英語美文:大量的全球研究證實(shí)，金錢可以買到幸福

閱讀，不是為了得到什么，而是在被生活打擊的無路可退時(shí)最后的安身之所。靜靜等待，閱讀，一定會給予你獎勵(lì)。下面是英語美文:大量的全球研究證實(shí)，金錢可以買到幸福的資料，希望你會喜歡！

Money, it turns out, really can buy you happiness -- or at least one form of it, according to the biggest study to examine the relationship between income and well-being around the world.

Can money buy happiness? It's a down payment. How income correlates with happiness

Pulling in the big bucks makes people more likely to say they are happy with their lives overall -- whether they are young or old, male or female, or living in cities or remote villages, the survey of more than 136,000 people in 132 countries found.

But the survey also showed that a key element of what many people consider happiness -- positive feelings -- is much more strongly affected by factors other than cold, hard cash, such as feeling respected, being in control of your life and having friends and family to rely on in a pinch.

"Yes, money makes you happy -- we see the effect of income on life satisfaction is very strong and virtually ubiquitous and universal around the world," said Ed Diener, a professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Illinois who led the study. "But it makes you more satisfied than it makes you feel good. Positive feelings are less affected by money and more affected by the things people are doing day to day."

Previous studies had suggested that money was associated with happiness. But the relationship appeared weak, and earlier work tended to focus on individual countries and global evaluations of life without parsing out the effects on specific positive and negative emotions or examining differences across nations.

The new survey -- the first large international study to differentiate between overall life satisfaction and day-to-day emotions -- makes that crucial distinction, allowing researchers to explore the elusive concept of happiness in much greater nuance.

"It's sort of a new era for the study of well-being," said Daniel Kahneman, a professor emeritus of psychology and public affairs at Princeton University.

The reason for the distinction is probably that when people are asked whether they are "happy," the first thing they do, wherever they are, is take stock of their lives by comparing themselves to their equivalent of "the Joneses" using the most obvious measure: income, several experts said.

"When people evaluate their life, they compare themselves to a standard of what a successful life is, and it turns out that standard tends to be universal: People in Togo and Denmark have the same idea of what a good life is, and a lot of that has to do with money and material prosperity," Kahneman said. "That was unexpected."

But day-to-day positive feelings depend a lot on other things, which also turn out to be fairly universal and therefore help clarify what makes people content, several researchers said.

"The thing I think is exciting about this is money can make you feel better in a limited way," said Barbara L. Fredrickson, a professor of psychology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. "But positive feelings like enjoyment and laughing can do a whole lot more for people. They can help people grow and learn and become a more resilient, better version of yourself."

The new survey, dubbed the "first representative sample of planet Earth," was conducted by Gallup and involved detailed questioning in 2005 and 2006 of 136,839 residents age 15 and older. The samples in each country were designed to be nationally representative and represent about 96 percent of the world's population.

"What makes this paper so important is the sample is so huge and covered the entire world," said Sonja Lyubomirsky, a professor of psychology at the University of California at Riverside. "It's really interesting that if you look at countries that are so different -- from rural villagers to people living in a city like Stockholm -- they are all about the same in terms of what makes people happy."

The researchers gathered information about a long list of attributes, including income, whether basic needs such as food and shelter were met, what conveniences the subjects owned and whether they felt their psychological needs were satisfied. The survey asked people to rate their lives on a scale from zero for the worst possible life to 10 for the best. They also reported whether they experienced enjoyment, smiling, laughing, sadness, depression or anger the previous day, whether they felt respected and had family or friends they could count on in an emergency, and how free they were to choose their daily activities, learn new things or do what "one does best."

Life satisfaction was directly and strongly correlated with income, with the impact felt equally among all ages, men and women, and rural villagers and urban dwellers in virtually every corner of the globe, the researchers reported in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Although money also influenced emotions, the effect was much weaker. Both positive and negative emotions tended to be affected much more in relation to other psychological and social factors, such as feeling respected, having autonomy, strong social support and working at a fulfilling job.

"What we didn't know before is the extent to which life evaluation and emotional well-being are so distinct," Kahneman said. "When you look at the books about well-being, you see one word -- it's happiness. People do not distinguish."

The findings "are really significant" because "we are finally able to answer the big questions, such as 'What is a good society?' " Shigehiro Oishi, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Virginia, wrote in an e-mail. "If the goal of a society is to raise the daily enjoyment of its citizens, then, it seems critical to devise ways to increase the relational wealth of nations (e.g., stronger social network)."

大量的全球研究證實(shí)，金錢可以買到幸福

金錢，最后被證實(shí)，真的可以買到你的快樂——或者至少可以買到快樂的一種形式。根據(jù)最大的研究檢驗(yàn)在世界各地，收入和幸福之間的關(guān)系。

一個(gè)調(diào)查了132個(gè)國家的1360000人的研究發(fā)現(xiàn)一大筆錢總的來說更能讓人說他們的生活很快樂——不管他們是年輕的，年老的，男的女的，住在城市或者偏遠(yuǎn)的鄉(xiāng)村。

但是調(diào)查也顯示出，很多人認(rèn)為幸福的關(guān)鍵因素是——積極的情感——更深受這個(gè)因素的影響而不是冰冷的金錢，比如被尊重的感覺，掌控生活，在緊要關(guān)頭有朋友，家人可以依靠。

“是的，金錢可以讓你快樂——我們看見收入在生活中滿意度中的影響是很強(qiáng)烈的，事實(shí)上，這在全世界都是普遍存在的。”伊利諾大學(xué)一個(gè)退休的領(lǐng)導(dǎo)這個(gè)研究的心理學(xué)教師Ed Diener說。但是相對于它讓你感覺不錯(cuò)，它會讓你更滿意。積極的情感受到金錢的影響比較小，更多的是受到人們每天做所的事情的影響。”

先前的很多研究暗示金錢是和快樂相關(guān)的。但是這個(gè)關(guān)系很弱，早期的研究工作主要傾向于關(guān)注個(gè)別國家，總體的生活評估，沒有分析積極和消極情緒的影響或者檢驗(yàn)不同國家的差異。

這個(gè)新的調(diào)查——第一個(gè)大的國際性的區(qū)別對待所有生活滿意和每日的情緒的研究——發(fā)現(xiàn)了一個(gè)重要的區(qū)別，允許研究者在較多較大的細(xì)微差別探究快樂難以捉摸的概念。

“這是研究幸福的新紀(jì)元。”普林斯頓大學(xué)一位退休的心理學(xué)，公共事物教授丹尼爾.卡尼曼說。

有區(qū)別的原因可能是當(dāng)人們被問到是否快樂時(shí)，無論他們在哪里，他們做的第一件事就是，把自己的生活和與自己地位相等的人比較，用的最明顯的評估是：收入，很多專家說。

當(dāng)人們在評估他們的生活時(shí)，他們是在和成功生活的標(biāo)準(zhǔn)在比較，結(jié)果證明這個(gè)標(biāo)準(zhǔn)是很普遍的。多哥和丹麥的人在對于什么是好生活時(shí)，有著相同的想法，并且大多數(shù)都和金錢，物質(zhì)的富足有關(guān)。”卡尼曼說：“這是想不到的。”

但是每天的積極的情感更多的是依賴別的東西，這個(gè)被證實(shí)是相當(dāng)普遍的，因此能夠幫助弄清什么使人們滿足，很多研究者說。

我認(rèn)為對于金錢在某方面可以讓你感覺更好這個(gè)看法是很令人興奮的。”教堂上的北卡萊羅納大學(xué)的心理學(xué)芭芭拉.德里克森說。“但是積極的情感就像樂趣和笑聲，能給人們帶來很多。他們能幫助人們成長，認(rèn)知，變得更開心，能更好地提升自我。”

這個(gè)新的調(diào)查，由蓋洛普指揮，在2005年和2006年間對15歲以上的136839人做了問卷調(diào)查的，被授予“地球上第一個(gè)具有代表性的樣本”的稱號。每個(gè)國家的樣本別設(shè)計(jì)用來做全國的典型，并代表全世界96%的人口。

“這個(gè)樣本很大，涵蓋了整個(gè)世界，這使得這篇文章很重要。”加州大學(xué)河濱分校的心理學(xué)教授Sonja Lyubomirsky說。“如果你觀察不同的國家，會發(fā)現(xiàn)很多的不同，從鄉(xiāng)村的村民到像居住在斯德哥爾摩這些城市里的人們，這真的很有意思——就什么讓他們快樂而言，他們都是一樣。”

研究者收集一長串的關(guān)于屬性的信息，包括收入，是否基本的需求如事物，藏身處能到滿足，這個(gè)主題本身是很具有方便性的，并且是否他們的心理需求得到了滿足。這個(gè)調(diào)查要求人們給自己的生活打分，0分是最糟糕的生活，10是最幸福的生活。他們也報(bào)告他們早先是否經(jīng)歷翻譯樂趣，微笑，笑聲，悲傷，沮喪或者憤怒，是否他們覺得被尊重，在緊急關(guān)頭是否有家人或者朋友可以依靠，在選擇他們的日常活動，學(xué)習(xí)新知識等上他們可以多自由。

據(jù)研究者在個(gè)性與社會心理學(xué)雜志上的報(bào)道，生活的滿足和收入有著直接，強(qiáng)烈的關(guān)系，事實(shí)上不管處于什么不同的年齡段，不管是男人還是女人，鄉(xiāng)村的村民還是城市的居民，世界每個(gè)角落的人都有著同樣的影響。盡管金錢會影響情感，這個(gè)影響是微乎其微的。積極的和消極的情感更多的是受別人心理的和社會的因素影響，比如受尊重，有自主權(quán)，強(qiáng)大的社會支持，有一份令人滿意的工作。

“我們之前不知道的是在什么程度上生活評價(jià)，精神狀態(tài)是有區(qū)別的，”卡尼曼說：“當(dāng)你在看關(guān)于幸福的書時(shí)，你會發(fā)現(xiàn)一個(gè)字眼——那就是快樂。人們不懂得區(qū)分。”

這個(gè)調(diào)查結(jié)果“是很有意義的”因?yàn)?ldquo;我們最終能回答這些大問題，比如“什么是美好的社會？”弗吉尼亞大學(xué)的一位心理學(xué)副教授Shigehiro Oishi在她的郵件中寫道“如果社會的目標(biāo)是提升公民每天的樂趣，然后想方設(shè)法去增加國家的相關(guān)財(cái)富，這是很重要的。”