Materialism and Happiness (Study)

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<h3>Can you be healthy, wealthy and wise?</h3>

Studies show materialism linked to poverty, illness

Andy Lamey (National Post)

 

Wednesday, October 23, 2002

In 1971 an American academic named Edward Deci conducted a now-famous experiment in human motivation. Deci had two groups of students play with SOMA puzzles, 3-D brain teasers that look like Rubik's Cubes and can be taken apart to make different shapes. The first group was paid to play while the second wasn't. But the key part of the experiment came later, when the participants thought the study was over. Deci secretly watched them to see who kept playing for the sheer fun of it. He found that participants who had been paid for their time spent less time playing with the SOMA puzzles. Those who had done it for free were more likely to find it enjoyable enough to keep going.

 

Deci's study hinged on a distinction between so-called intrinsic and extrinsic rewards. Play is a classic example of an activity done for its own sake, an intrinsic reward. Money is an extrinsic reward.

 

Since Deci's original experiment, many similar ones have been conducted involving children, adults, different awards and other variations. There's even been a round-up study that crunched the data from 128 such experiments. It concluded that financially rewarding people for an activity they find enjoyable has the paradoxical effect of sapping their intrinsic motivation to engage in it. Rewards change our sense of why we do something, focusing not on the sense of freedom and enjoyment, but the cash itself.

 

Deci's study is discussed in The High Price of Materialism (MIT Press), a new book by Tim Kasser. Kasser, a psychology professor at Knox College in Galesburg, Ill., wants us to critically examine some of our commonly held ideas about wealth.

 

We take it for granted, for example, that it's a good idea to adopt economic policies that will contribute to rising incomes. But what exactly do we base this on? The belief that higher incomes contribute to human happiness? As Kasser notes, countless studies show that once we have enough money to cover basic necessities, further wealth does little to boost our sense of satisfaction with life.

 

Similarly, we've all probably fantasized about winning the lottery. Yet one survey of lottery winners found that, compared with their neighbours, they were no happier overall. Winners even derived less satisfaction from everyday pleasures such as talking with a friend or hearing a good joke.

 

The idea that money can't buy happiness is hardly a new one. Buddha, Epictetus, Jesus; some fairly big names have been out this way before. The danger with a study like Kasser's, which is primarily based on analyzing survey data, is that it can offer endless reams of empirical evidence to demonstrate the obvious. But while Kasser sometimes falls into this trap, at other times he provides new insights.

 

Among the more interesting is the strong correlation between materialistic values and poorer health. Kasser defines "materialism" broadly, using it to categorize people who highly value not only money and possessions, but also being popular and good-looking. Such attributes, he writes, "all share a focus of looking for a sense of worth outside of oneself, and involve striving for external rewards and the praise of others."

 

Questionnaire recipients who emphasize such values more than three non-materialistic ones -- self-knowledge, relationships with family and friends, contributing to one's community -- are more likely to suffer from depression and low energy than other people. "What is more," Kasser writes, "they also reported significantly more experiences of physical symptoms ... [such as] headaches, backaches, sore muscles and sore throats."

 

Are certain groups more likely to be materialistic? Kasser mentions several, including people who watch a lot of television and children of divorce. But perhaps his most significant finding here is that materialistic values are more common among the poor.

 

It's a truism that people without money have pressing reasons to focus on it in ways the comfortable don't. But Kasser's definition of materialism doesn't measure someone's tendency to worry about paying the rent. Rather, it refers to what overall values they think are important. Poorer teens are more likely to value "being rich" over, say, personal relationships.

 

Kasser argues that this association holds because of the insecurity poverty breeds. "Such social environments often lead children to feel unsafe and insecure, and these unmet needs drive them to value the materialistic pursuits encouraged by society."

 

Of course, if materialism correlates with both poverty and poor health, a question that comes immediately to mind is that Kasser may not be measuring the poor health effects of materialistic values, but simply of being poor. But his findings control for this. As he remarks in regard to one study he examines, "Analyses showed that, regardless of their age or wealth, people with highly central materialistic values also reported lower well-being."

 

His argument is that there is something damaging in materialistic values themselves. And yet, paradoxically, given the links between materialism and poverty, ensuring people value money less will often involve ensuring that they have more of it. Perhaps the last word should go to Malcolm Forbes, who once remarked that money isn't everything, as long as you have enough.