Habituation, Loneliness & Consumerism
If you want to be happpy, marriage, family, & friendship matter way more than money. In The Loss of Happiness in Market Democracies, Robert Lane’s argument is that market societies induce people to spend their time and energy acquiring greater material wealth at the expense of companionship, and, as a consequence, happiness suffers.
But if companionship makes us happier than stuff, why don’t we demand more companionship and less stuff? Lane seems to hypothesize that there is a diffference in the salience of satisfaction that biases us in favor of stuff. I found this interesting:
Adaptation is the key. If people can adapt to the chronic absence of their arms and legs [ww: as opposed to their temporary or intermittent absence?]– as they do — they will also adapt to absence of friendship, and it is this adaptation that accounts for the lack of demand by the lonely for friends. But, as with the elderly, this adaptation may have a hidden cost, for “the presence of a familiar person lowers blood pressure under stress, [and] . . . people whose heart rates rise more in [certain] experiments have high blood pressure two to 15 years later, whether or not they acknowledge being under stress or feeling intense emotion
What I take Lane to be saying is that companionship adds a subtle positive tone to experience, and we report ourselves much happier when our experience is shot through with that tone. The positive tone is the correlate of an objective organic good. (Not clear the way the causation goes here.) But the quality of the experience is subtle, the source is not easily attributable, and we quickly adapt to its absence, and so are not easily motivated to seek out its cause.
The hedonic surge from material consumption, however, is intense and immediate, and its source is easily attributable. However, due to habituation to the presence of new stuff, there is little lasting satisfaction from consumption. We’d be better off cultivating our relationships. However, because the fleeting hedonic payoff of consumption is more psychologically salient, we’re more easily moved to go for a fresh consumption high. Thus, we’ll tend to make ourselves less happy, and less healthy, as we consume.
Do you find this convincing?
June 30th, 2005 12:39
This is an important topic, and I like your perspective. Here’s another piece of the conversation, referencing Edge participant Daniel Gilbert. It would be good to figure this out, and the neurological and other incentives involved.
June 30th, 2005 12:59
I’m not sure how this is any different from the “too many choices” meme that has been so thoroughly debunked recently (including by me).
“Friends are worth more than money” is a subjective overlay reflecting personal biases that have no objective basis any more than do the assertions that “vanilla tastes better than chocolate” or “skiing is more fun than snorkeling.”
June 30th, 2005 13:10
Dilys, Thanks for the link and the pointer to the Gilbert interview.
Kip, I find it much more persuasive when a mechanism, like this one, is posited. I find Lane’s hypothesis not unlikely. The implication, however, is not that we should shut down or limit markets, but that people should be aware of the importance of relationships.
In any case, this is something that does need explaining. The data showing that marriage, family & friends is of first importance to one’s sense of well-being is overwhelming. And the evidence that these things are not improving is strong. Do you have an alternative explanation?
June 30th, 2005 15:08
I like your post, I believe this is a very important issue. I think many of us intuitively realise that happiness through consumption is an endless spiral.
However, an important assumption is that benefits from consumption are not lasting and that we are immediately driven toward more stuff.
Given that it is somehow “bad”, I wonder why we are fooled for so long in the process. What makes us so eager for more immediate consumption that we don’t see the more subtle long-term benefits of companionship.
Perhaps this is something that must be learned/acquired?
June 30th, 2005 22:25
“But if companionship makes us happier than stuff, why don’t we demand more companionship than stuff?”
One obvious, unmentioned, reason is that ‘companionship’ is difficult and complicated with risk. ‘Stuff’ by comparison is easy, just trade other ’stuff’.Proportionate risk rewards are thus vastly different.
July 1st, 2005 07:06
I hope you don’t mind… such a long comment:
I use to believe the meaning of life was forming the symbiotic relationship between socialization and the individual, and for the most part, it seems to be concrete though I created it when I was much younger. The propagation of the species is the byproduct from socialization and the individual, and Happiness is the byproduct of the individual and socialization (notice the act of socializing…). I believe this actually can be used here quite well.
As the quote from Lane points out, adaptation is key. Nevertheless, the question still lies, why adapt rather then just searching? Humankind fears change, firstly. Secondly, humankind fears pain, obviously. I saw once in a show a name for the reason those who are alone fear to seek out others, the porcupine’s dilemma. A lonely man craves for others, but they do not wish either to be hurt nor hurt others. Pain is key to man, we want less, but if the process to acquire less might mean more pain, we are at times not willing to take the chance and embrace the change.
The one thing that any person in this world truly seeks is to be understood for who they ARE. Most people go into a relationship gaining understanding of the other as a whole as time goes on, but we see only that which we let ourselves see, we rarely can see the whole picture painted behind other’s facades. I have experimented with this a few times, and found this to really be true. If you go into a conversation, no matter how much of a wall has been constructed, and use what information you have on the person to speak in a way that is true to them, you will be embraced, for this entices no fear to the perceiver, for he who is speaking sees and accepts the perceiver in its entirety, and the perceiver has no reason to place a wall for change is not inevitable from the interaction in a way which compromises themselves as a whole…. The perceiver does not then see pain nor change eminent.
As for the materialistic nature of man, indeed it is for temporary gratification. For those who are lonely, and time is idle, one needs to occupy themselves with something to pass the time, but does not have nearly as much to turn inside to, for the though of pain is surely to arise. Loneliness can be a great pain, and what better way for a single person to pass the time, then to interact through society through its products.
Man is indeed materialistic by result, and man is indeed innately extremely social, but it is much easier to go to the store and buy something rather then go seek various new people when pain or change will surely present itself. I am not sure if this quite answers that which you were referring to, but I am sure it at least alludes to a few principles you might find relative.
I suppose also to point out, most of those who are truly reclusive, tend to have a key problem extending from their past, which until resolve is found, keeps the person bound to a reclusive nature. Without some new form of understanding, we generally cannot change that which truly ails us. Others are very key to providing resolve to these problems, for that which we can not create, might already exist in others, and rather then trying to create that which we need, we might simply need to open our mouths and answer will come forth… this kind of change is also blatantly strikes fear for it does again correlate to change.
July 1st, 2005 09:35
Jim, Excellent point. Dilys makes in the post s/he links to above: “in a munificently prosperous society, it’s easier unilaterally to buy something than to negotiate a relationship. Or we think it is. ”
I think that’s a very important observation.
July 2nd, 2005 07:58
I think I agree with Kip that this sounds like a variation on the ‘too many choices’ theme.
As I understand it, the argument is that capitalism gives people the option of satisfying their immediate urges with material purchases in a way which eventually leaves them unhappier than they might otherwise have been.
Firstly, it’s worth pointing out that it’s prosperity which does this, not capitalism. The very rich have been choosing decadance over real interpersonal interaction from as far back in history as I’ve read. The ‘problem’ with capitalism, and with mass-production, is that they’ve placed the satisfaction of short-term materialist urges within the means of a far larger proportion of the population.
Secondly, it strikes me that this is what choice is about. People who choose to take the easy short-term hit over a more difficult path which may eventually lead to deeper happiness are making a classic intertemporal substitution. The same decision making process is behind the choice to drink, take drugs and overindulge on rich food. In every case there are those who think we’d be better off if they could set boundaries on our choices. The results don’t always work out the way they’d expect.
Finally, and before this post gets too unwieldy. It’s worth noting that any evidence that materialism is eventually unsatisfying is a good thing. If it takes some people longer than others to discover that they need to interact with others to fulfil their wider goals it doesn’t necessarily follow that there are any shortcuts we can provide for them. Important lessons take time to learn, and some don’t learn them at all.
July 3rd, 2005 18:09
How frustrating one of my comments disappeared. Forgive if this repeats. Will, There is a book that bears on this topic, as I am sure you know: The Joyless Economy, The Psychology of Human Satisfaction, Tibor Scitovsky. It argues that the pleasure of ownership quickly turns to comfort only and that we so come to assume the presense of a new watch or car or home that we will remark on their absence only. My ethnographic research and my own experience tells me this is at least sometimes wrong. I remark with some frequency on how much I like my computer. The person who drives a Mercedes admires the way it corners every morning on the way to work. Scitovsky’s vision is beloved by the anti-consumer society crew because it suggests the operation of a ratchet effect for those who are lucky enough to scale the ladder from Lada to Mercedes. All the satisfactions must quickly disappear. But any descent will be cruel. We will notice the Mercedes only when it is taken from us. Thanks, Grant.
July 3rd, 2005 21:07
I think another factor is that companionship does involve a lot of short-run costs. Often companions can be irritating or demanding. Ties to other people limit our ability to pursue immediate objectives. Also we can streneously disagree and have bad fights with people.
And I think the evidence from behavioural studies that people often have short-term impulses that are very different from their long-term desires is quite compelling (partly because I recognise such tendencies in myself and have developed various methods for off-setting them). The example is of a cigarette addict who vows to give them up before he gets lung cancer, throws his cigarettes into the rubbish bin and pours detergent down on them, then five minutes later is out hunting for the nearest 24-hour petrol station to stock up again. A more relevant example, and one that doesn’t involve chemical addiction, is me thinking I really ought to study for the exam next week, while still reading my detective novel.
If the theory that our short-term impulses can outweigh our long-term desires is right, it could explain why so many people are bad at developing friendships and relationships. Though we can recognise that friendships are good in the long-run, we can ruin them in the short-run. Or simply pass up on obligations that are temporarily irritating.
Furthermore our increased wealth and the welfare state means that it is less necessary to maintain relationships. The higher the long-term stakes are, the easier I find it to outweigh my short-term impulses. Nowdays there are a whole variety of formal protections. E.g. life insurance, household insurance, income protection insurance, the dole, vaccines, all reduce the need for the support of our families and friends. And, too, the rule of law and the market economy allows more trades between people who do not know each other, meaning you can infuriate your relatives and still find well-paying work. Compare to 18th century England when nearly everyone in the Army or the Navy got promoted through ‘connections’ or the purchasing of commmissions. We are less materially dependent on our families and friends, therefore it’s not that surprising that we are less likely to put effort into maintaining our connections.
July 8th, 2005 02:21
I’m a little surprised, Will, that you haven’t drawn attention to perhaps the most compelling support for Lane’s hypothesis. It all comes down to the human quest for status.
If we can believe the popular evolutionary psych idea that humans are genetically programmed to be aware of where they stand on the social heirarchy and to take active measures to move up, then it’s fairly easy to see why consumerism has diminished the focus on interpersonal relationships.
It is obvious that conspicuous consumption is a very clear indicator of status in modern soceties - the wealthy are generally seen as the “upper crust” (for better or worse). Furthermore, in a society where demand for goods and services of virtually any type can be met, opportunities to achieve high status are everywhere - by working in industries that meet consumer demands *and* by purchasing more and more “stuff” with the money made from such endeavors. The end result is the rat race and the phenomenon of ‘keeping up with the joneses.’
Ironically, the pursuit of status, like the quest for mutually altruistic relationships is, genetically-speaking, a means to an end - successful production of reproductively successful offspring. In caveman days, high status was *the path* to interpersonal relationships. Nowadays, however, with so many more ways to achieve status, and with the top of the totem pole orders of magnitude higher than it was in the ancestral environment, status-seeking has taken on a life of its own. Our caveman minds are in going haywire in this modern world. This, I think, more than anything else, lends credence to Lane’s assertion.
BTW - I have only stated the problem as I see it. I don’t accept anti-consumerism sentiments that are usually offered as the solution. I just think it’s incumbent upon us to consider how much our genes are driving our behavior, despite how far removed we may be from the lives of our cave-dwelling ancestors. From there, we need only rationally determine what really makes sense in life. When we do, we find that a Timex really is just as good as a Rolex.
I’ve written more about this on my blog -
http://www.enlightenedcaveman.com/2005/02/consumerism-status-gone-haywire.html
I also commented on your Cato article earlier this year. Good stuff (you, not me, of course).
http://www.enlightenedcaveman.com/2005/02/sounds-better-when-he-says-it.html