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- Tue Feb 28, 2017 1:40 pm
#33188
Passage Discussion
Passage A
This passage opens with an interesting paradox about wealth and happiness: While the wealthy are happier than the poor at any given time, as advanced societies have grown richer, people have not gotten happier as one might expect. People seem to compare their incomes to a norm that is based on two phenomena, which the author provides at the end of the opening paragraph of the passage: habituation, and rivalry.
People initially love an increase in their standard of living but soon adjust their expectations, so that their requirements increase along with their income. Similarly, job satisfaction increases when wages rapidly increase, but doesn’t seem to depend on absolute wages.
In the third paragraph, the author points out that since we don’t have the foresight to recognize that we will adjust to material possessions, we buy those possessions instead of investing in leisure.
Next, the author presents a study done by Solnick and Hemenway in which people chose from two options: either earn $50,000 per year while everyone else earns $25,000, or earn $100,000 per year while all others make $200,000. Most chose the first option, meaning that they didn’t mind making less as long as they were doing better than everyone else.
People’s income relative to others like them (their “reference group”) is critical. The author closes the passage with the example of East Germany, whose standard of living has significantly increased, but whose people are increasingly unhappy as they compare their living standards not with their previous living standards but rather with those of current West Germans.
Passage B
The second passage in this set begins with the question of whether the Solnick and Hemenway study means that we just want to “one up” our neighbors—maybe a primeval instinct to show superiority and attract mates, attempting to assure a place in the gene pool.
In the second paragraph the author takes issue with the hypothesis presented in the opening paragraph, saying that according to the data, earning more increases happiness because it leads to a feeling of greater success, and of having created value.
Two people who have different incomes will feel equally happy regardless, as long as they feel equally successful, but it is the success, says the author, and not the money, that provides the happiness.
The author closes the passage restating a more optimistic perspective on people: what scholars characterize as just wanting more, is actually just a desire to create value. This, the author provides, benefits society, and the fact that it also brings happiness is “a bonus.”
Passage A
This passage opens with an interesting paradox about wealth and happiness: While the wealthy are happier than the poor at any given time, as advanced societies have grown richer, people have not gotten happier as one might expect. People seem to compare their incomes to a norm that is based on two phenomena, which the author provides at the end of the opening paragraph of the passage: habituation, and rivalry.
People initially love an increase in their standard of living but soon adjust their expectations, so that their requirements increase along with their income. Similarly, job satisfaction increases when wages rapidly increase, but doesn’t seem to depend on absolute wages.
In the third paragraph, the author points out that since we don’t have the foresight to recognize that we will adjust to material possessions, we buy those possessions instead of investing in leisure.
Next, the author presents a study done by Solnick and Hemenway in which people chose from two options: either earn $50,000 per year while everyone else earns $25,000, or earn $100,000 per year while all others make $200,000. Most chose the first option, meaning that they didn’t mind making less as long as they were doing better than everyone else.
People’s income relative to others like them (their “reference group”) is critical. The author closes the passage with the example of East Germany, whose standard of living has significantly increased, but whose people are increasingly unhappy as they compare their living standards not with their previous living standards but rather with those of current West Germans.
Passage B
The second passage in this set begins with the question of whether the Solnick and Hemenway study means that we just want to “one up” our neighbors—maybe a primeval instinct to show superiority and attract mates, attempting to assure a place in the gene pool.
In the second paragraph the author takes issue with the hypothesis presented in the opening paragraph, saying that according to the data, earning more increases happiness because it leads to a feeling of greater success, and of having created value.
Two people who have different incomes will feel equally happy regardless, as long as they feel equally successful, but it is the success, says the author, and not the money, that provides the happiness.
The author closes the passage restating a more optimistic perspective on people: what scholars characterize as just wanting more, is actually just a desire to create value. This, the author provides, benefits society, and the fact that it also brings happiness is “a bonus.”