Whilst looking, I hit this great site of some talks on social policy and the psychology of happiness. The difficulty of separating measurements of happiness from the impact of income level is discussed at length. Also, the observation that happy people may not be the best for some jobs, like power plant safety monitors. They're more likely to be feeling positive and not expecting the worst: "It was alright yesterday, why should it be any worse today?"
Look for the link at the bottom to the panel talk transcript: Informing Policy Choices Using the Economics of Happiness
2 comments :
Don't know if you found the Times article, but here's a link.
--Erik
(Blogger won't allow the CITE tag?!)
There's a nice article on technology and happiness by James Surowiecki in the latest Tech Review.
http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/01/issue/surowiecki0105.asp
The Amish consistently rate high on the happiness meter despite their infrequent visits to Circuit City.
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