Dr. Christopher K. Hsee, Yang Yan, Dr. Naihe Li, Luxi Shen
Field of reference: Psychology
Description: Human desires such as wealth and acquisition conform to relative happiness. Basic animal desires such as food conform to absolute happiness
"A central question in consumer and happiness research is whether happiness depends on absolute or relative levels of wealth and consumption. To address this question, the authors evaluate a finer level than overall happiness and distinguish three specific types of happiness: with money, with the acquisition of an item, and with the consumption of an item. They find that happiness with money and with acquisition is relative and that happiness with consumption can be either absolute or relative, depending on whether the consumption is inherently evaluable or not.In general, laypeople assume that happiness depends on absolute wealth and absolute consumption levels. Behavioral researchers have drawn a more realistic picture by arguing that happiness depends primarily on relative wealth and relative consumption levels. In this article, we draw an even more realistic picture by demonstrating that each view is correct under predictable circumstances. We believe that if attention is focused on consumption rather than on money or goods and if wealth is invested in improving inherently evaluable consumption rather than inherently inevaluable consumption, raising wealth from one generation to the next will make the new generation absolutely happier."
| שייך לנושאים: 1-13 - חינוך אינטגרלי, -מקורות מדעיים, התפתחות האגו, 3. קנאה וכבוד |
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Dr. David H. Maister
Field of reference: Economics
Description: Envy plays a central role in motivating CEOs, academicians etc.
"CEOs with obscene paypackets are unhappy until they have matched what is considered "normal" among other CEOs. Lawyers from modest beginnings, making more than a million dollars a year or more, can get depressed and resentful because they are not earning what investment bankers earn.The issue is not just about money, but many forms of the world's rewards and recognitions. Academics and other authors can be (and are) jealous the (non-monetary) respect and recognition that is accorded to their (perceived) competitors' work. Socially, in their personal lives, people are always playing the game of "keeping up with the Jones':" being content with what they've got, until their neighbor has more.We concluded from this research that among economics majors in the lab and hunter-gatherers in the forest, contributing to the success of a joint project for the benefit of one's group, even at a personal cost, evokes feelings of satisfaction and pride. Failing to do so is often a source of shame or guilt. Cooperation thus is sustained by altruistic motivations that induce people to help others when not helping would result in their having higher fitness or other material rewards."
| שייך לנושאים: 1-13 - חינוך אינטגרלי, -מקורות מדעיים, התפתחות האגו, 3. קנאה וכבוד |
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Dr. Ruut Veenhoven
Field of reference: Psychology
Description: People measure their contentment by comparing themselves with others
"people compare themselves to others: in particular to compatriots of about the same age and social class. This 'social comparison' is seen to focus on observable and socially valued matters such as job prestige and the material level of living. The better off people perceive themselves to be relatively, the happier they feel."
| שייך לנושאים: 1-13 - חינוך אינטגרלי, -מקורות מדעיים, התפתחות האגו, 3. קנאה וכבוד |
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Dr. Eric Brynjolfsson, Dr. Andrew McAfee
Field of reference: Economics
Description: Many details on the replacement of human labor by machinery and technology in nearly every field of human endeavor
""From a legal staffing viewpoint, it means that a lot of people who used to be allocated to conduct document review are no longer able to be billed out," said Bill Herr, who as a lawyer at a major chemical company used to muster auditoriums of lawyers to read documents for weeks on end. "People get bored, people get headaches. Computers don't."The computers seem to be good at their new jobs. ... Herr ... used e-discovery software to reanalyze work his company's lawyers did in the 1980s and '90s. His human colleagues had been only 60 percent accurate, he found. "Think about how much money had been spent to be slightly better than a coin toss," he said.We're starting to see evidence that this digital progress is affecting the business world. A March 2011 story by John Markoff in the New York Times highlighted how heavily computers' pattern recognition abilities are already being exploited by the legal industry where, according to one estimate, moving from human to digital labor during the discovery process could let one lawyer do the work of 500. In an industry that employs nearly 1 in 10 Americans and has long been a reliable job generator, companies increasingly are looking to peddle more products with fewer employees. ... Virtual assistants are taking the place of customer service representatives. Kiosks and self-service machines are reducing the need for checkout clerks.The [machines] cost a fraction of brick-and-mortar stores. They also reflect changing consumer buying habits. Online shopping has made Americans comfortable with the idea of buying all manner of products without the help of a salesman or clerk."
| שייך לנושאים: 1-13 - חינוך אינטגרלי, -מקורות מדעיים, התפתחות האגו, 1. מעל צרכים בסיסיים |
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Jeremy Rifkin
Field of reference: Economics
Description: Many details on the replacement of human labor by machinery and technology in nearly every field of human endeavor
"A technology revolution is fast replacing human beings with machines in virtually every sector and industry in the global economy. Already, millions of workers have been permanently eliminated from the economic process, and whole work categories and job assignments have shrunk, been restructured, or disappeared.New breakthroughs in the information and life sciences threaten to end much of outdoor farming by the middle decades of the coming century. The technological changes in the production of food are leading to a world without farmers, with untold consequences for the 2.4 million people who still rely on the land for their survival.In 1850, 60 percent of the working population was employed in agriculture. Today, less than 2.7 percent of the workforce is engaged directly in farming. The Israelis are also experimenting with a Robotic Melon Picker (ROMPER) that uses special sensors to determine whether a crop is ripe to pick. The introduction of ROMPER and other automated machinery will dramatically affect the economic prospects of the more than 30,000 Palestinians employed during harvesting season. In the United States, Purdue University scientists say they expect to see ROMPER in use "in every Indiana county by the end of the decade." Similar robots are being developed with artificial intelligence to plough and seed fields, feed dairy cows, even shear live sheep. Researchers predict that the fully automated factory farm is less than 20 years away."
| שייך לנושאים: 1-13 - חינוך אינטגרלי, -מקורות מדעיים, התפתחות האגו, 1. מעל צרכים בסיסיים |
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