Mac & Gaydos: Americans prefer work over happiness

This is the story that YOU wanted to hear us talk about! It received 75 percent of the vote in our Radioactive poll!

Would you rather work more or be happy?

Before you answer that, you may want to take a look at this report from MSN Money. It turns out most Americans would rather put in extra time at the office than put a smile on their face.

“(W)e found that individuals do overearn, even at the cost of happiness, and that overearning is a result of mindless accumulation — a tendency to work and earn until feeling tired rather than until having enough.”

To determine the results, researchers told participants in a study that they could listen to either pleasant music or white noise. They could earn more chocolate listening to the white noise than the pleasant music. They were also told they would have a finite amount of time to eat the chocolates.

When it was all said and done, people accumulated an average of 10.74 chocolates while only estimating they would have enough time to eat three.

“In other words, they subjected themselves to harsh noise to earn more than they could consume, or predicted they could consume,” the Times says.

Basically, the researchers said most Americans would prefer to put in more work and stockpile things than put in less work and simply earn what they need to be happy.

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