What does Contra Pritchard On Liberal Happiness say about Behavioral Science?

Even massive historical increases in wealth produce only modest gains in reported happiness because happiness scales with log(income), so a 225× rise in income translates into roughly a three‑point lift on a 1–10 happiness scale.

Even massive historical increases in wealth produce only modest…

Economic growth gives durable wellbeing gains because material improvements from higher per-capita GDP persist across administrations and accumulate over centuries, making them hard to reverse with short-term political shifts.

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Differences in happiness between countries with similar incomes arise from culture and institutions because the log(income) relationship has wide error margins, so non-income factors can shift national happiness substantially above or below the income prediction.

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Media and communication technology make populations feel worse because competition for attention rewards scary and outraging content, which increases exposure to negative signals that depress public mood.

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Shocks to national mood can become self-sustaining because when public mood falls people stop showing happiness, which reinforces the low mood and creates an attractor that slows recovery.

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The sharp national drop in happiness around 2020 is best explained by the COVID shock because the long pre-2020 series behaved like a random walk and then a sudden exogenous event produced a persistent crater rather than a slow systemic decline.

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Average happiness grows with the logarithm of income because each multiplicative jump in money yields only an additive psychological benefit, so doubling or tenfold gains produce steadily smaller boosts on a bounded happiness scale.

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