Pursuit of Happiness?

Last week the news broke that Americans spent about $9 billion on Halloween. That’s over twice the budget of the entire National Park Service and included almost half a billion dollars on costumes for their pets.

My first thought on hearing this was that people must be feeling pretty good about their life and their personal economic situation if they are willing to spend so much celebrating what years ago used to be a time for homemade costumes for kids going door to door. Now it has become a full-fledged manufactured holiday along the lines of Valentines Day. 

The overall spending level on Halloween has been consistent for at least the last eight years.

But the original story decries it as out of control consumerism. The writer labels that much spending on a non-holiday as a sign of conspicuous consumption. “Conspicuous consumption is designed to show others you are rich, smart or important.” It used to be a case of having a bigger house or fancier car than the neighbors. Today it’s having a better picture of themselves or their pets on Facebook or Instagram and garnering more likes.

That is also the conclusion of this Fox Business article: “Social media 'pressure' drives Halloween spending.” Their conclusion is based on a survey showing that “48 percent [of millennials] admitted to purchasing Halloween items solely for posting online, and four in ten millennials felt a lot of pressure to spend that money.” They were not alone. Over thirty percent of the generations that bracketed them admitted to having the same motivation.

This idea of conspicuous consumption goes beyond dressing up for selfies as this Forbes article explains in: “What Handing Out Full Size Candy Bars on Halloween Says About You, According to Behavioral Economists.” Stores this year were stocking more packages of full-size candy bars in anticipation of the pressure to out-do or at least keep up with the neighbors. “Your Halloween treats can signal not just what you have, but aspects of your character, such as your generosity.” It’s about social signaling, how we try to shape what others think of us.

This whole dynamic, too, is amplified by social media, the way it sets expectations and the way it makes the spread of a reputation, positive or negative, so much faster and easier.

So it’s conspicuous consumption, a sign of insecurity, that drives people to dress the dog like a cat or a box of cereal. It doesn’t sound like they are spending for the sake of a good time or to celebrate happiness at all.

Finally, this Washington Post story from last March confirms that notion: “Americans are the unhappiest they’ve ever been, U.N. report finds.” The US dropped for the third year in a row to 19^th place among 156 countries in the United Nation’s World Happiness Report, an annual ranking of overall happiness. 

“By most accounts, Americans should be happier now than ever,” writes Jean M. Twenge, one of the report’s co-authors. “The violent crime rate is low, as is the unemployment rate. Income per capita has steadily grown over the last few decades.” It’s hard to believe, except that the news media rarely reports this type of good news. Instead they dwell on the negative, the scary and the sensational to incense the audience and attract clicks and eyeballs. 

Commenters on the report blame the trend toward unhappiness in part on the rise in addiction, but isn’t that more of a symptom than a cause? Is it an increase in screen time, activities that have been linked to increases in depression?

Perhaps one key can be found back in the full-size candy bar story. “Our satisfaction is very subjective…it’s not absolute, but driven by what we expect.” Expectations are set by perspective. If we lack perspective we allow others to judge us and set our expectations, and that can only lead to unhappiness.

Gratitude

A key to good perspective is gratitude.  Instead of looking at and yearning for what we don’t have, we take time to appreciate the things we have.  This is not difficult at all in a country with so much to offer.  It is easy to identify these advantages with hindsight of 50 or 60 years, but our economy is introducing new innovations at such a rapid pace that it has reached a point a person need not be very old to remember “the old days when we didn’t have ….”

It has been only about 15 years since the smartphone, as we know it today, was introduced.  It could function like a cellphone but also had e-mail capability as well as browsing (if you could find some place to get access to the Internet).  By contrast, I remember the first time I saw a handheld calculator.  It could add, subtract, multiply and divide.  I think it could even do a square root.  The year was 1972 and it cost $250.  That would be the equivalent buying power of over $1400 today and all it could do were basic functions, but it was sure a lot more convenient than doing the work by hand and more precise than using a slide rule.  I was very impressed.  Now something with the same functionality would be a free promotional item that nobody really wants.  

Going back a little further, my grandparents called a refrigerator an “ice box” remembering a time when the ice man would deliver a large block, which would keep the food cold until it melted and had to be replaced.  Now refrigerators are standard and over 90% of residences are air-conditioned.  That’s a lot of progress in a few generations.  Imagine trying to explain streaming video to Abe Lincoln – not only how it works, but why so many people are willing to pay for it!

The problem is boredom, complacency and taking things for granted.  This article points out that this is not just an American problem; it’s a human problem.  They found that providing poor families in Central and South America with improved housing had only a temporary increase in happiness.  When they were interviewed 16 months later, the researchers found a substantial initial increase in happiness but “eight months after that -- two years after moving to the new housing -- about 60 percent of the increase in happiness goes away.”  This is why after thousands of years of technological innovations, from the printing press to indoor plumbing to smart phones (with an app telling where to get the best deal on your favorite wine), “evidence indicates…that happiness has not really increased over time."

The remedy for this human condition is gratitude.  We have more than our ancestors could have possibly imagined.  That’s something to consider the next time you are driving to the grocery store or a restaurant or a concert in your climate-controlled car and the phone starts playing your favorite ringtone.

Testing the Validity of Perspective

Continuing from last time on the subject of perspective, I expect some people are skeptical about my advice on moderation and gratitude.  Haven’t we been brought up to believe, with few exceptions, that more is better?  As you know, I endorse skepticism, favoring a show-me attitude over the gullibility that we see so often in our society.  (It's a sign of critical thinking.)  Accordingly, here is an article from the NY Times less then two weeks ago with results from several experiments showing the relationship between money and possessions on one hand and happiness on the other.

The article features the results of several experiments and analyses trying to determine this relationship.  The conclusions are very interesting and consistently supportive of the wisdom of using perspective to guide our behavior.  The questions addressed include:  at what point does making more money stop making people happier; how does the way money is spent affect happiness; and how does moderation play into the situation?

Gallup, the polling organization, collected data from nearly half a million Americans finding that “higher household incomes were associated with better moods on a daily basis — but the beneficial effects of money tapered off entirely after the $75,000 mark.”  Above that point there is no consistent improvement in happiness.  They also noticed that doubling income at lower levels does not double happiness, but does improve it somewhat.  (This represents a very large and significant sample size.)

In answer to the second question, research shows that spending money on yourself, buying the stuff you always wanted, is less effective in terms of making you happier.  They conclude that “you’re better served in many cases by simply buying less — and buying for others.”  Yes, hard to believe but spending money on others and not just buying more stuff often makes people happier.

Other research showed that overindulgence tends to reduce the pleasure associated with an experience, whereas the opposite tends to make that experience more valued.  Getting all you want today decreases the satisfaction of getting more in the future, but limiting quantities today or abstaining for a while will make future experiences more satisfying.   

These findings are interesting, but not surprising.   They merely reinforce the call to exercise perspective as defined last time and in my earlier posts.  It's something we have often heard but easily forget that money can't buy happiness.  As the ancient Greek philosophers and other sources of wisdom reminded us, happiness comes from enjoying "all things in moderation."