Using the Dynamics of Subjective Well-Being to Measure the Import of Events

描述（申请人提供）：好消息让幸福感跳起来；随着时间的推移，幸福感会回到原来的水平。同样，坏消息会导致幸福感下降，然后逐渐回到基线。这两个心理事实意味着幸福的动态可以用来系统地衡量一个人认为某个事件是好消息还是坏消息，以及该事件对该个人来说有多重要。该项目将利用幸福的动态来衡量人们对各种事件的感觉有多重要。 1. 利用幸福的动态来了解哪些重大生活事件对人们最重要（与其他重大生活事件相比）可以成为公共政策的重要输入。该项目将关注许多不同类型的事件，包括丧亲之痛、疾病和财务事件。 2. 利用幸福的动态来了解人们对有关哪怕是少量金钱的新闻的重视程度，可以深入了解人们面临的财务压力以及他们做出的财务选择。例如，a.那些精打细算、因小额经济收益而欣喜的人，可能比那些能够为小额金钱而抱怨的人更不可能提前退休。 了解人们的退休决定对于公共政策至关重要，因为社会保障体系的偿付能力可能受到平均退休年龄的强烈影响。 b.研究幸福感对风险的反应可以帮助确定，害怕面对股市每一次的波折和情绪上的过山车是否是许多人避免投资股市的一个重要原因。了解为什么许多人避免投资股票市场很重要，因为尽管股票市场最近表现良好，但多元化的低费用股票指数基金历来对于那些为退休做准备而进行长期投资的人来说表现良好。通过幸福动态分析来研究人们对事件的重视程度，将使用从新的幸福经济理论发展而来的数学和统计工具，该理论强调这些动态，并仔细区分人们在好消息或坏消息后感受到的兴高采烈和沮丧与人们基线情绪的长期变化。为了进行这项分析，我们将在实验室和网络调查中收集有关幸福感和其他变量的新数据，以添加到现有数据中。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Good news causes happiness to jump up; over time happiness returns to its baseline. Similarly, bad news causes happiness to jump down, after which it gradually returns to its baseline. These two psychological facts mean that the dynamics of happiness can be used to systematically measure whether an individual considers an event good news or bad news, and how important the event is to that individual. This project will use the dynamics of happiness to measure how important people feel various events are. 1. Using the dynamics of happiness to understand which major life events are most important to people (when compared to other major life events) can be an important input into public policy. This project will look at many different types of events, including bereavement, illnesses, and financial events. 2. Using the dynamics of happiness to understand the importance people place on news about even modest amounts of money can give insight into the financial stresses people face and the financial choices they make. For example, a. People who watch every penny and so rejoice at small financial gains may be less likely to retire early than people who can afford to be blas¿ about small amounts of money. Understanding people's retirement decisions is crucial for public policy, since the solvency of the Social Security system can be strongly affected by the average retirement age. b. Studying how happiness responds to risk can help determine whether fear of facing an emotional roller coaster with every twist and turn of the stock market is an important reason many people avoid investing in the stock market. Understanding why many people avoid investing in the stock market is important because-despite the recent performance of the stock market- well-diversified low-fee stock index funds have historically done well for people who invest for the long run in order to prepare for retirement. The analysis of happiness dynamics to study the importance people place on events will use mathematical and statistical tools developed from a new economic theory of happiness-a theory that emphasizes those dynamics, and carefully distinguishes the elation and dismay people feel after good or bad news from long-run shifts of people's baseline mood. For this analysis new data on happiness and other variables will be collected both in the laboratory and in web surveys to add to existing data.