Fame, Money, Beauty Don’t Bring Happiness

It turns out that those oft sought goals in life — fame, wealth and beauty — don’t bring happiness and can, in fact, make life miserable. That’s the finding of a new study by three researchers at the University of Rochester in New York that was reported this week on ScienceDaily online.

“People understand that it’s important to pursue goals in their lives, and they believe that attaining these goals (fame, wealth, beauty) will have positive consequences,” said study author Edward Deci, professor of psychology at the University of Rochester. However, he noted that the study disproved that belief. “Even though our culture puts a strong emphasis on attaining wealth and fame, pursuing these goals does not contribute to having a satisfying life,” Deci said. “The things that make your life happy are growing as an individual, having loving relationships, and contributing to your community.”

The study tracked recent university graduates using in-depth psychological surveys to gauge satisfaction, self-esteem, anxiety, stress and positive/negative emotions. Goals were evaluated as intrinsic such as developing deep, personal relationships or extrinsic such as attaining personal wealth.  Identical surveys were administered 12 and 24 months after college graduation, a critical development stage for young adults who have finally left the safety net of home and university to make their own way in the world.

While the study confirmed earlier research that commitment to a goal increases an individual’s success in achieving that goal, it broke new ground in analyzing the relationship between goals and happiness. The study found that the content of the goal, not the desire to achieve it, most affected happiness. Achieving materialistic and image-related goals actually generated negative emotions like shame and anger and produced anxiety symptoms including headaches and stomachaches. The greatest satisfaction came from the achievement of intrinsic goals such as personal growth, building relationships, improving the community and physical fitness that met the basic psychological needs of autonomy, competence and relatedness.

While study authors emphasized the need for further study over broader population groups, they did suggest that the emphasis on extrinsic pursuits — career building, long work hours, possession acquisition, etc. — that is typical of the educated, post-collegiate, young adults may lead to general feelings of dissatisfaction with life. Young people may be happier if they place less emphasis on career pursuits and greater emphasis on psychologically nourishing experiences such as spending time with friends and family or pursuing personal interests.