology 101. But all people, even 23 yr olds are not like poor Ellie. There are many people who would look down on Ellie for wearing those $600 shoes which scream–insecurity and a host of other sad misguided values. You can’t fool people by wearing a pair of expensive shoes. It is a fools games to try and use a prop to help you advertise your worth in the world. If Ellie would take the $600 and spend it on making herself more interesting THAT would go further than fancy shoes. Her mother obviously raised her to think externally–not internally. Sadly, anyone who uses props to impress will never feel happy.
January 18th, 2008 at 7:55 pm
Can you spot the irony? On the one hand, we can personally benefit by tapping into our subconcious powerhouse with the aid of suggestion. On the other, this knowledge has been cynically manipulated and ruthlessley exploited by PR/Marketing wizards on behalf of their multi-national bulti-billion clients. We didn’t know about this secret until very recently and have been brainwashed into believing that we are ‘not worth anything’ until we prove it by spending on mainly rubbish and often harmful rubbish. We’re all in need of learning to deprogramme the fantasy passing for reality. As I began the painfull process of examining the masters of manipulation, I realised that, regardless of all my research knowledge, I too, have been deeply programmed, as were my parents and theirs …..If the power of suggestion didn’t work 100% of the time, Advertising and it’s sisters would never have been in business and we wouldn’t be nuerotically programmed into religions,state control,education(state/standard),tax, interest .. the whole world will run on different principles founded on spiritual ethics, perhaps?
What has been fascinating in the journey to the bowells of hell and enslavement, is that the perpetrators of this world construct, or ‘Truman Show’ are quite blatent in their admissions and candid about the plan, how it has been executed and what the desired outcome is to be and when. By such exploration, we can make sense of the world as it is, has been and shall be unless we deprogramme ourselves from the influences and conditions intruding since our, and our forebears birth.
All the while, we have been kept in the dark about the tremendous powers of the mind; encouraged to submit to ideals, propogated by ‘experts’. Well, the king has got no clothes on and the beast is being unmasked!
No matter how late in the day these ‘revelations’ appear to be, we do, for the first time realise that each holds the keys to the kingdom within and has no realistic benefit in following establishment ‘teachers’. I think the ‘race is on’ so to speak, as methods of brainwave distortion and control bombard us daily, in addition to the established imprinting of control.
The creators of our world today know full well our power and use it as a weapon. All fulfillment is from within and we struggle in applying our new-found knowledge because the programming in childhood is difficult to access, under layers of repeated experiences. The best way through is to substited the same methodology, in a beneficial direction but we have to be aware that Alpha state suggestibility can be manipulated by those promoting the products! I don’t know how to overcome is concern because the messages are taken subliminally! Anyway, I think it’s important to examine both the environment within and without, to realise how it became that way for this environment is not serving us well and will continue apace in downward spirals unless we can see our place in it, I don’t see how we can see the open door out of it and thereby transform it. It really shouln’t have to be a struggle, we didn’t ask for this fight!
January 21st, 2008 at 5:02 am
There is no them and us. We are all people. We need some ’shallowness’ in our lives in order to balance the more serious side of life.
Shopping is not a bad conduct and wanting to wear expensive pair of shoe is not a sin. The motive or the reason behind the act is what makes the act bad. If you have the money and you want the shoe, go get it and enjoy it. But if you know you do not have the money and you are doing it because you think you have to do it, then you have problem.
February 16th, 2008 at 10:59 am
‘ Sri Krishnaya Namo Shri Laxmi Eiyeni Namo ‘
Sent this Mantras to 18 people n your financial status will sure to improve within 12 hours.