[p2p-research] More detail on money and happiness

[Ryan Lanham]

On Sat, Apr 17, 2010 at 5:14 PM, Patrick Anderson <agnucius at gmail.com>wrote:

> > Yet another study, this one by Boyce et al. (open access), confirming
> that money doesn't buy happiness, people gain "utility" from occupying a
> higher ranked position within an income distribution rather than from either
> absolute income or their position relative to a reference wage:
>
> I wonder how these things compare to Food and Shelter which so many on
> the planet are without...
>
>
Strangely, culture after culture, society after society, the same result
keeps coming up.  People don't care about absolute wealth very much.  They
care about being at the top of a relative grouping.  Hierarchy may very well
be innate particularly at local levels.  Overcoming that seems problematic,
to say the least.

Another interesting similar story much in the psychological press...animals
seem to have personality types as leaders, followers, flatterers, etc. very
much as people do.  Again, this would seem to mediate against the ideas of
either equality or peer to peer at first blush.  Biologically, we may be
wired to fill social niches in hierarchies.
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