by Author Name Withheld 201

Created on: April 17, 2008

CAN SCIENCE SETTLE THE QUESTION OF WHETHER MONEY CAN BUY HAPPINESS?

The question of whether or not money can indeed buy happiness is largely dependent upon how the individual chooses to define what makes them happy. Such a definition is generally based upon personal life experience, the values taught to them in childhood and throughout their most crucial developmental years, and what their experience has been later in life with the manifestations of joy and disappointment, and what the catalysts were of each.

The bottom line is that we learn from experience. Within a subjective reality wherein a thousand people can assign a thousand different words or feelings to describe a single painting or a photograph, they draw from past personal experiences which have shaped their perceptions and thus helped form their interpretive responses. Various branches of psychological study have proven this. Neuroscientists have even developed ways to measure human emotions in response to external stimuli. One part of the brain becomes more active when perceptibly pleasurable sensations are transmitted through any of the five senses. Another part of the brain becomes more active in response to unpleasant sensations, such as fear or worry. A person who is a member of a society with certain norms and values carved throughout the centuries may have entirely different responses and measures in brain activity than a person who has spent a lifetime engrained with entirely different ideals.

If you were to approach almost any young adult living in a first world country and ask if they believed that money would be capable of buying them happiness, in the majority of the cases the answer would be yes. Chances are they've heard their parents complaining about bills that need to be paid or things they wish they could afford, and the lack of money becomes associated with sadness and disappointment. Each time such a conversation repeats itself the belief is reinforced. Mass media marketing pairs products and their price tags alongside smiling people expressing seemingly inexhaustible positive emotion, thus money becomes acquainted with the purchasing of material possessions, which in turn are proposed to equal happiness. And the more we see this scenario played out, the more believable it becomes. The associations we make in life are largely based on the examples provided to us.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, if you were to approach people in underdeveloped third world countries and ask if

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