Sep 23, 2010 -- 2:12PM, arielg wrote:

Char has a point. The poor have a higher level of angst not  because their material needs aren't satisfied, but because their basic  needs aren't satisfied. There is something to money bringing less stress  (and therefore more happiness).

I don't think you could find a better example of materialism,  a doctrine that material success and progress are the highest values in life.

 It doesn't   matter how I treat others or how I live, as long as I have what I want.

Karl Marx would be proud...

I think you might benefit from sitting more. Your thinking is completely undisciplined here.

What you say is off topic, fully unrelated to the research in question. Kahneman and Deaton did not ever suggest "material success and progress are the highest values in life", and in fact, Irene's reference to Maslow makes clear that material stuff is rather lowest in life, if that escaped you. Nor did Kahneman and Deaton say it doesn't matter how you treat others, and so on.

All these additions are your very own free associations, following only your own private logic.

While a definitive response to the query “What is happiness?” will permanently stay elusive, Drs. Angus Deaton and Daniel Kahneman, of Princeton University, have attempted to find contentment in numbers. Specifically, the physician duo investigated replies to the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index (GHWBI) questionnaire. Curiously, households in the U.S. gaining exactly $75,000 per year were found to be most joyful. Article resource: People are happiest at $75,000 per year, says study

But I do not totally agree with them. If a person doesn't know how to feel contentment he can never be happy no matter what he achieve in his life. Sure thing $75, 000 a year is really such a great money. But the happiness that you feel is only shallow. This maybe cliché but if we do not feel any love for ourselves and to others we're like zombies in this world. Seems alive in the outside but dead deep down inside