Thursday June 28 1:25 PM ET
Road to Happiness Not Paved with Money: Study
By Alan Mozes NEW YORK (Reuters Health) -
``Money can't buy me love,'' sang The Beatles, and they may have been right. Researchers say those who look for happiness in the almighty dollar may end up short-changed.
``There's no one reason people acquire money, but where people get into trouble is when they try to get it to do things it can't do, such as character-building and self-esteem-building,'' explained study co-author Dr. Edwin A. Locke. ``Money can't buy your own values or love, of course. And if you try to get it to do things it can't do, you're going to be disappointed.''
Locke and his colleagues at the University of Maryland in College Park explored the prime factors that drive the desire for money among college students and business professionals.
The researchers report in the June issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology on three related studies they conducted involving more than 500 university business students and 145 entrepreneurs. All were surveyed about their aspirations for wealth and their general sense of well-being.
From this, the researchers were able to isolate 10 major reasons why people seek to make money, including: security, the ability to support a family, and to increase purchasing power, pride, leisure time and freedom. Respondents also wanted to be able to behave more impulsively and charitably, to ``show off,'' and to overcome self-doubt.
The researchers described these motivations as being a function of one of three things: a negative desire to socially compete and acquire power over others; a positive desire to meet life needs and achieve a measure of success; or a more-or-less neutral desire to have the freedom to do as one pleases--whether that be to shop until you drop or give it all away to a charity.
It was those who sought money based on negative motives who seemed to have a lesser sense of well-being, according to the researchers. However, those dreaming of wealth based on positive motives neither harmed nor helped their sense of self worth.
They conclude that while ``money itself is not harmful,'' problems arise when wealth is used to fill voids such as self-doubt.
``I don't think anyone who has half a brain can think that money alone--divorced from other things--can bring happiness,'' Locke told Reuters Health. ``A lot of other things--your character, your family life, whether you're making money doing something you love--are absolutely critical to your sense of happiness. And wanting to be big-shot, wanting to prove you're not stupid, wanting to show off--if those are your motives, I don't think money will make you happy.''
SOURCE: Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 2000;80:959-971.