Are Cognitive, Affective, and Eudaimonic Dimensions of Subjective Well-Being Differently Related to Consumption? Evidenc
- PDF / 1,185,072 Bytes
- 24 Pages / 439.37 x 666.142 pts Page_size
- 3 Downloads / 196 Views
Are Cognitive, Affective, and Eudaimonic Dimensions of Subjective Well‑Being Differently Related to Consumption? Evidence from Japan Tetsuya Tsurumi1 · Rintaro Yamaguchi1 · Kazuki Kagohashi1 · Shunsuke Managi1 Accepted: 12 October 2020 © The Author(s) 2020
Abstract In this study, we investigate the relationship between consumption and subjective wellbeing (SWB). There is clear evidence in the literature that the income–SWB relationship depends on the SWB measure, but the reasons are not fully clear yet; however, the main reason may be related to consumption because most income is used for that. This study is the first to examine directly whether the consumption–SWB relationship differs between affective, cognitive, and eudaimonic SWB measures. We adopt the following four SWB indices: life satisfaction, the Cantril ladder, affect balance, and eudaimonia. In addition, on the consumption side, we consider both material and relational consumption. Nonparametric analysis of our uniquely collected survey results in Japan suggests that total consumption contributes to cognitive measures of SWB and eudaimonia, while there is a certain threshold for affective measures. However, once material versus relational consumption is considered in total consumption, we find that relational consumption contributes to any SWB measure without clear upper bounds, while material consumption contributes to all SWB measures only to certain thresholds. Our results also show that the marginal effects of total consumption, material consumption, and relational consumption on cognitive measures of SWB and eudaimonia are greater than on affective measures. In addition, our results show that the marginal effects of relational consumption tend to be greater than those of material consumption for all SWB indices. Based on the findings, we expect relational consumption to be key for improving well-being. Keywords Subjective well-being · Cognitive measure · Affective measure · Eudaimonia · Consumption · Relational consumption · Material consumption
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s1090 2-020-00327-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Tetsuya Tsurumi tsurumi@nanzan‑u.ac.jp 1
Nanzan University, Nagoya, Aichi, Japan
13
Vol.:(0123456789)
T. Tsurumi et al.
1 Introduction 1.1 Income–SWB Relationship The paradox between income growth and a corresponding rise in reported subjective well-being (SWB) was identified nearly half a century ago in the seminal work of Easterlin (1974). Since then, there has been much debate about the income–SWB relationship. In his more recent evaluation of the topic, Easterlin (2001) concludes that people with higher incomes, on average, are happier than those with lower incomes; although there is a point of diminishing returns, he suggests that as income rises, people increase their material aspirations, which in turn undermines the potential gains of SWB. As Clark et al.’s (2008) literature review suggests,
Data Loading...
