Analysis Of The Happiness Hypothesis By Jonathan Haidt

Many Articles assessed in our class argue that money does make people happier, until they reach a certain income when the benefit levels out. I address three articles that address this concern in different ways: Chapter five in The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt, “A Formula for Happiness” by Arthur C. Brooks, and “High income improves evaluation of life, but not emotional well-being” by Kahneman, D., & Deaton, A., and Kahneman and Deaton’s discussion of life evaluation and emotional well-being. Haidt challenges the idea that happiness only comes from within ourselves not from external objects. He argues there are many external conditions that affects our happiness. He explains many different ways of improving one’s happiness by changing
In this article they state that “income and education are most closely related to life evaluation but health, care giving, loneliness, and smoking are relatively stronger predictors of daily emotions” (Kahneman 2010). This supports Haidt’s argument that external circumstances can change someone’s happiness. This is true because many people are starting to go back to college to get a better education so they are able to be paid a higher salary. They will even go back to college to completely learn a whole new major and then change jobs because they are unhappy with their previous job. They decide to change one of their outside conditions that is causing them to be unhappy. This has led to more happiness in the world as more people like their job. It’s also true because people that have better health tend to be happier than those who are not as healthy. People live far better lives if they are healthier than if they are always sick. The people that are sick all the time will limit themselves because they might not want to get anyone else sick or they aren’t in a good enough state to do the task they wanted. Life evaluation is a major key to happiness since people have to think they are happy to be
People would say that extra money would always be nice to have so they are able to go out and spend it on maybe a nice dinner or something they have wanted to buy for a long time, but the research shows that people that have a household income of $150,000 are just barely happier than people that have a household income of $75,000. This proves that money does buy happiness, to a point. These pieces are proof that our external environment and conditions effect our happiness. People are able to try and change their conditions to bring them more happiness and for many people that will work. Everyone has the right to be happy so why don’t we all change the things that make us