《时代周刊》：谁说金钱买不来幸福？

Martin

人们常说金钱买不来幸福。不过，普林斯顿大学伍德罗·威尔逊学院一项新研究表明，在某种程度上钱的确能买到幸福 - 只要你每年赚到大约7.5万美元。一个人的收入越是低于这个基准，他/她越是感觉不幸福。但是，收入只要是高于7.5万美元，无论再高出多少，幸福感都不会有所增加。

雇主们先别急着把每个员工的薪水保持在或提高到7.5万美元。这项研究指出，幸福感其实有两种类型。一种是指你每日变化的情绪：或压力大或忧郁，或心理感觉正常。另一种是你对自己生活方式的更深层次的满足，这正是托尼·罗宾斯(Tony Robbins)要教给你的。赚到高于神奇临界值7.5万美元的收入，似乎对前者（情绪福祉）没有什么效果，但肯定能够改善罗宾斯所指的生活满意度。换句话说，收入超出7.5万美元越多，人越觉得自己的生活总体上令人满意。不过，这并不会令他们每天早上感觉更愉快。

这项研究是由由经济学家安格斯·迪顿（Angus Deaton）和诺贝尔经济学奖得主、心理学家丹尼尔·卡纳曼（Daniel Kahneman）共同完成的。研究分析了2008年和2009年盖洛普和Healthways所调查的45万美国人的答卷。他们被问及收入状况、前一天感觉如何，以及是否过上了他们所能过上的最理想生活。

作者发现，大多数美国人（85%）每天都感到幸福，这跟与年收入多少无关。约有40％的受访者回答他们感到压力大（压力大和幸福感并不相互排斥），另有24％的人的感到难过。大多数人对自己的生活感到满意。

那么，7.5万美元到底有什么作用？研究人员发现，低收入本身并未造成难过，而是使人更真切地感到了当前问题的折磨。例如，研究发现，在离婚的人当中，约有51%月收入不足1000美元者回答前一天感觉难过或压力大，而只有24%的月收入超过3000美元者回答有类似的感觉。在患有哮喘病的人当中，有41％的低收入者感到不快乐，而收入较高一组这一比例只有22%。金钱明显具有消除不快的效果。

到了7.5万美元，这种效果就消失了。对于赚到这个数目或更多的人来说，个性气质和生活情况对心情畅快的影响比金钱的影响要大得多。该研究并未说明为何将基准设为7.5万美元，但“我感觉这似乎是个可信的数字，达到了这个水平后人们会觉得钱已不是问题，”迪顿说。在这个收入水平上，人们可能有足够的现金去做喜欢的事，比如和朋友一起出去玩 （顺便说一句，一个四口之家的联邦贫困线是22,050美元。）

但是，我们考察更宏观的生活视野后发现，社会评价越来越与人们的收入联系在一起。人们赚得越多，对自己的生活越满意。这项调查要求受访者回答自己处于生活满意度阶梯的哪一级，第一级表示对自己的生活不满意，第10级表示正过着理想的生活。结果是，收入越高，选择的梯级也越高。 “重要的是，收入有了一定的增幅，人们对他的评价也有同等幅度的提高，不论他是富人还是穷人，甚至也和美元的绝对数目没有关系，”作者写道。所以，年收入每增长10%，人们也会在满意度阶梯上上升10%，无论他赚2.5万美元或10万美元。 “高收入带不来幸福，但能带来你认为是更好的生活，”作者总结说。可能是时候让这些家伙们上一下奥普拉秀了？ (译者注：求眉批)2

以往对于金钱与幸福的研究还发现，与幸福发生联系的并不是绝对财富，而是相对财富或地位－－就是说，你的财富比你的邻居多多少。

这一调查是在多个国家进行的，美国人的结果五花八门也不就足为奇：在151个国家中，美国人幸福感排第5名，微笑第33名，喜悦第10名。同时，美国人烦恼排第89名，难过排第69名，压力排第5名。即便如此，可能由于美国的总体财富，美国人进入了国民生活满意度前10强国家之列，排在永远的乐观派加拿大人、新西兰人和斯堪地纳维亚人后面。

没错。现在，普林斯顿大学的研究人员已经解开了生命之谜，也许麻省理工学院的高人能够告诉我们购买爱情所需的最准确钱数。

How Much Money Do We Need to Be Happy? Just $75,000? - TIME

People say money doesn't buy happiness. Except, according to a new study from Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School, it sort of does — up to about $75,000 a year. The lower a person's annual income falls below that benchmark, the unhappier he or she feels. But no matter how much more than $75,000 people make, they don't report any greater degree of happiness.

Before employers rush to hold — or raise — everyone's salary to $75,000, the study points out that there are actually two types of happiness. There's your changeable, day-to-day mood: whether you're stressed or blue or feeling emotionally sound. Then there's the deeper satisfaction you feel about the way your life is going — the kind of thing Tony Robbins tries to teach you. While having an income above the magic $75,000 cutoff doesn't seem to have an impact on the former (emotional well-being), it definitely improves people's Robbins-like life satisfaction. In other words, the more people make above $75,000, the more they feel their life is working out on the whole. But it doesn't make them any more jovial in the mornings.

The study, by economist Angus Deaton and psychologist Daniel Kahneman, who has won a Nobel Prize for Economics, analyzed the responses of 450,000 Americans polled by Gallup and Healthways in 2008 and 2009. Participants were asked how they had felt the previous day and whether they were living the best possible life for them. They were also asked about their income.

The authors found that most Americans — 85% — regardless of their annual income, felt happy each day. Almost 40% of respondents also reported feeling stressed (which is not mutually exclusive with happiness) and 24% had feelings of sadness. Most people were also satisfied with the way their life was going.

(See TIME's special issue on the science of happiness.)
So, where does the $75,000 come into play? Researchers found that lower income did not cause sadness itself but made people feel more ground down by the problems they already had. The study found, for example, that among divorced people, about 51% who made less than $1,000 a month reported feeling sad or stressed the previous day, while only 24% of those earning more than $3,000 a month reported similar feelings. Among people with asthma, 41% of low earners reported feeling unhappy, compared with about 22% of the wealthier group. Having money clearly takes the sting out of adversities.

At $75,000, that effect disappears. For people who earn that much or more, individual temperament and life circumstances have much more sway over their lightness of heart than money. The study doesn't say why $75,000 is the benchmark, but "it does seem to me a plausible number at which people would think money is not an issue," says Deaton. At that level, people probably have enough expendable cash to do things that make them feel good, like going out with friends. (The federal poverty level for a family of four, by the way, is $22,050.)

But in the bigger view of their lives, people's evaluations were much more tied to their income. The more they made, the more they felt their life was going well. The survey asked respondents to place themselves on a life-satisfaction ladder, with the first rung meaning their lives were not going well and the 10th rung meaning it was as good as it could be. The higher their income, the higher the rung people chose. "Importantly, the same percentage increase in income has the same effect on evaluation for everyone, rich or poor alike, even though the absolute dollar amounts differ," the authors write. So every 10% rise in annual income moves people up the satisfaction ladder the same amount, whether they're making $25,000 or $100,000. "High incomes don't bring you happiness, but they do bring you a life you think is better," conclude the authors. Might it be time for Oprah to give these guys their own show?

Past research on money and happiness has also found that it's not absolute wealth that's linked with happiness, but relative wealth or status — that is, how much more money you have than your neighbors.

It's no surprise, then, that when the same polls are done in different countries, Americans come out as a bit of a mixed lot: they're fifth in terms of happiness, 33rd in terms of smiling and 10th in terms of enjoyment. At the same time, they're the 89th biggest worriers, the 69th saddest and fifth most stressed people out of the 151 nations studied. Even so, perhaps because of the country's general wealth, they are in the top 10 citizenries where people feel their lives are going well, beaten out by such eternal optimists as the Canadians, New Zealanders and Scandinavians.

Right. Now that Princeton researchers have untangled that life mystery, maybe someone at MIT can look into the optimal amount of money required to buy us love.

原文地址：http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2019628,00.html