Do People Seek to Maximize Their Subjective Well-Being?

Marc Fleurbaey and Hannes Schwandt

CEP Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Performance, LSE

Abstract: In a new survey we ask respondents, after a standard Subjective Well-Being (SWB) question, if they can think of changes in their lives that would improve their SWB score. If the SWB score is just one argument among others in the respondents' goals in life, they should easily find ways to improve it, at the expense of other dimensions they care about. Our results suggest that close to 90% of the respondents actually seek to maximize their SWB. The life satisfaction question appears the best contender as the "maximand" in the contest, before the ladder-of-life question and felt happiness. Among the other goals that people pursue and for which they are willing to sacrifice some of their SWB, the prominent appear to be about their relatives and about their future self.

Keywords: Subjective well-being; life satisfaction; happiness; life goals; utility (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D03 D60 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hap and nep-hpe
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (21)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Do people seek to maximize their subjective well-being? (2015)
Working Paper: Do People Seek to Maximize Their Subjective Well?Being? (2015)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp1391

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