Individual Experience of Positive and Negative Growth is Asymmetric: Global Evidence from Subjective Well-Being Data

Neve, Jan‐Emmanuel De; Ward, George; Keulenaer, Femke de; Landeghem, Bert Van; Kavetsos, Georgios; Norton, Michael I.

doi:10.2139/ssrn.2506600

Cited by 13 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 99 publications

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“…The relationship between people’s feelings and the choices they make has occupied scientists, policymakers, and philosophers for decades. Indeed, in recent years, numerous studies have investigated how decisions and outcomes affect people’s feelings ( Carter & McBride, 2013 ; Kassam et al, 2011 ; Kermer et al, 2006 ; McGraw et al, 2010 ; Mellers et al, 1997 ; Rutledge et al., 2014 ; Yechiam et al., 2014 ) and life satisfaction ( Boyce, Wood, Banks, Clark, & Brown, 2013 ; De Neve et al, 2015 ). Yet the equally critical question of how people’s explicit feelings affect their decisions has been relatively neglected.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Models of Affective Decision Making

Charpentier

Neve

et al. 2016

Psychol Sci

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Intuitively, how you feel about potential outcomes will determine your decisions. Indeed, an implicit assumption in one of the most influential theories in psychology, prospect theory, is that feelings govern choice. Surprisingly, however, very little is known about the rules by which feelings are transformed into decisions. Here, we specified a computational model that used feelings to predict choices. We found that this model predicted choice better than existing value-based models, showing a unique contribution of feelings to decisions, over and above value. Similar to the value function in prospect theory, our feeling function showed diminished sensitivity to outcomes as value increased. However, loss aversion in choice was explained by an asymmetry in how feelings about losses and gains were weighted when making a decision, not by an asymmetry in the feelings themselves. The results provide new insights into how feelings are utilized to reach a decision.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Models of Affective Decision Making

Charpentier

Neve

et al. 2016

Psychol Sci

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“…However, there is a strong cyclical relationship between real GDP per capita and SWB, with unemployment being a major cause of unhappiness that moves with the cycle, and critics have usually failed to distinguish carefully between trend growth and deviations from the trend (Easterlin 2013). Confirming and explaining these results, on the basis of 'loss-aversion ', De Neve et al (2014) show that economic downturns have negative effects on SWB which are several times the magnitude of the impact of longer periods of equivalent positive growth.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Education, income and happiness: panel evidence for the UK

FitzRoy

Nolan

2018

Empir Econ

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Using panel data from the BHPS and its Understanding Society extension, we study life satisfaction (LS) and income over nearly two decades, for samples split by education, and age, to our knowledge for the first time. The highly educated went from lowest to highest LS, though their average income was always higher. In spite of rapid income growth up to 2008/2009, the less educated showed no rise in LS, while highly educated LS rose after the crash despite declining real income. In panel LS regressions with individual fixed effects, none of the income variables was significant for the highly educated.

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“…Further, De Neve et al. (2015) illustrate an asymmetric relationship between economic growth and subjective well-being, with larger losses in well-being experienced from economic downturns than gains from corresponding upturns. They therefore argue that positive and negative growth should be considered independently in relation to subjective well-being.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A different approach to looking at the effects of government spending on subjective well-being is presented by De Neve et al. (2015), which stress the importance of government spending in relation to macroeconomic cycles’ in order to maintain levels of individual well-being. Their study showed how positive and negative growth affects individuals’ subjective well-being at different rates: larger losses in well-being were experienced from the economic recession than gains were experienced from economic growth.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Happiness and the role of social protection: how types of social spending affected individuals’ life satisfaction in OECD countries, 1980–2012

Nordheim

Martinussen

2020

J. int. comp. soc. policy

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The growing literature on individual determinants of subjective well-being has given little attention to political factors. This paper considers the welfare state, and how social expenditure affects individuals’ self-reported life satisfaction. The statistical analysis uses indicators of subjective well-being, reflecting individuals from OECD-countries between 1980 and 2012, with data gathered from the Eurobarometer and the World Values Survey - which are analysed in comparison. The results suggest that social spending should be studied in terms of underlying branches when addressing its implications. The results find social spending to be uncorrelated with levels of subjective well-being when considered in terms of total levels. When considered as types of spending however, a majority of the elements are found to have significant impacts. The findings show mixed results among the two data sets; however, important similarities are found in the way social spending related to health care and poverty are having positive impacts, and spending associated with unemployment and labour market programmes have negative impacts. As the correlations of the underlying elements affect life satisfaction in different directions, total social spending appears to be uncorrelated with subjective well-being, although the true impact depends on which socialpolicies are being promoted through such spending.

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Individual Experience of Positive and Negative Growth is Asymmetric: Global Evidence from Subjective Well-Being Data

Cited by 13 publications

References 99 publications

Models of Affective Decision Making

Models of Affective Decision Making

Education, income and happiness: panel evidence for the UK

Happiness and the role of social protection: how types of social spending affected individuals’ life satisfaction in OECD countries, 1980–2012

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