idw – Informationsdienst Wissenschaft

Nachrichten, Termine, Experten

Grafik: idw-Logo
Science Video Project
idw-Abo

idw-News App:

AppStore

Google Play Store



Instanz:
Teilen: 
11.02.2019 10:39

Happiness research: the long-term effects of life events are overestimated

lic. phil. Christoph Dieffenbacher Kommunikation & Marketing
Universität Basel

    People are evidently no good at predicting their own happiness or unhappiness: key life events such as marriage, invalidity or the death of a partner affect well-being for less time than those affected think. Two economists from the University of Basel came to this conclusion in the Journal of the European Economic Association.

    Estimates about how people assess their future well-being are the basis of many decisions, which means they are also of economic interest. People tend to be bad at predicting their subjective well-being, report Dr. Reto Odermatt and Professor Alois Stutzer from the University of Basel’s Faculty of Business and Economics. For their study, they used data from a long-term survey of more than 30,000 people in Germany.

    Return to the level of previous years

    The two researchers compared predicted life satisfaction with what the participants actually reported five years later. They focused on people who had experienced major life events such as marriage, the death of a partner, invalidity, unemployment, separation or divorce. This showed that the events had less of a long-term impact on predicted satisfaction than the participants assumed.

    As expected, the examined life events had a significant impact on the subjective well-being of those affected: positive events were linked to a strong increase in life satisfaction, and negative events to a strong decrease. However, people systematically underestimated how long the effect of an event would continue. The fluctuations in life satisfaction did not last long, but rather swung back completely or partially to the long-term level of previous years.

    Effect of adaptation

    Recently married people, for example, overestimate how happy they will be in five years’ time. In contrast, people underestimate their future life satisfaction after negative events, such as having recently lost their job, becoming partly or fully disabled, or the death of a partner. There was an exception, however: after separating from their partner, participants estimated the change in their life satisfaction five years later more or less correctly.

    “Our results run contrary to the central assumption of economic theory that individuals can usually predict what will benefit them,” explain the researchers. The effect of adaptation could contribute to these mispredictions: people do not place enough weight on the idea that they can get used to positive or negative circumstances and adjust to them. Events and new circumstances thereby lose their appeal – or become less burdensome.

    The consequences of misprediction

    Misprediction could lead to biases when making decisions, say the researchers, if adaptation is not taken into account. People may decide differently if they knew in advance how quickly they could get used to certain altered life circumstances. The risk of misprediction is particularly great if trade-offs must be made between different areas of life – or between activities and possessions, to which people can adapt very differently. For example, people tend to adapt easily to material goods, but less easily to social circumstances.


    Wissenschaftliche Ansprechpartner:

    Dr. Reto Odermatt, University of Basel, Center for Research in Economics and Well-Being (CREW), Tel. +41 61 207 33 63, email: reto.odermatt@unibas.ch

    Prof. Dr. Alois Stutzer, University of Basel, Faculty of Business and Economics, Political Economy, Tel. +41 61 207 33 61, email: alois.stutzer@unibas.ch


    Originalpublikation:

    Reto Odermatt, Alois Stutzer
    (Mis-)Predicted Subjective Well-Being Following Life Events
    Journal of the European Economic Association (2019), doi: 10.1093/jeea/jvy005


    Weitere Informationen:

    https://academic.oup.com/jeea/article/17/1/245/4961435 - Original source


    Bilder

    Newlyweds overestimate how satisfied they'll be in five years. After negative events, however, people underestimate their future life satisfaction.
    Newlyweds overestimate how satisfied they'll be in five years. After negative events, however, peopl ...
    Image: Mark Zamora/unsplash | CC0
    None


    Merkmale dieser Pressemitteilung:
    Journalisten, Lehrer/Schüler, Studierende, Wirtschaftsvertreter, Wissenschaftler, jedermann
    Psychologie, Wirtschaft
    überregional
    Forschungsergebnisse, Wissenschaftliche Publikationen
    Englisch


     

    Newlyweds overestimate how satisfied they'll be in five years. After negative events, however, people underestimate their future life satisfaction.


    Zum Download

    x

    Hilfe

    Die Suche / Erweiterte Suche im idw-Archiv
    Verknüpfungen

    Sie können Suchbegriffe mit und, oder und / oder nicht verknüpfen, z. B. Philo nicht logie.

    Klammern

    Verknüpfungen können Sie mit Klammern voneinander trennen, z. B. (Philo nicht logie) oder (Psycho und logie).

    Wortgruppen

    Zusammenhängende Worte werden als Wortgruppe gesucht, wenn Sie sie in Anführungsstriche setzen, z. B. „Bundesrepublik Deutschland“.

    Auswahlkriterien

    Die Erweiterte Suche können Sie auch nutzen, ohne Suchbegriffe einzugeben. Sie orientiert sich dann an den Kriterien, die Sie ausgewählt haben (z. B. nach dem Land oder dem Sachgebiet).

    Haben Sie in einer Kategorie kein Kriterium ausgewählt, wird die gesamte Kategorie durchsucht (z.B. alle Sachgebiete oder alle Länder).