Member Article

Is there a link between money and happiness?

Researchers hope to finally answer the question: Can money buy happiness?

The effects of a cash prize from the lottery on one’s own long-term personal happiness have been examined by researchers at the University of Warwick and Watson Wyatt.

Unsurprisingly the researchers found that small wins in tens or hundreds of pounds made little long term difference, but they also found one did not need to win the jackpot to gain a significant increase in long-term mental wellbeing.

Professor Andrew Oswald from the University of Warwick and Dr Jonathan Gardner from Watson Wyatt showed that medium-sized lottery wins ranging from around just £1000 to £120,000 had a long term sustained impact in the overall happiness of those winners. On average, two years after their win medium-sized lottery winners experience a slight increase in mental wellbeing - meaning loosely that two years after their win they were just over 10% happier than the average person without a win or only a tiny lottery win.

Interestingly, the researchers also found that this increased happiness is not obvious immediately after the medium-sized win and takes some time to show through.

Economist Professor Andrew Oswald from the University of Warwick said:“This delay could be due the short term disruptive effect on one’s live of actually winning, but a more plausible explanation of the delay is that initially many windfall lottery funds are saved and spent later.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .