Discover Magazine - Money weakens ability to savor life's little pleasures
A series of experiments reveal that people who have more wealth correlate to a lower ability or willingness to savor more mundane experiences. A study asked people to imagine themselves in a myriad of situations and (self-) report how they'd feel while in them. Many of these were small-scale accomplishments or mundane positive experiences. Those who (self-) reported more wealth also showed less ability to savor the positive emotions brought on by the imagined situations.
In another test, college students were asked to look at a picture of money (or a neutral object), and then eat a chocolate bar. A (double-?)blind third party then judged how much the students enjoyed the chocolate given how quickly they ate it, and other cues. The students who looked at the stack of money ate the chocolate more quickly and were reported to enjoy it ~1/3rd less. [Is this due to fetishizing money and therefore chocolate seems less important when compared to it?]
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