The job is published in the magazine Plos One. The impact of the presence of money or their absence to the level of happiness is studied for a long time, but the research results on this topic are often contradictory. So, in the past January, a scientist from Pennsylvania University (USA) showed that the more money from a person, the prosperity he feels. It is also known that the countries of Scandinavia are recognized as happy (on the subjective assessment of residents), where money play a rather significant role.
Economic growth in principle is often associated with a reliable increase in the level of well-being of people. However, the study of scientists from Universities McGill (Canada) and Barcelona (Spain) shows that these conclusions need a revision. The authors set out to find out how to evaluate their subjective well-being of people from those communities where money play a minimal role and which usually do not include global happiness research.
For this, scientists lived several months in small fishing villages and cities in Solomon Islands and in Bangladesh - countries with extremely low-income population. During this time, with the help of local translators, the authors of the study several times responded to residents of rural areas and cities (personally and through telephone calls) about what good happiness is for them. Also they were asked about the sentiments in the past, lifestyle, income, fishing and domestic business. All polls were performed at the moments when people were not ready for them, which increases the degree of confidence in the answers.
The study was attended by 678 people aged 20 to 50 years, the average age was 37 years. Almost 85 percent of those surveyed in Bangladesh were men, since the ethical norms of this country made it difficult to interview women. Scientists also emphasize that the answers to questions of men and women in the Solomon Islands weakly differed, as the gender rules for them are roughly similar, unlike Bangladesh. Therefore, further research is needed for final conclusions.
The results of the work have shown that the higher income and material well-being in humans (for example, in cities in comparison with the villages), the less happy they feel. And vice versa: the lower the income of the participants, the more expensive they felt happier, connecting the well-being with the in nature and in the circle of loved ones.
In addition, the feeling of happiness can affect the comparison of themselves with others - those who live in developed countries, so access to the Internet and similar resources also reduces the level of subjective happiness. Scientists conclude that monetization, especially in the early stages of community development, may be harmful to the well-being of its members.
Source: Naked Science