From: Walter Watts (wlwatts@home.com)
Date: Wed Jan 09 2002 - 12:11:02 MST
Can Money Can Buy Happiness? Apparently, Yes
January 9, 2002 1:21 pm EST
LONDON (Reuters) - The adage that "money can't buy happiness" is quite
wrong, with even quite small lottery wins or inheritances able to
produce lasting contentment, new research published in Britain has
shown.
Professors Andrew Oswald and Jonathan Gardner of Warwick University in
central England tracked 9,000 families over the past decade to study
whether there was a link between cash windfalls and contentment.
"We find a very strong link between cash falling on you and higher
contentment and better mental health in the following year," said
Oswald, who is a leading researcher in the area of happiness and
economic performance.
"We have found effects from even tiny windfalls of 1,000 pounds
($1,400). And the more you get, the better you feel," he told BBC radio.
A windfall of a million pounds, the research showed, would be enough to
transform even the most miserable person into a picture of joy.
The study, which the authors say is the best scientific evidence yet on
the link between cash windfalls such as lottery wins or an inheritance
and happiness, goes some way to proving the central tenet of economics
that money makes people happy.
But Oswald stressed that the research looked at the average person, and
could not account for everyone.
The Sun newspaper, for example, carried a story on Wednesday about a
tramp who won nearly two million pounds on Britain's National Lottery
two years ago but ended up drinking himself to death.
-- Walter Watts Tulsa Network Solutions, Inc.
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