Happiness and the Ideological Mediation of Adaptation
The truly delicious bits of this new NBER working paper by Di Tella, Haisken-De New, and MacCulloch on adaptation to income and status is the stuff on political leanings:
We study “habituation” to income and to status using individual panel data on the happiness of 7,812 people living in Germany from 1984 to 2000. Specifically, we estimate a “happiness equation” defined over several lags of income and status and compare the long run effects. We can (cannot) reject the hypothesis of no adaptation to income (status) during the four years following an income (status) change. In the short-run (current year) a one standard deviation increase in status and 52% of one standard deviation in income are associated with similar increases in happiness. In the long-run (five year average) a one standard deviation increase in status has a similar effect to an increase of 285% of a standard deviation in income. We also present different estimates of habituation across sub-groups. For example, we find that those on the right (left) of the political spectrum adapt to status (income) but not to income (status).
That is (in case you’re confused), folks on the left get used to money, but not status and the reverse for folks on the right. This is funny, since I’ve been reading a bunch of papers on inequality, mostly by political philosophers on the left, and they are positively obsessed specifically with the status effects of material inequality. It’s pretty amusing if this is just a reflection of a particular personality type. More generally, the fact that the happiness-effects of various things seem to be mediated by ideological leanings seems to basically ruin the prospect of using happiness research as a neutral, scientific way of assessing policy. It may just end up sort-of-usefully reminding us that one group may like a certain policy and another group may not simply because it makes one group feel better and another group feel worse. It doesn’t settle the dispute: it explains why we’re having it. Also, ideological mediation is one more nail in the coffin for the introspective method of normative philosophy. If the effects of this or that on people’s sense of well-being is mediated by their ideological cast, then chances are, our intuitions about real and hypothetical cases are probably already deeply infected with our ideological notions–or with the personality traits that lead us to find those notions attractive–and arguments based on these intuitions simply beg all the interesting questions in a subtle way.
June 8th, 2007 03:43
Well– also, presumably, a reasoned moral judgement can cause us to dislike certain things.
I mean, if someone makes a racist comment in my earshot, I will feel unhappy because I think it’s immoral.
So to call moral judgements about status “just a reflection of a particular personality type” might have the causation reversed. Perhaps the “personality type” (system of preferences, in this case) is an outcome of moral beliefs. Or perhaps they arise together (seems plausible).
It does suggest, though, as you say, that happiness research results are going to be reflections of particular views on morality. If we believe that a person’s system of morality is changeable, then happiness research is complicated by (1) analyzing a moving target and (2) giving us a lot of biased evidence in support of our current way of doing things.
My own feeling on this is that there are many “local maxima” in systems of morality/happiness, especially when you note that people tend to surround themselves with people they agree with.
A truly nonpartisan analysis of happiness would perhaps seek a global optimum, in addition to wanting to know more about all of the local optima (and how local optima arise– what are the social prerequisites, how do the necessary moral systems, social strictures/etiquette, etc. come about). Additionally, techniques for “nudging” ourselves out of local optima.
June 8th, 2007 08:03
Of course this also significantly undercuts Layard’s case for taxing the negative internality that arises from adaptation. If those on the right are typically the ones earning the big bucks, and those on the left are typically the ones who give up that sort of thing for more prestigious jobs or whatever, then that suggests that, by and large people actually are aware of the things that will make them happy in the long run, and may be properly taking account of whatever internalities exist already.
June 8th, 2007 08:31
Interesting. If true, would this say anything about the “left” leaning bias of Academia, and the “right” leaning bias in industry?
June 8th, 2007 09:04
Ah, it is (is not) all so perfectly clear (confusing) now (then).
June 8th, 2007 09:11
More generally, the fact that the happiness-effects of various things seem to be mediated by ideological leanings…
Is that the correct direction of causality? I would expect ideologial leanings to be mediated by happiness-effects. That is, you turn right because of your sensitivity to income effects or left because of your sensitivity to status effects. That would make ideological leanings an expression of what sort of improvement (income/status) is more important to you, which we then presumably project on everyone else.
June 8th, 2007 09:39
Zubon: good point! I guess I was thinking of studies that show a correlation between personality traits and ideological stance and other studies showing a correlation between these same traits and happiness.
June 8th, 2007 11:50
Isn’t status (income) a zero-sum (positive-sum) quantity? Regardless of its importance to specific people, a general improvement of status (income) seems to be a contradiction in terms (obviously desirable).
June 8th, 2007 12:22
I’d love to join this discussion, but, honestly, I’m even more confused than ever.
June 8th, 2007 12:39
George: I hear you. I am confused when I look back at the original post. (It doesn’t help the discussion that I wrote my response at 4 in the morning)
It seems like first, Will says that moral intuitions are the result of “personality”…
It’s pretty amusing if this is just a reflection of a particular personality type.
Next, Will seems to say that “happiness-effects” are the result of moral intuitions…
More generally, the fact that the happiness-effects of various things seem to be mediated by ideological leanings..
So this seems to paint the picture:
Personality -> Moral intuitions -> happiness-effects.
I am not sure how to distinguish “personality” from “happiness-effects”. In my first response I was conflating the two, but now I’m not sure what’s going on.
If I don’t habituate to something good, that means I am happier. If I tend not to habituate to a certain kind of good thing, that seems to be a statement about my personality… ??!
If I do not tend to habituate to status, is that a statement about my personality?
June 8th, 2007 14:54
Huh? (huh?)
June 8th, 2007 17:03
If it’s true that “our intuitions about real and hypothetical cases are probably already deeply infected with our ideological notions–or with the personality traits that lead us to find those notions attractive,” then how do we hold off the creeping anomie of postmodernism? Isn’t this just what they (the pomos) have been claiming all along? Especially this line: “It doesn’t settle the dispute: it explains why we’re having it.”
June 10th, 2007 05:39
[...] of people (including Kevin Drum, Brad DeLong and Tyler Cowen have jumped in on this post by Will Wilkinson about this NBER study of habituation to changes in income and status. Wilkinson and most [...]
June 10th, 2007 18:20
[...] Will Wilkinson / The Fly Bottle » Blog Archive » Happiness and the Ideological Mediation of Adapta… Fascinating. (tags: economics happiness research politics status money) [...]
June 11th, 2007 10:56
[...] (via Fly Bottle) [...]
June 12th, 2007 10:03
‘Personality’ traits have no place in this discussion, not only because they are not part of the NBER paper, but mainly because ‘personality’ if taken to mean enduring consistency in patterns of behavior, has simply not been found to exist empirically. That is, when we look at individual persons, we find inconsistency across situations, framing effects so large as to swamp any notion of consistency, and nothing there. This annoys people because they think they have a consistent personality, but, sorry, they don’t.
June 16th, 2007 21:28
This reminds me of a proverb:
Honor goes to kind and gracious women,
mere money to cruel men.
(TLB Pro 11:16)
or:
A gracious woman attains honor,
And ruthless men attain riches.
(Nasb Pro 11:16)
July 5th, 2007 23:03
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May 1st, 2008 13:36
Good point “guest”!