 Paradoxes of Happiness: Why People Feel More Comfortable With High Inequalities And High Murder Rates?MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany Abstract: There is evidence that income and wealth inequalities are positively associated with happiness, as measured by the happiness index, and negatively associated with the suicide rate (that is considered an objective indicator of unhappiness). Moreover, there is some evidence that happiness is also positively linked the murder rate, especially when it goes hand in hand with inequalities. The possible explanation – competitive nature of human beings (a modification of a “big fish in the small pond” story) and perceptions of social justice: not only people enjoy the better than average position more than an even higher, but below the average position, but they also cherish the dream of becoming better than average. Greater equality that undermines the dream of becoming higher than average turns out to be disappointing for many. If murders occur without high income inequalities (i.e. murders are “unjustified”) and/or inequalities exist without high murders (inequalities are not perceived as unfair and do not cause social tension), then happiness is not affected. Keywords: Happiness; inequalities; murders; suicides (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:87118 Access Statistics for this paper More papers in MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany Ludwigstraße 33, D-80539 Munich, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC. |
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