Will winning lottery bring much happiness?

Many studies show that winning the lottery is not as good as talking to a friend, watching television or being praised.

In 1978, three researchers at Northwestern University and the University of Massachusetts tried to find answers about this by investigating two very different groups of people about happiness in life: the Illinois lottery winners. Recent State - has awards ranging from $ 50,000 to $ 1,000,000 and victims of a catastrophic accident, those who are currently paralyzed or paralyzed limbs.

During the study, the two groups were asked to assess the magnitude of the joy they received from daily activities: small but interesting things like chatting with friends, watching TV, eating breakfast, laughing, or get a compliment. When analyzing research results, researchers found that victims of accidents achieved greater happiness from everyday pleasures than lottery winners.

The results of the study are truly surprising because the results go against what we often think. But you will be even more surprised if you look at the results of the study in detail: on average, the happiness rating index from the normal pleasures of the lottery winners is 3.33 out of 5, in when the group of accident victims reached 3.48.

On the other hand, lottery winners show more happiness than victims of accidents, but researchers' records show that "the index of happiness still accounts for more than half. victims of accidents and most of these people are not in the mood for complete collapse as people often think. "

Dennis Taimanglo, 38, and his wife received a million dollars in prize money in Georgia state lottery.Your ticket has the first 5 numbers that match the number of lucky numbers.The other 15 people in the US also won a million dollars.(Photo: Wsbtv).

People are a enjoyment machine, very adaptable to the environment of pleasure and tend to become familiar with the things that once brought happiness.

A report from the 1970s analyzed: "The thrill of winning the last big lottery is going to dissipate. Things that are very significant to the winners of the past will soon become losing meaning in the present and meaningless in the future when people are passionate about finding new values ​​that have a positive meaning to life today, so when the lottery becomes familiar with the animals Additional fun can be done by their new wealth, pleasures have less stressful experiences and no longer contribute too much to their overall level of happiness. "

This means that new, interesting, bright things come to your life - like good work, beautiful clothes, or your partner - making you happy until you are really sick. with good things poured daily.

Similarly, some psychologists have hypothesized that humans have a happy limit point , a basic level of happiness programmed by genetics and continue to be shaped by the environment. living. This hypothesis suggests that emotions come after the extreme happiness of luck or the disastrous destruction of the disaster, which is fundamentally normal as other emotions have once come to you.

But perhaps the most important thing this study has shown is the terribleness that people feel even though they are expected to be happy, what psychologists call the emotional level forecast . This is especially true when it comes to money, although if a shorter commute will make you 40% more happy, getting a free vacation from the boss will make you happier than cash. , and having more free time will make you happier than having more money, but people often think that money is the answer to every problem.

Somewhere in the forecast, there may be some flaws, somewhat related to relatively new mental tricks, since our brains don't have time to improve.

"Modern people think that the ability to imagine the future is a predetermined attribute, but it turns out that humans have achieved this ability for more than three million years," Dan Gilbert, the psychologist of the great Harvard and author of the book "Stumbling on Happiness" (Stumbling on Happiness) , said.

The parts of the brain that allow us to think about the future are one of nature's latest inventions, so it is no surprise that we make elementary mistakes because we try to use new abilities. This is to imagine your future.

All of these studies bring new and interesting things, but there are a number of reasons to see that it is not necessarily true in practice.